“Come in,” he said, leaning back in his chair. The door opened and David walked into the office. The young beta looked prim and proper, his suit impeccable and his hair neatly coiffed. Peter allowed himself a moment to wonder what he was like outside the office. He couldn’t be this buttoned up all the time, could he?
David’s left eye twitched, Peter’s scrutiny obviously making him uncomfortable, so Peter shifted his gaze to his monitor.
One of the drawbacks of being dominant was that Peter never really got to see what people werereallylike. Just about everyone wore a mask of respect around him, and sometimes Peter wished that he could see what they were really thinking.
Though it was probably best for everyone else that he didn’t.
“Mr. Tank, Mr. Merchant just delivered the evaluations you were asking about,” David said, holding a stack of folders in his hands.Peter waved him over and accepted the folders, shaking his head when David asked if he needed anything else. The young beta bowed his head respectfully and left the office.
Peter grabbed the first folder, reading over Merchant’s recommendation carefully.
The first four evaluations were pretty much the same, with Merchant writing that the alphas in question were evil bastards who would fit right in with Tank Security. But when he opened up the fifth folder Peter’s breath froze.
Chad Brand. The alpha from the night before—the one Peter had cornered and practically molested—stared back at him from the photo attached to the upper right-hand corner of the report. He was smiling, looking bright-eyed and happy, nothing at all like the hunted look he’d had when Peter met him.
Fuck.An employee.
Peter never fucked his employees. He already had an unfair advantage by nature of his dominance, and adding the unequal power dynamic of being a person’s employer on top of that took things just a step further than Peter was comfortable with. Mostly because it opened him up to sexual harassment lawsuits.
Licking the corner of his lips, Peter studied the picture.
Chad waspretty. Blond hair clipped military short, complementing his perfectly tanned skin, he had a straight nose and a dimpled chin that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the pages of a magazine. Just the thought of fucking into that hot mouth made Peter’s cock swell. He forced himself to look away from the picture and read the report.
Peter frowned. The report was the shortest one yet, and Merchant didn’t mince his words.
Nice kid, not cut out for this. Do not recommend.
Peter rarely ignored Merchant’s advice when it came to judging if new recruits were a good fit with Tank Security, but in this case he had to. Firing someone the day after they rejected his bullying advances was a lawsuit waiting to happen.
He phoned Merchant to ask if Chad was really as useless as the report indicated.
“What’s up, boss man?”
Peter cut right to the chase. “This Brand kid. How bad of a fit is he?”
Merchant made a scoffing sound. “He’s a boy scout. You put him anywhere interesting and you’ve got a guaranteed whistle-blower on your hands. I think you should get rid of him.”
“And if I can’t?” Peter leaned back in his chair, mentally cursing his boorish behavior. The guilt he felt over how poorly he’d treated Chad was nothing compared to how angry he was that he’d done something that could fuck with his bottom line.
“What do you mean?”
“If I fire him now it could look… bad. I ran into him at a bar last night and I wasn’t exactly the nicest version of me. I didn’t know he was one of our new hires.”
“Not the nicest version of you, what does that mean? You beat him up? Humiliated him in front of his friends? Raped him?” Merchantlaughed.
“What? No!” Peter growled. He might not be a good person, but he wasn’t arapist.
“So what’s the problem?” Merchant sounded unconcerned. Peter lifted his hand to his face and rubbed his chin, wondering if maybe Merchant wasn’t the best person to have this conversation with.
“Aiden and I—” Merchant let out a snort, and Peter started over. “Aiden and I were out and we met him at a bar, and we both came on a little strong. I misjudged the situation. He wasn’t into it at all. If I fire him now it’s going to look like I’m punishing him for rejecting us.”
“So what are you asking me to do?”
It took Peter a few seconds before he realized what Merchant was insinuating.
“Fuck, no. That’s a line we’re not crossing.”
“You’re the boss,” Merchant said, like he didn’t care one way or the other. While Peter appreciated Merchant’s utter lack of morals when it came time to get things done, other times it was just disturbing. More so because there was a tiny part of Peter that was tempted to just let Merchant make the problem go away.
