“Ms. Novak,” Rush Crawford greeted as I let go of his hand.
“I’ve been introducing Mr. Crawford to the team, and it’ll behoove you to know that he will be keeping a close eye on this particular audit.”
Behoove?
Who in the hell spoke like that? Not anyone under the age of sixty, that’s for sure. Plus, did I mention that Bryant Stanton was two years younger than I was? Yeah, making the bumblehead only thirty-four, yet he’d been considered more suitable for the job than Tina, a forty-five-year-old accountant with almost twenty years of experience under her belt. Not to mention that the last fourteen years had been spent giving her all to Jacobi Auditing.
I almost shook my head at how they’d given the job to a guy that didn’t even have enough professional etiquette to introduce me by using my full name. He had expected Mr. Crawford to call me Landry as if I were just some interchangeable underling, and it made me want to slap him. Yeah, violence wasn’t supposed to be the answer, but that was another topic I’d argue against all day.
Plus, not only had he not introduced me using my full name, but that wholebehoovedcomment had come across like I didn’t know how to do my job, so that I better be on my guard. He’d made it sound like he was going to need to keep an eye on me, and I didn’t appreciate it one bit. I could run circles around this clueless buffoon, and if I could just come up with one word that adequately described how I felt about him, I could quit calling him different names, settling on the perfect one for the twit.
Calling upon all my professionalism, I plastered a smile on my face and said, “Well, I’ll be happy to answer any questions that you might have, Mr. Crawford.”Do not flip Bryant off in front of this man.“I can also email you a daily report of my findings. Jacobi Auditing has amazing software that helps us compile our findings into daily comprehensive reports.”
Before Mr. Crawford could answer me, Bryant was jumping in to show his ass again. “Well, per policy, those reports should be sent to me first, Landry. From there, I can review them, then decide which reports are worth Mr. Crawford’s time and which aren’t.”
I was going to get fired.
I was going to lose my job today.
“Actually, Bryant, that’s not true,” I said, correcting him for the millionth time on how things were done at Jacobi Auditing.“Per policy, all the information that we come across belongs to the client. They are entitled to our immediate findings without needing permission from upper management.” Bryant’s blue eyes narrowed at me.“Policydictates that we must copy upper management on any reports that we email to the client, but there’s nothing in the policies that insists that the reports need to be reviewed by upper management beforehand.”
Like the weasel that he was, he lied openly to save face in front of Mr. Crawford. “Well, perhaps you need to review some of our updated policies, Landry,” he said. “It seems as if you’re operating under some of our more older protocols.”
It took everything that I had in me not to call him out. Like most companies that were successful, we were required to keep up on all and any knew changes to our policies. If anything-anything-got changed or updated, then we were all emailed with the notification. Also, even if it kept us at the office until midnight, we were required to review the new changes and updates, then send an email back with our electronic signatures as proof that we’d read and understood the new changes.
This snatch napkin.
Plastering another fake smile on my face, I said. “Well, I’ll be sure to check into that, Bryant. I’d hate to be mistaken with all the trust that our clients put into us.” Then, turning to face Mr. Crawford again, I added, “I will make sure to send those daily finding reports to Bryant at the end of each day, so he will have them if you feel like requesting them, Mr. Crawford.”
His lips twitched as he slid his hands into his pockets, and he really was a sexy sonofabitch. If I had time to be vindictive and nefarious, I’d try to seduce him and really make a mess of things. Granted, a man that looked like he did probably got seduced every night, so I seriously doubted that a dull accountant would do it for him. Yeah, I might not be ugly, but there were days when I would actually forget to brush my hair; that’s how many hours I worked.
“While I appreciate the due diligence, I think it’s a little too early in the audit to need daily reports just yet,” he replied, and his voice made me wonder if he talked dirty in bed. I bet he sounded hot in the bedroom. “Of course, if you find something troubling right away, I’d expect to be alerted of that.”
“Of course,” Bryant said, not letting me respond. “We pride ourselves on our expert work and transparency.” Yet, this idiot just told him that the daily reports would have to be vetted by him first before being forwarded to Mr. Crawford.
Did he not hear the shit he says?
Even though my fake smile probably made me look like a deranged serial killer, I plastered it on my face anyway. “Whatever you need, Mr. Crawford.”
He arched a dark brow, making me wonder how long it’d been since I last had sex. I mean, I took care of business a couple of times a week at home, but I could hardly call that sex. I had enough batteries to entitle me to a quarterly dividend in Duracell, and I didn’t care what the environmentalist said. I tried one of those rechargeable vibrators once and the damn thing ended up dying on me. Now, I was all for edging because it felt incredible when you finally came, but to edge with no release? I had almost burned my condo building down that night.
“WhateverI need, Ms. Novak?” he asked, his voice doing stupid things to me.
Chapter 4
Rush~
Iused to never believe in love at first sight, but Landry Novak’s pretty blue eyes were making me rethink my stance on that particular subject.
When I’d first met Bryant Stanton at the hotel, his looks hadn’t surprised me. At only five-foot-ten or so, he had red hair, blue eyes, the freckles that usually accompanied red hair, and a red bearded stubble that I couldn’t quite figure out. Was it because he’d forgotten to shave, or did he really think that he was being stylish?
At any rate, as soon as we’d met, he’d been quick to let me know that he was only thirty-four and already in charge of his own team at Jacobi Auditing. He’d been trying to bond with me over something common, but since I had no plans to ever speak to the man again after the audit, he’d been wasting his time.
His ode to his own ego was the real reason that he had decided to introduce me to his auditing team. Not for nothing, I wasn’t a man that needed to be introduced to the worker bees. Now, while I wasn’t the type of person to look down on anyone with an honest profession, my position on the top ladder rung prevented me from talking to most of the people a few rungs lower than me.
Nonetheless, right now, staring at a fiery Landry Novak, I was thankful for Bryant Stanton’s fragile ego. If not for his need to impress me, I might never have gotten the chance to meet the beautiful blonde standing in front of me, doing her best not to punch her boss in the nose.
At about five-foot-three, Landry Novak had ash-blonde hair, dark blue eyes, and a tight little body that would look phenomenal underneath me, though I definitely wouldn’t limit our entertainment to just missionary. I’d take that petite frame and wreck it in every position that I could think of. She also looked like she fell perfectly into my acceptable age range, which didn’t make me feel bad about the dirty thoughts beginning to form in my head.