“Don’t lose it now,” I whispered to myself.
The elevator doors opened, and I found JoJo staring at me from his perched position in the H.R. office. His gaze locked with mine before they slowly raked down my body, and I watched his shoulders tense. I held my head high as I strutted into the office space, enjoying the fact that he couldn’t take his eyes off me.
But he managed to pull it together when the head of H.R. came out to beckon for us.
“Mr. Ryker. Miss Loren. Please, join me in here.”
I looked over at JoJo before I started into the office, and he followed quickly behind me. The H.R. woman closed the door and flipped the lock, and I knew what that meant.
The two of us were in a hell of a lot of trouble.
“So,” the woman said as she sat down at her desk, “I’ve had some interesting reports coming from the top floors for the past couple of days. Have a seat so we can discuss them.”
“I’ll stand, thank you,” JoJo said.
But I sat down and crossed my legs at my ankles. “May I ask what the reports are about?”
The woman picked up a thick stack of papers. “We’re going to go through them one by one so I can get a reasonable account of what’s actually happening versus what others are seeing. All right?”
I nodded as JoJo leaned against the wall. Neither of us spoke, and that prompted the head of H.R. to start in on the list. I prepared myself for the inevitable. For her to call us out on our frivolous affair that had been captured by one of my co-worker’s eyes.
But the actual question she asked caught me off-guard. “I have a report here saying that you’re still being given more work than you can manage. I had three different department heads report to me the other day that you’re loaning out work in order for all of it to get done?”
I nodded. “I did yesterday, yes.”
“Care to tell me why?”
I shrugged. “There was a list of things I needed to get done and I figured it would go faster if the departments worked on their own slices before I brought it all together.”
JoJo chuckled. “Sounds like a future manager, if you ask me.”
I resisted the urge to smile at his compliment as the H.R. lady stared at me from beyond her glasses. “And this has been going on since you were hired?”
I shook my head. “It was only yesterday.”
She sat down that file and flipped to another one. “I have three reports of that same nature, and they don’t all come from yesterday.”
JoJo groaned. “Look, I hired Miss Loren to do a job and she took on more work of her own accord. I consider that kind of thing promotable, which is what she’s gunning for in the long run.”
“Is that true?” the woman asked me.
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I hope one day to take over as his overall accountant, which means I have to show that I can juggle multiple things at once. Even if it means me taking work home. That’s all it is.”
JoJo clicked his tongue. “Plus, she knows that if she’s got too much work on her plate, all she has to do is tell me. I don’t expect my employees to sell their soul to this place in exchange for a fancier title. That isn’t how I operate.”
“Is that right, Miss Loren?” the woman asked.
Despite trying my hardest not to, I peeked up at JoJo, and the look on his face told me that I needed to comply, and quickly.
So, I put on my best smile. “Yes, of course that’s right. It’s not like Mr. Ryker is a slavedriver or anything. I just have ambitions, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Because I’m honestly not sure if you’d pull me in here for reports like this if I were a man.”
JoJo nodded as he moved a bit closer to me. “She’s got a point.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Mr. Ryker, you know your own company’s policy, and after a certain number of complaints--.”
That’s when he sat beside me. “I know, I know. But can we hurry this up? I’ve got a phone conference with a potential new client in thirty minutes.”
“Hey, that’s nice. Anything I can help with?”
