Rock Hard (Rock Kiss #2)(6)

“I guess I’m not too surprised,” Charlotte said slowly. “Mr. Bishop does have a reputation for coming in and cleaning house.”

He cemented that reputation over the next eight hours. Two-thirds of senior management was gone by the end of the day, the remaining third too busy to worry about anything but work. Five members of the junior staff received unexpected promotions, while others were demoted or warned to improve their performance if they wanted a job at the end of the month.

Once again, Tuck had the gossip. “I heard one of Dolly’s juniors say the boss said he wouldn’t blame her for her shoddy work to date since she’d had a bad supervisor,” the teenager told her as they left the office together.

“That’s kind.” Not a word she would’ve associated with the man who’d snarled at her to take the damn cab. Like a bad-tempered T-Rex, she thought.

Tuck zipped up his multicolored jacket with its dozens of pockets. “Yeah, but then he said if she didn’t improve over the next three months, she’d be out.” He drew a line across his throat. “I figure that’s fair, right? Especially now that she has a chance to get a promotion since Dolly isn’t around to push her favorites into the best spots.”

“Yes,” Charlotte said. “It’s very fair.” Harsh, but reasonable.

However, if she’d thought that first day was the end of it, she was wrong. She came into work the next day and quickly learned that T-Rex wasn’t finished. The atmosphere on her floor was muted and tense and hyperactive all at the same time as people tried to show they could do their jobs.

Anya kept Charlotte busy until Charlotte barely had five spare minutes to gulp down lunch at her desk. Charlotte wasn’t na?ve or stupid; she knew full well the other woman was taking advantage of her. Charlotte’s job was in Records, not as Anya’s assistant—but as long as Anya was too lazy to do her job, Charlotte’s would be secure. The fact was, with Records now so well computerized thanks to Charlotte’s own work, she’d worried she’d be seen as redundant, her head on the chopping block.

Especially with Gabriel Bishop on a mission to clean house.

He really was a T-Rex, stomping through the company, chewing up people and spitting them out left, right, and center. But the T-Rex wasn’t looking Charlotte’s way, and that was fine with her. She’d just be a quiet, industrious little mouse in the corner, not worth bothering with but too useful to fire.

Then the carnivorous creature decided to notice her.

Tuck was handing her a stack of mail that afternoon when the dreaded call came. “Boss wants to see you,” Anya said, a smirk in her tone. “Now. And bring your laptop.”

Her pulse in her mouth and her cheeks hot, Charlotte smoothed her hands down the dark brown linen of her calf-length skirt before pulling on the matching jacket over her white shirt. “Off I go to get eaten alive,” she said to Tuck, trying to make a joke out of what was no doubt her execution and failing abysmally.

The idea of those hard gray eyes on her, that icy focus… Goose bumps broke out over her skin as she picked up her laptop and slid it into a bag. She wasn’t sure she could carry it in her hands without it slipping out of her grasp; the fine tremor in her bones had her barely able to sling the strap of the bag over her shoulder.

“If he fires you,” Tuck said, his brown eyes stark with distress, “he’s an idiot.”

Charlotte wondered if Tuck would still say that if he knew she’d thrown a stapler at the boss’s head. As far as first impressions went, it couldn’t get much worse. Unless, of course, said stapler-throwing employee then lost the ability to speak while out at dinner with the same boss, instead doing an excellent impression of a statue.

Stomach knotting at the reminder of how badly she’d screwed up, she stepped out of her cubicle. Her skin prickled. It was obvious from the number of sympathetic eyes on her that people had guessed where she was headed and why. Not surprising. Three others from this floor had made the trek. None had returned, their belongings packed up by assistants assigned the task.

Some of her colleagues called out soft words of encouragement, but she could tell that despite their sympathy, they all thought she was a goner.

One of the senior people in Legal was more blunt when Charlotte passed her office. “I told you to apply for Anya’s position when it first opened up.”

Yes, she had, not seeming to realize the extent of Charlotte’s shyness. Charlotte’s inability to sell herself as an employee was pathetic. After being fired, she’d probably end up working for a mail-order business out of her home, never speaking to any other human except Molly. Eventually, she’d turn into a crazy woman with bird’s-nest hair who frightened small children and random telemarketers.

Shut up, Charlotte. This is not helping.

A second later, she was off her floor and climbing the stairs that led up to the managerial level. Taking several deep, gulping breaths when she reached the landing, she gripped the strap of her laptop bag and entered the floor. Everyone was too busy up here to stare at her—and quite a few offices were empty, the occupants booted out.

All too soon, she was in front of the automatic glass doors that guarded the CEO’s domain, the walls on either side of the doors also clear glass. The expensive renovation had been done by order of Bernard Hill, the previous CEO. Anya’s office lay in the section immediately beyond the glass, and it had a glorious view on the right as you walked in, courtesy of a floor-to-ceiling window that drenched the area in natural light.