“This email,” he said, turning around his monitor and making a knife hand to the screen, “is inappropriate. You’re threatening to tell the wife of one of our clients that he’s cheating!”
I bristled. “He wanted us to break the law! I was just explaining company policy.” I crossed my arms. “Besides, he was a sexist asshole!”
“So?” Beck roared. “He is a client. You have to use more tact. Not to mention, that client isn’t any of your business. Why are you even answering that email? No one gave you authority to answer those emails.”
“Actually, Cressida did.”
“You should have come to me,” Beck snarled. “Honestly, all you’ve done today is fuck up. You’re slouching at your desk with a bad attitude, you’re still not done with the presentation, you’re slurping your tea, and now you’re costing us clients. Get it together, Tess. I don’t want dead weight at my company.”
I was shaking as he railed at me. It was like when my stepfather used to relish using every opportunity to put me down. I had sworn when I’d left I wasn’t letting anyone treat me like that ever again, least of all some asshole named Beck.
“All the things I’ve done wrong today?” I countered, my voice sounding screechy to my ears.
Beck’s nostrils flared, and he rounded on me, but I didn’t back down. I was hangry and done with his shit.
“How about all the things you have done today—the terrible attitude, the fostering of a hostile workplace, the yelling at your employees, the fact that you have a thing against the color pink, and to top it off, you fired Ashley. Sure, she wasn’t the most competent, but now I have to pick up the slack because you think being a good boss is keeping people in fear and randomly firing people for no reason instead of helping them improve.”
I stepped into his personal space. I could smell the faint masculine scent of his aftershave. Not that I cared that he smelled amazing. I was on a roll.
“You think you’re tired from dragging my dead weight around?” I stabbed a finger into his very firm chest. “Guess what, I have news for you buddy. I’m tired of covering for you and your terrible decisions. You need to shape up!”
And that was the story of how I taught Beck the true meaning of corporate Christmas, and we all lived happily ever after, singing team-building songs.
Lol, not!
The corner of Beck’s mouth curled down. I could practically hear his teeth grinding, then his perfect lips parted, and he hissed, “You’re fired.”
2
Beck
“Good riddance!” Tess yelled and stormed out of the office. I heard her shrill voice outside, talking with the other office assistant who sat next to her as she gathered her things and stomped to the elevator.
I sat on the edge of my desk and pinched the bridge of my nose. It had not been a good morning.
Ashley had sent a very explicit message to my younger brother, who was interning at the company, and I had to fire her. Then the presentation Tess had sent me needed changes. Usually, her presentations were fine, but I wanted to win this contract and needed perfection.
Then Tess had riled up one of our worst clients, and now, instead of concentrating on the important meeting with AstraDrone, I had to stroke that cheating asshole’s ego to keep him from suing us.
“Dude, what the hell?” my brother, Walker, said, coming into my office. “You fired two girls on the same day? That’s a lot, even for you.”
“They are grown women who were failing to fulfill their job descriptions,” I said curtly.
“I guess I should have expected it. Tess has been here three months. That’s a record for your personal assistant.”
“Because, for some reason, we only seem to hire incompetent people,” I retorted, giving him a pointed look.
“I’m not incompetent! I’m a great COO.”
“No, you’re not,” I said, “or you would have been taking care of the Ashley situation instead of me. Instead, you were where, exactly? Did you just arrive?”
“Yes, but I had an early morning meeting at Platinum Provisions,” he said, waving me away. “I’ll tell HR to find you another assistant.” Walker smirked. “Hunter said he wants to have more of our little brothers intern here. Maybe you could take one of them as an assistant and show him the ropes.”
“Not going to happen.” I adjusted my cuff links. “I already have to work with you.”
“Family is important,” Walker said and took out his phone. “Speaking of. What do you think Greg’s message was about?”
I had ignored the text from my older brother in the group chat.
