Page 52 of Strictly Business

“Excuse me?” I roar, conscious of being in a client’s building, but unable to keep my voice down for a moment.

“Why didn’t you spot it?” Serena says again. “We went through it together last night. If I should have seen it, so should you. But I’ll tell you why you didn’t see it. For the same reason as I didn’t. It wasn’t fucking there.”

“So, it must have been on your copy of the pitch then,” I say.

“Nope. I think I would have remembered that,” she says.

I’m starting to rant. I can’t help it. This is so much harder than I thought it would be. For starters, I didn’t expect Serena to deny all knowledge of this, and I definitely didn’t expect her to challenge me on why I didn’t see it either. She has once more thrown me for a loop, but I’m so mad I don’t know what to do with it at the moment.

“Wait,” she says, interrupting me mid rant. She looks excited suddenly and she jumps to her feet and starts pacing the floor. “We both looked through that presentation last night, right?” She stops pacing and looks at me and it seems like she’s waiting for an answer. I nod and she nods back to me and then starts pacing again. As she paces, she goes on. “And then this morning, you asked me to send the presentation slides to Ruth. My laptop isn’t working remember. I sent it from your laptop off your email. I sent the file we both checked. That means …”

She trails off and I finish the sentence for her.

“Ruth messed up,” I say. “Not you.”

Serena nods and pours herself a glass of the purple-colored juice. She sits back down and sips the juice angrily. She has every right to be angry. I have jumped to a conclusion that was wrong and I wouldn’t hear her when she tried to explain. Fuck me, I have fucked up here. I won’t make that same mistake again though.

For all I want to believe Serena, at the same time, Ruth has worked for me for a long time, and I can’t think of any reason why she would do this. Even if the logo slide was missing, which I know it wasn’t, she wouldn’t just take it upon herself to design that crap and chuck it in there. I have to make sure there’s some truth to what Serena is saying before Ruth gets back. At this point, I don’t know what to make of anything, but I guess it’s possible that Serena changed the logo before sending Ruth the email and then lied about it. I don’t see why she would do that, but I also don’t see why Ruth would change out the logo. Neither of those options make sense but I can’t think of a third one.

CHAPTER38

Wyatt

Iget my cell phone out and open my email account. I find the email Serena said she sent and the reply she said Ruth sent. All good so far. I open the attachment and flick through the slides, and I soon see the logo slide – with the correct logo on it. Serena was right. I still don’t know fully what happened, but whatever it was happened after Serena had done her part on the slides and after they were out of her hands. What the actual fuck was Ruth thinking? And what the actual fuck was I thinking to go off on Serena like that without even hearing her side of the story first? God what a fucking mess this is turning out to be.

There is one silver lining though, one thing I am so glad about in all of this. I don’t have to fire Serena now, and I hope I can make it up to her that I overreacted and shouted at her. I am also a bit gutted though. I really don’t want to lose Ruth either. She has something against Serena, I know that much, but other than that, she has always been an excellent worker and I have always trusted her. Still, if I have to lose one of them, I will choose to lose Ruth every time. Maybe that’s not the correct professional decision to make, but I would make it all the same without hesitation. Sorry Ruth. You’re good, but you’re no Serena.

I don’t have to wait long before Ruth is back. She has two cups of coffee, one of which she hands to me and the other one she gives to Serena. That must have irked her, having to get Serena a cup of coffee. I don’t even know if Serena wanted a coffee, but she’s thanked Ruth for it and now she’s sipping at it so whatever. I pick mine up and blow on the surface and then I take a drink. It’s good and I drink again. I’m only prolonging the inevitable, but it’s nice to just act like everything is perfectly normal for a moment. Ruth is pouring herself a cup of water. I let her sit down and have a drink and then I can’t put it off any longer.

“Ruth, I need to see your laptop,” I say.

“Why?” she asks.

“I think you know why,” I say. “I want to see what time that logo slide was inserted into our presentation and from what IP address it was added.”

I know I can do the first thing and if the time matches a time after Ruth received it, that will convince me. I have no idea if the IP address thing is even possible, but it sounds good, and I’m hoping it will make Ruth confess which would make this whole thing easier all around.

“You don’t need to do that,” Ruth says. “Not from my laptop anyway. I didn’t add or change anything, I just played the thing and clicked when they needed moving on.”

“Then you’ll have no problem with me looking,” I say. Ruth starts to object again, and I hold up my hand for silence. “Ruth, I’m not asking you anymore, I am telling you. The laptop is company property and I want to look at it please. This will not bode well for you if you force me to wait until we get home and go to the IT department to get into it instead of you typing the password in yourself now.”

Ruth sighs and makes a show of pulling her laptop towards herself like this is just a minor inconvenience to her, but as she types her password in, I can see her fingers are shaking. She pushes the laptop towards me, and I go to take it, but before I can, Ruth bursts into tears.

“Fine,” she says. “You got me, ok? I added that slide in there.”

“What? Why?” I demand. “Why would you try and sabotage the company? I don’t get it.”

“It wasn’t about the company. I didn’t think that part of it through. I was trying to sabotage her,” Ruth says. She points to Serena. “For years I have been by your side, organizing your life, helping you, going the extra mile for you, showing you that I have your back one hundred percent. I always contended myself by telling myself you were enjoying being single, but one day that might change, and when it did, maybe you would think of the person who had been loyal to you for all those years. And then she came along, and you soon forgot about the single life and about me, didn’t you? I had to do something to make you get rid of her. You were meant to end up with me, not some random kid.”

Serena’s jaw drops open as Ruth makes her confession and I’m sure my own expression is similar to hers. I don’t like the implication of Serena being a kid, but I know Ruth is just lashing out, trying to hurt me like I have somehow unintentionally hurt her and so I let it go and when I speak to her, my voice is soft and kind. She is already broken. She doesn’t need me to yell at her. And I can’t deny the truth of everything else she has said about how she has always been there for me and the company until Serena arrived on the scene.

“Ruth, you know I have to fire you right?” I ask. She nods and sniffs miserably. “You are fired as of right now. Please go and catch your flight home and I will have someone contact you about collecting your things from the office.”

Ruth nods but she makes no movement and I stand up myself.

“Come on. I’m going to escort you out in case you try to make any trouble here,” I say. I turn to Serena. “If Mr Bellisario or the others come back, answer any questions they have and if they’re ready for me, tell them I will be back in a moment ok.”

She nods and I beckon to Ruth. She picks up her purse and follows miserably behind me. We get outside and I stop walking and face Ruth.

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