Here I was, thinking I was going to come in and save her, but she’s too busy saving herself.
Scott retakes his seat, but she stays standing, looming over the table.
There’s an eerie calm about her. She’s got so much fire in her, but it’s controlled and wielded perfectly to get her exactly what she wants.
I fucking love it.
She makes her next words perfectly clear, careful to enunciate each one slowly.
“Do not dare threaten me or what’s mine, ever again.” She points my way without looking in my direction. “And that includes him.”
I smack Ed in the arm before pointing to Reese. “That’s my girl.”
A grin twitches on Reese’s lips, but she doesn’t break her ruinous stare from the other four men.
“Reese...” Phil cuts in with a nervous chuckle. “We had no idea that he was—”
“I do not care if you didn’t know about this or if you weren’t involved with what Scott was attempting to do. You four”—she gestures to everyone but Ed—“have disrespected me all season long. You have undermined me, attempted to set me up for failure. But this is my building. This is my team. I gave youmonths to remember that, but time is up.” She retakes her seat, leaning back in her chair. “You four are fired effective immediately.”
“You can’t do that!” one of them argues.
“Actually, the crazy thing about me being the sole owner of this club is that I can! And the beautiful piece of all of this—honestly, it worked out so lovely for me—is that your salaries will help relieve some of the pressure on the budget and give room for Emmett’s well-deserved raise next season. Isn’t that just great? Remember, Scott, when you wanted me to focus on the budget? Look at me. I found a solution!”
Scott stands from his seat, frantically trying to find a shred of hope for his plan. “You cannot be his boss! No one would think that was appropriate.”
I wave him off. “Oh, sit down and shut the fuck up, Scott.”
“It’s okay, Em,” Reese cuts in. “He’s right. I can’t be.”
My attention shoots to her. What the hell does that mean?
“But what you didn’t know, Scott, is that for the past week and a half, I’ve been meeting with our legal team as well as human resources, working on a solution so that I wouldn’t be Emmett’s direct supervisor. So I could still keep him on my staff.”
The last week and a half? We only found out about Scott’s threats yesterday.
“I know you thought I wouldn’t have had time to find a solution, seeing as you only gave me one day’s notice of this meeting, so lucky me, things were already in motion.”
She turns toward Ed. “Ed here will now serve as Vice President of Baseball Ops. He’ll be handling the coaching staff of not only our major league team, but also our minor league system. All coaching hires, promotions, and salary negotiations will go directly through him, while I’ll continue to do the same for the players. The new title comes with a nice raise too. So, congrats, Ed! Good on ya.”
He smiles knowingly at her. “Thank you, Reese. I’m looking forward to working with you.”
“Well...” She exhales a long breath, a self-satisfied smile on her lips as she looks around. Four speechless and stunned men stare back at her. “That should about do it. Oh, one more thing.” She reaches into her bag, pulling out three packets and sliding them across the table to three of the four freshly fired board members. “Your severance. Not that you deserve it, but I’ve got to keep things above board around here. Clearly, you broke your contract, Scott, with that little threat of yours, so nothing for you.”
She stands, hands on her hips, and nods as she looks around the room, really playing up the whole thing.
“Okay, yeah. That’s all I had. Great meeting. Thanks for calling everyone together, Scott.” She grabs her bag, slinging it over her shoulder. “Security will escort you four to your cars.”
On her way to the exit, she runs her hand over my shoulder, giving me a squeeze before she goes. And as she walks out the door, her head is held high, as it should be.
This woman is truly in her own league in every sense of the phrase.
I’m sat here utterly speechless, and so fucking in love with her.
What the hell just happened?
I spent the past twenty-four hours mentally detaching myself from this job and coming to terms with losing it. But here I am, still employed, sitting in the field manager’s seat in the dugout, and trying to wrap my head around that.
Trying to wrap my head aroundeverything.
