Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 65054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
My pen stops moving and I have to bite the inside of my cheek. Don’t say anything, I repeat to myself over and over. It’s definitely not my place to correct him in front of all these people. I’m supposed to sit in the corner quietly and take notes.
Dominic leans back slightly in his chair and crosses his arms, staring at Leonard. The whole room goes quiet, except for the furious turning of pages. Leonard takes that as his cue to continue.
“Maybe someone from your office can explain how this got missed.”
Goddamnit, Leonard. He just had to goad me.
“It wasn’t missed,” I cut in.
The entire room turns toward me.
Leonard blinks at me with a smug look on his face. “Maybe you should focus on your notes,” he says petulantly.
I sit up straighter, telling myself that I’m in the middle of the storm now. I’d better walk into it confidently.
“You’re looking at the supplemental draft,” I tell him as kindly as I can manage. “You see the yellow tab in front of the page? The current numbers are under the blue tab.”
He looks down. So does everyone else. They’re all referencing the blue tab apart from Leonard. He flips more slowly than necessary to the blue tab and then clears his throat.
“Ah,” he says. “I see it now.”
A few people smirk or snicker under their breath, but I catch it all. The great Leonard Shaw has just been humbled by an assistant. They’re eating it up. I guess I’m not the only person he acts like an ass to.
Dominic shoots me a look I can’t decipher. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted. At least I still hold the record.
The meeting continues without incident, but my nerves are shot. When everyone finally gets up to leave, I’m already mentally packing up my desk. The silver-haired woman passes by with a smile. “Nice job with the packets, Sofia.”
I haven’t met her yet, so I’m surprised she knows my name. Dominic shakes her hand and tells her he’ll call her later. Then he turns to me and my stomach does somersaults.
“It was a good catch,” he tells me quietly. “But in the future, you should be more careful about who you embarrass in this building. Type up the notes and send them out in the next hour.”
I nod and follow him back to his office, where I immediately sit down at my desk and type up the meeting notes. So, not fired. A little reprimanded, but I’ve definitely been through worse. If anything, I’m glad that he backed me up.
“You’re in a toxic workplace,” my best friend Maya tells me later when we meet for dinner.
We usually try to get together at least once a week, but since I started this job, I’ve barely had time to see her. It’s the first time we’ve met up in person since I started, though I’ve texted her every little thing.
“I don’t think it’s toxic,” I say defensively. “I really like the work.”
“For what they’re paying you, you better.” She laughs. “Then again, I don’t know if any amount of money would be enough for me to put up with that level of stress.”
“It’s really not bad,” I laugh. “Sure, there are some bad days, but I like it.”
“You’ve barely been there a month. There shouldn’t be bad days, plural,” she answers, stabbing her chicken with her fork.
“It’s a big company with a lot of strong personalities to manage,” I say. “There’s bound to be a few issues, but I don’t mind it.”
She raises her eyebrow at me. “Is it the work you don’t mind, or your hot-ass boss?”
I roll my eyes and throw a bread roll at her.
4
DOMINIC
Sofia walks into my office clutching the folder for tonight’s event to her chest. I check the clock. Nearly four. The event starts at seven. She looks unusually panicked.
“Elena is on line two,” she tells me. “She says the security vendor for tonight’s event has the wrong guest list.”
I look up from the contract I’ve been going over all afternoon.
“How is it wrong?” I ask, impatient.
“The names are wrong, the arrival times are off, and the floorplan is outdated. And somehow none of it came from a single file. It’s like they’re working off a bunch of different drafts.”
I hold out my hand for the folder she’s clutching. She hands it over and waits while I read. I flip to the vendor approvals and finally catch the problem.
“When did we hire Bastion Event Security?” I ask her.
“We were working with Lumin,” she says, eyes wide. “This is the first I’m hearing of this.”
I hold up a finger and pick up my phone. “Elena,” I say when my event coordinator picks up.
“Mr. Vieri,” she says, her voice sharp with very controlled fury. “I would have never approved Bastion.”
“I know.”