Page 29 of Conning Her Dragonkin Boss

“But I’ve put in all that work,” she says, the first hint of a whine curling around her words. She twists her cuff between her fingers. She never fidgets. “And, the hotel has great amenities.”

Something akin to guilt weaves itself beneath my skin. I do not like that she is genuinely so upset. And she has a point regarding the amenities. Perhaps it would be best for her to go simply to experience them.

“You may travel with us, and enjoy the amenities. Gods know you deserve them,” I say, relenting just slightly. “But I will still have final say on your participation in Saturday’s conference.”

She narrows her eyes. “The conference I coordinated?”

I cross my arms over my chest. “One that you were invited to attend.” The crestfallen expression on her face twists something in my gut. “Of course, whether you are in attendance or not, you still get credit for doing the work, for putting in the effort. Your mark is practically on every page and slide of the presentation.”

I sit in the chair next to hers. I have never put in this much effort to make sure an employee would feel valued and included, but then again, no other employee has earned it. Especially not as quickly as she has.

Sunny has earned this face-to-face. “Look. You are still part of the team, and will still be attending,” I say, mimicking the cadence I often see Urul use when speaking to his subordinates. “I would feel better that you don’t push yourself into a coma. You are no good to anyone that way. Besides, if that happens, you won’t be around to write your incident report.”

Sunyn bursts into riotous guffaws. Hearing her laugh at something I said makes something shift inside of me. Something I’ve been ignoring for quite some time, and even now, still fight to suppress.

When her laughs turn into coughs, I run to grab her a bottle of water.

I recognize her relenting before she finally concedes defeat. “Fine. I’ll go home today, as I should have had the day off anyway. And Iwillbe at the Rift Portal gates bright and early on Friday to help set up at the conference site in New Vegas.And, while there, you will wonder why we even had this silly conversation.”

I smirk. “A pleasure doing business, Ms. Adlawan.”

Her lips twitch. “Same, Ser Rokoth.”

I don’t quite linger, but I do make sure she is actually leaving and headed toward the residential floors before retreating into my office.

I feel like I just won the most challenging negotiation of my career.

And I once parted goblins from their precious gold.

I pull up the comms channel for the VorTech data geeks, requesting additional hands for the presentation in case they are needed. They are to be completely familiar and fluent in the data. The senior tech responds that he will choose his best and brightest.

I ought to feel at peace by that, but I don’t knowing their best and brightest was a dim bulb compared to Sunny.

Instead, I choose a thumbs up icon to acknowledge his words.

As an afterthought, I ask him to show me how I can ensure that an employee is offline.

“You mean, if they’re online?” he asks.

“No. Offline. If I meant online, I would have stated it.” I snarl, smoke curling from my nostrils. Even though it kills me, I explain myself. “I need to make sure someone is not gaining access to the comms channel and portail while off the clock.”

“Oh sure. An easy way to do it is just to block their access for the day. That way you will know even if they set their status to invisible.”

Set their status to invisible? That’s an option? I can picture Sunny doing exactly that. Whole arguments bloom in my head now, reprimanding her for being online when she said she wouldn’t.

Before I start drafting her performance improvement plan for an imaginary infraction, I ask the tech to block her access until 8:59AM Friday morning.

There. Now she has to rest.

Chapter Ten

LIVING THE DREAM (FOR FREE!)

Sunny Adlawan

“I cannot believe this is happening.”

Mei’s face fills my phone screen, already grinning. “Right? Who would’ve thought your corporate overlord would accidentally fund your dream trip?”

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