Love in Lingerie(5)
“My job description states that I can adjust staffing.”
“That’s not an adjustment, that’s insanity.”
“It cleared five hundred thousand dollars off of the budget. And I spoke to the design staff about it.”
“Which staff?” I think of the seven people on her ax list. Seven lives she just ruined. Would they find new jobs? Would they—
“All of them.”
“Twenty-two employees?” Unlikely.
“At ten minutes per meeting, it doesn’t take that long. I got in early yesterday and knocked it out. Plus, I used the survey results.”
Oh yes. The survey. That had certainly put the department into a state of panic. “That wasn’t a survey, it was a witch hunt.” The survey had contained only three questions. It had been sent to her team at precisely two o’clock, and a timer had run in the top of the window, giving the participants only thirty seconds to complete the survey. The first question had asked, on a scale of one to ten, how overworked you felt. The second asked which three jobs were expendable in the company. The third asked which three people were expendable.
“Witch hunt or not, the results were fairly clear.” She slides a piece of paper forward, one covered in bar graphs and statistics.
“You fired Ginger. She’s practically our mascot.” Ginger, the seventy-year-old woman who prepared coffee each morning and got everyone’s lunch. Her official title was something about quality control.
“Be realistic.” She stands up, her steel gaze nothing like the polite interviewee who had quivered before me. “You can’t have mascots and people working here just because they are well-liked. You can’t have a hundred percent of your employees giving ones and twos on their level of stress.” She stabs a finger toward the page. “You are running a business, one that, if we don’t turn around, is going to end up firing every single one of them. I need you to trust me, and in one year, we’ll be giving jobs to a dozen new people. In one year, we will be profitable. In one year, if you want Ginger back, you can have her.”
I’ve never wanted to kiss a woman so badly in my life. To bury my hands in her hair and dominate that mouth. My hands twitch on the leather back of the chair. I stop myself from moving forward and pulling her across that glass desk.
I don’t like strong women. I don’t like being yelled at. I don’t like being proven wrong. She has the data. She’s done the homework. I know, I have known, that we are slightly overstaffed. I’ve known for six months that I should lay off one or two people. Seven people is ridiculous. But half a million dollars is badly needed.
“I didn’t hire you to run my business. I hired you for your creative input and vision. I hired you to create products that sell. You have to consult me in these decisions, even if it involves your team.” She doesn’t understand that this is my family, paychecks I have paid for nine years, lives that depend on me.
“I was typing up a memo when you came in. You’ll have it within the hour. It will explain all of the reasoning behind the decisions.”
“Next time, get me the memo before you fire anyone.”
She tilts her head, as if she is considering the order. I watch her front teeth bite gently down on her bottom lip, and all I can think about is my cock sliding into that mouth. “I need decision-making ability. It’s in my job descript—”
“Job description,” I interrupt. “I know.” She’s obsessed with them. I can see, spread out on the glass top of her desk, a dozen of them, covering different roles in the company. She’s probably the only one who has ever read them, much less taken them as gospel. I need to review hers. I have a feeling it will be haunting this relationship. I unwrap my fingers from the chair, and can see the indentations I have left, the bites in the leather, ones that are already beginning to fade. I step back, and notice her heels, lined neatly up by the credenza, her bare feet against the wood floors, the tip of each toe painted a light pink. She has tiny ankles, and I have a brief vision of my hand wrapped around one, her feet against my shoulders, my palm running down the length of her legs.
She raises her eyebrows and I try to find a coherent stream of thought. “I’ll be looking for that memo.” I stop, one hand on the doorknob, and feel like I’m running. I need to say something else, something that puts me back in the driver’s seat and reaffirms my authority.
There is a long beat where her eyes hold mine, a challenge flashing out, clouding the arousal. My dick is confused, and so is my head.
I open the door and escape into the hall, into my domain.
If this woman was lingerie, she’d be black leather, with studs along the seams and enough of a dominatrix vibe to give a man pause.
If this woman was lingerie, I’d strip it off and then properly show her who is in charge.
chapter 3
Her
two months later
“I just don’t understand how you didn’t get it.”
I let out a controlled breath, pulling my seatbelt across my chest and pushing it into the clasp. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t figure it out.”
Damn Mensa and their “delightfully fun puzzles!”—puzzles that I had failed. We’d had four challenges in tonight’s party, and I had failed three of them. Craig was—still is—dismayed by my results. Next week’s event is a ”fun team challenge!” which I’m assuming will mean that Craig’s and my scores will be combined. That possibility seems to be the true root of his panic.