Page 55 of Rich and Bossy

I meet John’s gaze.

He lifts his brows when I lower mine.

“Hampton and Walters.”

“Shit.” He even straightens his tie, as if either of them can see him.

Though I’m starting to wonder if there are cameras hidden in my office, listening to us too. This place is going full-Orwell in a hurry, at least according to Hazel. She’s got me paranoid about my own damn business.

“Yeah, we can take it.” I tell Bree before putting the phone on speaker, then waiting a beat for the call to transfer over. At least we have good numbers reports to keep them off our asses.

“Mark, Dan. I have John here with me. How are you?” I hardly need to ask.

The fact that they’ve gotten together like this, even through a conference call, tells me John isn’t the only one excited about our numbers.

I glance over at him, and he looks down at his reports, then shakes his head at me likethey haven’t seen these yet.

Well fuck. What is it then?

“We’d be a lot better if we were sure things were under control over there.” That would be Mark, who always sounds like he’s about three seconds away from dropping dead. Old bastard.

How much money does he need? It’s all just a game to him, amassing as much as possible, like a gambling addict.

Granted, he’s got a hell of a lot of energy for a man his age, and we wouldn’t be where we are now without his investment. But still, every wheezing breath makes me cringe to think I could end up like that one day, still bitching about profit numbers.

“What would lead you to believe things are out of control?”

Fuck, fuck, I already dealt with John about Hazel’s shit. How the hell do these guys have their hand in what happens at the Minnie warehouse? Jesus. Don’t they have anything better to do? It’s one warehouse.

There’s silence on the other end for a moment before Dan clears his throat. “So the labor organization rumors we’re hearing are just rumors?”

John throws his arms into the air, likethe fuck did I tell you?

“It’s a non-issue. We’re handling it. Couple rogue employees making a few waves, but nothing to be concerned about.” I shrug at John.

He gives me a thumbs up like it sounded okay.

I swear to god his wheezing gets worse, like he’s on oxygen.

“Any talk of unionization is something to be concerned about. So we are worried.”

“Not saying it’s not concerning. Just shouldn’t be concerning for you. A few employees out of hundreds of thousands. They haven’t even had a meeting yet. We’re watching it closely.”

I’m being way harsher on these guys than I usually would be, but they need to back the fuck up and stay out of my company. They don’t know the shit we do. They didn’t build it. They came in after it was successful.

John winces like I’m going too far. Fuck that. I’m not letting anyone scold me like a child.

“You’d better be. These things spiral, fast.”

“I’ll send you our current projections, then you can call us back and thank us. How about that?”

John’s eyes about pop out of his head, but fuck that, I know how these guys operate.

“We would like to see some positive news. It would help matters.”

“Prepare to have that hairpiece blown off your head then, Mark.”

John’s trying not to laugh his ass off. Thank God I have these reports right now, to play in this conversation. Maybe it’ll distract these old cocksuckers for a while.

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