Page 95 of Take It Offline

I should have expected the “I told you.”

Change isn’t anything like herding cats, no matter how many middle-aged white men say it is. The motto fed to us might be todo what’s right, not what’s easy, but apparently, it’s only applicable for making us accept unpaid overtime.

Not only does Roberts try to rewrite the procedure every time I have my back turned, but he’s promised Contracts an automated confidentiality policy that we have no way of implementing.

And now this.

“You can’t remove a security level without warning,” Melissa from Legal argues. At least she looks apologetic about it. “Privacy regulations demand we have a separate label to ensure that employees’ data will remain private and confidential.”

“I know,” I say, keeping my frustration to myself.

Roberts deleted the label after his morning run because of a Tech podcast he listens to. Not that I’ll tell her that. Nor will I tell her that I’ve already had this argument with him. I spent an hour working to convince him, only to be told that it wasn’t my decision. That the only way he’d be convinced would be with a written rejection from Legal.

Hence, this meeting.

“If you wouldn’t mind putting your objections in writing, I’d be happy to?—”

“I shouldn’t need to explain in writing that this company is required to follow the law,” Melissa says.

She’s right. It’s common sense. But try explaining that to Roberts. “I understand.”

I want nothing more than to throw my boss under the bus, tell her no one hates this more than I do. This meeting shouldn’t have even been an email. It should have been a brain fart quickly passed when no one was around to hear it.

I almost cry when I return to my desk to find Charlie shaking his head. So I guess his meeting didn’t go well.

I sag into my seat. “Do I want to know?”

“Not at all.”

Great. “Think we should keep going, Thelma?”

He stretches a long leg under our desks to tap his foot against mine. “Anytime you want to run away together, sweetheart, just say the word.”

The idea is heavenly—just us and the open road. No emails to answer, no destination in mind. Only the bone-deep safety of having Charlie by my side to face it all.

Please.

But I only want it if I can have all of him. It’s all I’ve been able to think about.

How much would it take to break him? Tease him until he pushes me against the wall and kisses me like he did at my doorstep months ago?

“Let’s make it plan B,” I say.

“Emma.” Roberts appears, looming over my shoulder, the final sign that today has gone to hell. “I need to talk to you in my office. Now.”

Noplease. No attempt at polite imposition.

There’s no way this won’t be painful for me.

Even Charlie’s reassuring look isn’t enough to stop the swirling pit of concern that’s picked up in my stomach. I touch two fingers to Nana’s watch and take a deep breath. I am strong. I am smart. And I’m afraid of worse things than my pedantic boss.

I can, I will.

Never again will I doubt my intuition.

Hell is an apt descriptor, maybe even a little generous, given that when I walk into Roberts’s office, he isn’t alone. Standing in the corner—looming is the only way to phrase it—is Helix’s CIO, Emmanuel Fletcher, and both men are wearing dissatisfied frowns.

If they think their stony expressions are going to unnerve me, I’ll be glad to disabuse them of that idea.

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