Page 8 of Forbidden Boss (Manhattan Billionaires)

I sighed. “I don’t know. I’ll see how the children’s hospital dinner goes first.”

There was a pause, and I knew my second-in-command was considering pressing the issue. Finally, Cole nodded. “All right.” He inhaled like he was about to say something but was interrupted by a soft knock on the glass door leading out of my office.

I arched my brows at my assistant, Clara. “Yes?”

“Arthur Knox is here,” she told me. “He wants to go over what happened this morning.”

I nodded. “Send him in.” Glancing at Cole, I asked, “You want to stick around for a few minutes?”

He pursed his lips. “It’s never good when Arthur stops by after hours.”

I grunted in assent and moved to the small fridge concealed behind wood paneling in the corner of my office. I tossed Cole a bottle of water and grabbed one for myself.

Hearing the shuffling footsteps of my chief legal counsel entering my office, I turned and lifted a bottle to offer it to him.

He waved it away, then tossed his leather-bound portfolio on the coffee table in the office’s seating area. “Gentlemen,” he greeted. “We have a problem.”

Of course we did. I sipped the water, letting it ease my parched throat. “Oh?”

Arthur, having a flair for the dramatic, paused for several long seconds. His face was beginning to show the signs of age, with a network of lines around his mouth and eyes, but he looked younger than his sixty-two years. Dark eyes rested on me, then on Cole, who bore the theatrical pause with the patience of a man who knew that interrupting it would only prolong the pain.

Arthur turned and watched me from beneath thick brows and said, “The production assistant.”

I frowned. “The production assistant?”

“The production assistant,” Arthur intoned, “is a problem.”

“What production assistant?” Cole asked.

“Nikita Jordan,” Arthur told him. “Goes by Nikki. Total employment at Blakely was six and a half days.”

I blinked. “What about her?”

My lawyer grimaced. “I’ve spoken to all the witnesses, and it’s my professional opinion that she might have a case against the company.”

Condensation beaded on my bottle and wetted the tips of my fingers as I tried to make sense of the lawyer’s words.

Cole was the first to speak, leaning his hands on the back of the sofa across from where Arthur sat. His gaze was intent. “A case for what? Her injuries? We’ll handle the workers’ comp claim. She survived, yes?”

Arthur waved a hand. “She’s in the hospital as we speak. A few stitches and a broken finger. She’s fine.”

I set my bottle down and wiped my hands on a towel hanging on the rail of my bar cart. “So what’s the problem?”

“She was hired as an independent contractor. This injury won’t be covered under workers’ comp.”

A gust of breath left me. I scrubbed my face with both hands. “Fine. We’ll pay her off. What’s the damage?”

“I’m not sure it’ll be that simple,” Arthur said darkly.

There was another long silence. I watched Cole’s fingers curl into the back of the sofa until his knuckles turned white as he physically stopped himself from leaping over and shaking the older man until he explained himself.

Arthur finally inhaled, straightened his tie, his cufflinks, and his hair. Then he said, “Between the injury, the hours of confinement, not to mention the dismissal that could be constituted as retaliation for the shattering of the perfume bottle…” Arthur pinched his lips. When he spoke, there was nothing theatrical in his face. That’s how I knew Arthur wasn’t just being dramatic. “It’s not good, Rome. And if she were to go to the press about her experience, the optics would be very, very bad.”

Cole met my gaze, grimacing. “A lawsuit right now will lose us the Monk contract. And probably half a dozen others. We’re on thin ice as it is.”

My bottle crunched in my hand. Thatwoman. That woman would ruin me, and she’d probably laugh the whole time.

I couldn’t let it happen. This company was all I had. Sure, I’d had casual relationships. I had friends and acquaintances and people like Cole, who were somewhere between trusted friends and loyal employees. But the company was the one thing I could point to in my life and say, “I did this.”

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