“What’s worse is I have to make all these changes on an empty stomach,” I grumped, opening the InDesign presentation file.
Designer stilettos clicked on the polished concrete floor of the Quantum Cyber office. When I had originally accepted the job, I had thought I was going to work in a swanky high-end tech office, ogling my hot boss, and getting paid enough to make rent while supporting my baking habit. I didn’t realize the job also meant dealing with the HR lady from hell.
Cressida, with her SoulCycle toned legs and her perfect blowout, dropped a large cardboard box on my desk. She pursed her mouth.
“Now that Ashley has been fired, you are going to take over all her work,” Cressida said haughtily.
“I’m actually really busy with my actual job being an assistant to the CFO, you know,” I said in a mock-friendly tone.
Cressida glared at me. “We’re all a family here at Quantum Cyber, and you need to step up. I just told IT to forward you all of Ashley’s emails. There are several critical items that need to be done this morning.”
“Oh?” I said, voice sweet as syrup. “Are we splitting them up?”
She gave me a sour look. “You need to do it. It’s your job now. I’m the director of human resources, and that’s how I’ve decided the workload will be divided.”
“You mean dictated,” I said snidely.
“Are you giving me lip?” she asked. “Maybe Beck needs to fire you too. Should I get him involved?”
We looked into his office.
Beck was cursing someone out on the phone.
“Nope.”
Cressida gave me a triumphant look. “Don’t leave today until all of Ashley’s work emails have been cleared out.”
“The lion, the witch, and the audacity of that bitch,” Maeve said, shaking her head as I scrolled through the emails that had begun to pour into my inbox.
I had to finish Beck’s presentation before tackling my newly increased workload, but first, I needed to know if there were any ticking time bombs in my email and diffuse those before I returned to the presentation.
There were a number of them. I fired off messages, feeling very corporate girl-boss.
One email came back with an almost immediate response.
I idly opened it while in the middle of photoshopping an image of a little girl coding while wearing a shirt with the Quantum Cyber logo.
“The hell?” I muttered, glaring as I read the email. It started off with the phrase, ‘Listen, princess,’ and went downhill from there.
The client, Chad—because of course he was named Chad—had not liked my ruling that it was not, in fact, Quantum Cyber policy to hack into a mistress’s account and delete the horny messages they had exchanged.
I typed back an angry response. I was a grown woman! He might have gotten away with calling Ashley ‘princess’, but he wasn’t going to address emails to me like that anymore.
“And you’re lucky I don’t report this to your wife myself,” I finished and sent it off.
I was working my way through the changes on the next image when Beck banged on the glass behind me.
I smoothed my skirt and opened the office door.
Beck was furious. But he was always furious, and I wasn’t too concerned.
“Are you out of your mind?” he raged.
I spread my hands in a WTF gesture. “Your notes said you didn’t like the guy in the pink pants, even though it is a very trendy look, so I’m changing them to black. The color was a little off in the crotch area. That’s why it’s so big on my computer screen.”
Beck growled, exposing his teeth.
Definitely wild.
