Page 22 of My Forbidden Boss

As I smiled down at her and let my full attention come to bear, the woman uncrossed her legs and stood, lightly taking my outstretched hand.

At first, neither of us spoke a word. Her eyes danced from mine to our hands, gently shaking. It took me more than a moment before I realized how close to a fool I was becoming.

“Oh, uh… Sorry. I wasn’t expecting… um… I’m Hollis. And you… uh…”

She looked down nervously, but her electric eyes kept glancing back to briefly meet my own. “I’m Tisha. Tisha Fleming. I mean, Crawford! Tisha Crawford. Uh… I had your name in my mind!”

She blushed beautifully, and I beamed, feeling that I wasn’t the only one caught off-guard.

I smiled happily as my instincts took over. “Ah… Freudian slip, maybe?” I laughed but noticed that her polite smile in response was marked more by discomfort than I had hoped when the words left my mouth. I did my best to recover.

“Uh, Crawford… Crawford… Oh, right! You are our newest addition, correct? … On the regional management team?”

She looked uneasy. “Yes, that’s correct. I’m… Well, I only just started on Monday. This was my first week.”

I nodded, not knowing why she was growing more unnerved as I started to find my stride and attempted to become calmer and more confident. When she didn’t continue, I pressed the question.

“Well… What do you think? Surely after a week, you’ve gotten some sort of feel for the place, right? Don’t worry, you won’t hurt my feelings. I want to hear both the good and the bad.”

She looked confused. My smile started to fall as I felt my own sense of uncertainty creeping in.

She cleared her throat quietly and sat forward, sending a silvery strand of her hair down to partially cover one eye. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fleming… but… Can you tell me why I’m here? I don’t mean to be rude, but I got home after my first week of work, only to find an email instructing me to come in and meet with you, the owner. I came in on my day off without having any idea of what to expect. I waited out there for over an hour and, with all due respect, I don’t know if I’m here to be disciplined, fired, or what.”

I didn’t know what to say. She was perfectly courteous but fiery and vexed at the same time. I instantly felt like a child who’d forgotten his homework. Still, she was so vibrant and spirited, I found it difficult not to want that attention to continue, no matter how negative it seemed.

“Uh… Well, first of all, I am truly sorry that you were kept waiting. Honestly, my assistant probably told me before that you were here, but… I’m a busy man, as you can see,” I gestured over my desk and around the room but could see that she wasn’t satisfied.

“… Um… As to why you’re here… Well, you aren’t getting fired. That’s for sure.”

I grinned, wanting to see her smile again, but I began to question whether I was just making myself out to be an even bigger fool than I already had.

I cleared my throat as she crossed her arms, still waiting for an explanation. I concentrated and adopted a more serious demeanor, trying to appease her. “You were asked to come in today so that… Well, so that I could meet you. A Saturday seemed best at the time, since we aren’t trying to create any obstacles for you or your other team members. We didn’t want to create some sort of rift or perception of favoritism, so we figured it would be best to just have you come in when none of your coworkers were here. That way, you see, they can’t get their feelings hurt or anything. Some of them have been working here for quite some time, and most everyone you will meet around our little business is truly a terrific asset to have on our teams.”

She still looked uncomfortable, but her expression seemed to become more and more distrusting with every sentence out of my mouth. I started to stumble and ramble, simultaneously trying to say the right words while also wondering what they might be.

“Sorry, I could see how that all might have sounded somewhat strange. Let me start over.”

I took a deep breath and sighed, silently wishing my nerves would settle down and that the awkward start to the meeting would finally end.

“Uh, let me think about how best to put this. Alright, so, you haven’t been here very long, obviously. The way things have been around here for me… Well, it didn’t start looking like all of this until quite recently.”

I waved my hands once more over my desk and the surrounding stacks of filing cabinets. Their drawers were randomly open and covered with still more piles of documents and folders.

“If you had started here a couple of months ago, we would have already met. That sounds dumb, um… What I mean is, we would have met earlier in your first week. I used to be able to work with all the teams, including your department. We were a really tight-knit group, and, with all the expanding we’ve been doing, I haven’t been able to do that.”

I glanced down at her and, seeing that she just looked weirded-out by my sudden personal story, I recognized that, from her perspective, I was some random guy she’d never met… going on and on about some alternate reality where our proximity would have been closer.

I sat down, reassembling my thoughts and trying to explain.

“The point is, I told my department heads that I want to get back to what we had. This company was like a family. Nowadays, when I come into the office, I walk past thirty people that I don’t know before I see a single person whose name sounds vaguely familiar. I told the department bosses… including yours, Alice… I know I can’t meet everyone, but I told them to send me anyone new that catches their eye and stands out above the rest… their best and brightest, basically.”

I looked across the desk, watching as the anxiousness and attitude left her eyes. She turned toward the wall. I couldn’t tell if she was gathering her thoughts or dismissing what I was saying, but I pressed on, feeling that I only had this one chance to turn the introduction around.

“Alice spoke very highly of you, which, as I’m sure you can imagine after spending a week working with her, isn’t something she would normally volunteer. She said that you not only met and exceeded her expectations in terms of getting the job done, but that you also have some pretty daring ideas about how we can make some improvements regarding how we handle certain things.”

I stopped and waited. My self-awareness made me want to keep blabbing, but I wanted to receive some signal from her first, some indication of where her mind was leaning.

She was quiet and conservative when finally, she opened her mouth to speak. “Frankly, I’m surprised that Alice said anything at all. I… I didn’t think she liked me very much. It wasn’t personal. Most people have trouble when you basically walk in and tell them that their processes are shit.”

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