Page 45 of My Cruel Billionaire

She had used to handle me like that in the old days, too. When I grew too angry to be reasonable. On this day, though, I didn’t feel like being reasonable. I was frustrated and angry and didn’t care who knew about that. In fact, I went out of my way to let people know.

“Let’s see,” I said, snatching the file out of her hands. “Okay, report one, page one. Detail aging report not including accounts featuring negative balances. Only, I’m seeing an awful lot of negative balances here. It looks like your team couldn’t be bothered to check the right box on our file-sharing software.”

I tossed the file down onto the table and went to the next one.

“Report two, page three. Managerial task on time versus rate variance over a six-month time frame. Instead, I’m looking at managerial tasks on time versus a trial balance report of six weeks. That’s not even a unit of time we schedule on for either company.”

I dropped that report too and then took in Jenna’s team with my glare.

“I can’t use any of these reports. They’re useless. This is terrible, bad performance all around.”

I tossed the remaining files onto the table, spilling them out in a fan pattern totally by accident. It looked sort of cool, though.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would think that this was done on purpose as a way to sabotage the progress we’re making on the merger.”

My eyes narrowed to slits as my hand clenched into a fist on top of the table.

“Or at least, to stall our progress if not stop it cold.”

Jenna cleared her throat. “You’re right. These results are poor indeed. We’ll work on making it better.”

“I don’t need promises, Jenna. I don’t care about them. If someone gives me a promise and a cup of coffee, then I have exactly a cup of coffee when all is said and done.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded and didn’t offer argument.

“I don't care about promises. But do you know what I do care about?”

“Results,” Blake blurted eagerly, looking over at me out of the corner of his eye to see if I was impressed by it. I wasn’t and he deflated.

“I care about results,” I continued as if Blake had not spoken. I think everyone was on board with pretending that he had not. “If you can’t get me the results I need, then why are you even here, Jenna?”

Her eyes grew hard, but she didn’t offer verbal protest. Jenna’s gaze suggested she felt betrayed. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that line about her being ready for work at nine a.m. sharp while we were cuddling after mind-blowing sex. She had kind of taken that personally.

“Hey, you can’t call her out for this,” Becky said, standing up. “It’s not Jenna’s fault. She didn’t have time to look at the documents, she trusted us with this. If you want to blame someone, blame the three of us.”

She gestured at herself, Joestar, and Polnaraff.

“We’re the ones who prepared that file folder, so maybe you should blame us.”

“It doesn’t matter if she was directly involved in the mistake or not,” I said simply, dismissively. “Jenna was the one in charge of this team. Any failure on your part is a failure in turn on her part. That is the way of leadership. You sink or swim along with your team, or you don’t go anywhere at all.”

“I’m sorry.” Jenna bowed her head. “I had issues in my personal life lately and I have allowed it to bleed over into work.”

I flinched, because I knew what she was talking about. Not only had her mother suffered a serious heart attack and then had a major surgery as a result, but she had lost her main babysitter as a result. Now she had to struggle between visiting her ill mother in the hospital, taking care of Damon, and managing the billion-dollar merger.

On some level, I knew that she was right and I was wrong. I was wrong to call her out when I knew what she was going through in her personal life.

But this is business and I can’t afford to be influenced by feelings. I doubled down on what I had said in the first place.

“I don’t care, Jenna,” I snapped. “I don’t care about you or your excuses. Someone please remind me what the difference is between a reason and an excuse.”

Jenna’s eyes grew dark and hard. For a moment I wondered if she was going to get up and leave right then. Part of me wished that she would, and free me from her damnable penetrating gaze. She laid bare parts of me I had struggled to keep concealed and buried for a long time. It didn’t seem fair somehow, and my vulnerability made me bristle.

“How dare you talk to me like that,” she snapped, her eyes laser-focused on me. “You want to complain about the file folder not being up to snuff? We wouldn’t even have to put it together, wouldn't even be in this situation in the first place if you hadn’t let your documents get stolen.”

I winced on the inside, because she was right. My paranoia and not having security cameras installed had come to be my downfall in this case. It was kind of a low blow, but then again I was swinging for the fences as well.

“The security gaffe was my fault. It was my fault the documents had gotten stolen. There, you see, that is how you take accountability. But the fact of the matter is, Jenna, I gaveyouthat assignment. You were supposed to put those documents back together along with your team. If you choose to delegate the tasks given to you, that is your own business.”

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