Page 10 of Duke's Daring Bookworm
Ididn’t know what I was doing. That much was clear. Not that it should have surprised me. The Marines gave crayon eaters like me orders and discouraged independent thinking. My grandfather installed me as a figurehead at PI with the intention of training me as his replacement and then failed to train me. Now, Lily and that damn kiss.
Fuck.
I’d not experienced this before. It didn’t take me long to figure out what to do with women. Too bad Lily’s date the other night hadn’t figured that out yet. Somehow, he called her slutty and a frigid bitch all in one night. I ground my teeth and my hand clenched around the pen I forgot I held, easily breaking it in two.
The thought of that guy coming near her sent my blood boiling. He needed to kneel and thank whatever god he worshiped he left before I arrived. I wouldn’t have heldback.
A night in jail would have been worth the fear in his eyes.
And now she wanted me to come over, and I knew it was to talk about what happened. I just… I couldn’t face it yet. Yeah, that made me a coward. Taking enemy fire following one of Anders’ insane ideas—no problem. Facing Lily when I can’t get that kiss she probably didn’t even remember out of my head—big problem.
“Mr. Pennington,” the bad toupee to my left said, pulling me out of my spiral. By the looks of everyone around the table, he’d been trying to get my attention for a while.
Shit.
I needed to focus. I could spiral later.
I didn’t spend all night, every night, for weeks reviewing documents and catching myself up just to fail now.
No matter how soft Lily’s lips were, how good she felt in my arms, or the way she knew me well enough to call me a fallen angel with such awe that it stole my breath.
I cleared my throat and straightened up.
“Yes. Where were we?”
“We were discussing this quarter’s financial statement. We need to make some decisions about layoffs to maintain profit margins,” Ethan, my overqualified assistant, filled me in quietly while the table of the most opulently dressed, excessively bejeweled, septuagenarians stared at me waiting for my response.
Layoffs. That had been the question for weeks. The question that prompted me to pour over the company’s financials like my life depended on it, because I knew somewhere in this building that someone might. These jack-offs just didn’t get it, and I would forever be thankful to my younger self for choosing a different life.
Throwing myself into the path of people like those whose livelihoods now balanced precariously in my inadequate hands made the pain and demoralization of the Marines worth it.
I wondered if any of these people ever met a single employee beyond this floor, if they ever stood beside them when all the pretenses were stripped away, when they were nothing but humans trying to survive. I knew they hadn’t. I doubted anyone at this table even saw them as people. Just numbers, just something standing in the way of their profit.
I thought of Lily again, except this time she cried on my shoulder about being laid off and not knowing how she would start over. Lily’s strengths didn’t include adapting to changes.
No. Not under my watch.
“What are the other options?” Layoffs were a last resort, and they certainly weren’t an option if all we were worried about was increasing profits.
“Other options?” The white-haired man next to Bad Toupee asked with a sneer, like it had never occurred to him to think of anything else.
“Yes, other options.” I might have infused my voice with some of the authority I’d learned as a Marine. “Certainly we can consider something other than laying off employees that depend on their jobs to feed themselves and their families.” I knew what my face looked like right now. I had perfected this look in my decade of service. Stoic and unmovable. The exact face I wore in my official Marine portrait. The faint age lines I’d acquired since that photo only added to the effect, I thought.
“I—I’m sure we can call accounting and have a report of our… options drawn up,” he finally said, his face paler than before.
I didn’t let my mask slip and give anything away. I would need a better answer than that eventually, but it was enough for now.
I could tell by who nodded and who looked hesitant which of the board members would be a headache to work with. Most leaned on the side of headache, but there were a few younger members that looked relieved at the suggestion that we find other options. It still rubbed me the wrong way that they didn’t speak up, but I made a note of who they were anyway, in case I needed their support again in the future.
“Until we get those reports and have actual options to consider, I don’t see the need to continue.” I stood and buttoned my suit coat. The people in this room understood the dismissive gesture. Sometimes, it paid to be the one in charge. Despite my general disdain for it, ending a meeting on my time was a perk I enjoyed taking advantage of.
I pulled my phone from my pocket as soon as the door closed behind me. I may have been at a loss with the board, but there was one thing I knew how to handle. I shot a message off to Tink, asking him to find that guy Chris from the other night. Destroying the life of the guy that insulted Lily was one thing I knew I could do right.
Ethan followed me out of the office, but wisely waited until we were in my office to speak.
“That could have gone better,” he said as he sat in his usual chair next to the couch. I held back a flinch when he sat down on it. I didn’t need a reminder of what I used it for the night before.
“I’m not worried.” I brushed away his concerns. Mostly, I needed to stall. Decisions couldn’t be made without information, and I knew the seemingly endless financialrecords only held some of the information I would need. “Tell me, though, how did my grandfather handle them? Who liked him? Who wanted him gone? What is the divide in the room?”
