“You’re kidding, right?” I asked dubiously.
I hadn’t applied for the position I was in—I’d been headhunted. The job offers had come as soon as I’d graduated from college—and there had been a lot of them. I’d chosen the company I worked for because I liked their mission statement. Iliked the camaraderie and the atmosphere they’d curated. I liked Paige, even though she was an overbearing snob sometimes. Never, not once, had Paige or anyone else spoken to me like she was now—it was startling.
“No, I’m not kidding. Do I sound like I’m kidding? Get your ass back in there.”
“I’m not going to lie for them,” I hissed into the phone, glancing around me at the people going about their day.
“Oh, please,” Paige scoffed. “You can make the numbers look however we need them to look—that’s why we frigging hired you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked dubiously. I had never cooked the books for anyone, and they sure as hell had never asked me to.
“Get back to Refordable,” Paige ordered. “And make this right.”
“I’m not going to help them commit fraud,” I ground out, stunned. “That’s what they were asking me to do—that’s what you’re asking me to do.”
“I cannot believe thatnowyou’re deciding to act like Pollyanna,” Paige replied with an irritated sigh.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You really think you have some moral high ground here, HarperWhite? Do you know how deep our background checks go? I know exactly where you came from.”
I felt the blood draining from my cheeks as they called the first round of boarding for my flight.
That fucking cunt. How dare she?
“Get back to Refordable and fix this, or you’re fired. How about that? Is that clear enough for you, or should I send it to you in binary?” she said snidely.
I didn’t even bother to reply. My fingertips were numb as I lowered the phone from my ear and turned it off completely.
If she thought that talking shit and threatening to fire me would get her what she wanted, she hadn’t gone as deep in my background as she thought. In a long line of stubborn women, I was the shining example of those who’d gone before me.
Paige Brewer could go fuck herself.
I walked numbly to the coffee shop across from my gate, my mind racing.
“What can I get ya?” the barista asked, jolting me out of my stupor.
“You hiring?” I asked jokingly.
The older man smiled. “You can apply online.”
“Okay, can I just get a flat white, please?”
As soon as I’d wrapped my hand around the hot coffee cup, I crossed back over to my gate and got in line with the other people waiting to board. One of my aunts said that coffee made everything better, and I was really hoping that was true. When I’d woken up that morning with my stomach in knots, knowing that I had to go back in to Refordable and quit, I’d assumed that it would all work out. I hated confrontation and knew they’d be irritated that I wouldn’t fall in line, but nothing else had gone the way I’d imagined it would.
By the time I got to my seat and settled in, the numbness began to wear off a little, and anger took its place.Ihadn’t done anything wrong. There was an entire chapter in the employee handbook that detailed what we should do if a company we worked with was acting in bad faith. First, you call your boss—which I had—even though she hadn’t answered all week. Then, respectfully sever contact with the bad faith company. There were a few other minuscule suggestions in there, but that was the gist of it.
I’d done those things. I’d potentially saved the company from heaps of legal trouble in the future. Honestly, I was a fucking hero, and they should’ve rewarded me.
Settling into my window seat, I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt over my head and pulled out a book. It was a little bit of a relief that there was nothing I could do about any of it while we were in the air. Unless I paid for Wi-Fi—which I wasn’t planning on—Seat22A was my own little bubble of solitude for the next few hours.
Well, it would’ve been if I hadn’t had a woman next to me that wanted to chat. There was no way I could’ve known that pulling out a romance novel would open up a conversation about women’s fiction,porn—her words, not mine—in literature, and what constituted a good book. I just wanted to read, but nothing I said or did made the lady catch a hint, and I wasn’t willing to completely piss her off when I was stuck elbow to elbow with her until we landed.
Instead, I just nodded along, staring at the pages that I couldn’t read with her jabbering in my ear the entire flight.
By the time we landed, I was dying to get off that stupid plane. Our little airport had never looked so good, and I let out a sigh of relief as I wandered toward the baggage claim. Hopefully my two suitcases had come through the trip unharmed, considering they held pretty much everything I owned.
After wrestling them off the conveyor belt and assuring myself that they were in full working condition, I dragged them toward the exit. My eyes fluttered closed as I stepped out into the cool damp air.
