by Kelsie Fann
James sat down at the chair in front of her desk. “Is there something wrong with that?” she asked, not knowing what else there was to report. She’d landed three new clients in May, mostly clients the Chambers Marketing closure had left behind.
James pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Not at all. Your bosses are very pleased.”
“What are you working on?” He looked at her computer screen, where her fingers were still poised over the keyboard.
She tried to think of the last item for the agenda, but she couldn’t figure it out. She took her hands off the keyboard and gave James her full attention. “Just our staff meeting agenda. Can I help you?” she asked.
He grinned. “I’d like to stick around for a few days. See how you’re building your branch.”
Liz took her hands off the keyboard and leaned toward James. There had to be more to the story. “Really?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He looked around and lowered his voice even though the executive office was empty. “The managing director for our Denver office hasn’t brought in any business, and he hired a ton of employees.” He leaned in closer. “They opened when you did, and they haven’t landed their first client. Our board members are just a few weeks from demanding his resignation.”
Liz leaned back in her chair. Both offices had been open three months. Liz swallowed hard, realizing she needed to continue pushing hard for new clients if the board were only giving a small runway. “That’s quick.”
“It’s all about profits.” James straightened his jacket and looked up at Liz. “I thought I could come down, maybe get some tips to take back north.”
Liz leaned back in her chair and thought through their client list. They were pitching two new ones this week. “I can’t take all the credit. I’ve got a great team.” She looked through the glass wall at Rose, Elise and Stella. “Sometimes Stella and Elise are a little young and immature, but they’re driven and creative,” she said.
“It seems like they’re doing a little better under your leadership.” James turned and glanced through the glass wall toward her busy staff, who were all sitting at their desks working.
“Well, my first rule was no Snapchat in the office.” She smiled at James, then stood up and started clearing off the desk next to hers for James to use. “Do you want to see anything specific while you’re here?”
“That desk won’t be necessary.” James stood up and watched the other employees until his eyes settled on a member from her team. “Maybe I could shadow Rose for a few days,” he said quickly, like he already knew what he wanted.
Liz inhaled sharply. She knew James had a thing for Rose at the company party, and she knew the policy against interoffice dating. She tried to think up a reason to tell her boss he couldn’t shadow her best team member, but she couldn’t think of anything fast enough. “Okay,” she said slowly.
“Great.” James got up from his chair and walked out of the executive offices. Liz watched through the glass walls as he rolled an office chair up to Rose’s desk. Liz sighed as her friend immediately began blushing.
Liz shook her head. This wouldn’t be good. Liz looked at her computer screen, remembering her half-finished meeting agenda. She realized she didn’t have time to worry about James and Rose.
“The last thing was . . . ” Liz tried to think of the last item she needed to discuss with no luck. She typed a few question marks on the bottom of the agenda, praying the last item came to her before the meeting was over.
9.
Liz spent the last weeks of June busting it. She busted her butt; she busted her brain; she busted her legs; she busted her fingernails. Every part of her body that could work, she made work harder than it ever had before.
James’s revelation that the director in Denver might get fired less than three months after being hired made Liz’s blood pressure skyrocket. She wanted, needed, to make Savannah work, and for it to work, they needed to be profitable. The only way she could make sure the branch stay profitable was to stay lean.
Which meant that she continued to fill in the roles of office manager, sales manager, and creative team lead.
The immense amount of work should have burnt her out after a couple weeks, but it didn’t. She was more energized than ever. Any time anyone in the office had a problem, they came to her. Any time anyone needed advice, they came to her. For the first time, she felt indispensable, even more than she had felt when working for Chambers.
In the tiny moments she had to herself before she fell asleep, she even began to dream of Darcy’s words to her at Dee’s reception: vice president. Maybe if she kept it up, Darcy would notice all the sacrifices and time she’d given up and give her a promotion.
She didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about her new goal because every night, her exhaustion took over, and she fell asleep within seconds, only to wake up the next day ready to work.
On the first Thursday of the August, after she’d spent the morning planning pitches for five potential clients and proofing three social media campaigns, she got an email from her boss. It was Darcy who put the first speed bump in front of her. And it was a big one.
To: Liz
From: Darcy
Please look over all of the expenses for the month. Seeing some irregularities. Please advise.
Darcy
Liz clicked on the attachment and began poring over the Excel file when Darcy called her office phone less than five minutes later. She let the phone ring for a few seconds as she scanned the file. She wished she had time to go through it more thoroughly, but Darcy wasn’t someone she could send to voicemail.
After the third ring, she picked up the phone.
“Liz.” His greeting was quick and clipped.
“Hello, Darcy.” She matched his speed.
“Did you see my email?”
She scrolled through to the bottom of the Excel file, noting a few large purchases, but overall, it looked okay. “Yes, just looking over the expenses now.”
Since there wasn’t anyone in the executive office except Liz, she put Darcy on speaker phone as she went back through the document once more. “Putting you on speaker. Can you give me a minute to look through the file again?”
After a few minutes and nothing to report, she sighed. “I haven’t found anything out of the ordinary,” she said.
“May 5, May 6, May 7. Three days in a row. All $1,000—even--expenses,” Darcy said matter-of-factly. “Credit card purchases, all saying cks.com.”
Liz tried to think back to those days and what they spent money on, but she couldn’t remember. So much happened every day that she could barely remember what she ate for lunch.
The tone of Darcy’s voice and the fact that they were talking about financial documents made her mind pound with the not-so-pretty past. Liz felt like she was transported back to the night when Darcy sat across from her and told her Chambers’s expenses were not realistic. Her stomach dropped. She could not, would not, let anything financial get in the way of her progress this time.
“I can’t remember,” Liz said. She couldn’t believe she just admitted that she didn’t know where thousands of dollars went. She laid her head on the desk and was sure that she was about to lose her job for the second time.
Instead, Darcy showed mercy. “I know you have had a lot of startup costs,” Darcy said. “Keep more detailed records, please.”
Liz exhaled the breath she’d been holding for the past few seconds. She wanted to ask if she could hire an office manager to keep a look at the expenses, but she already felt like she was on thin ice.
“Any client issues I need to know about?” Darcy asked.
Before she could answer, a handsome, golden man walked into her office. Frantically, Liz tried to pick up the phone and take Darcy off speaker. But she wasn’t quick enough. “Darcy was too cheap to buy a new building?” Hamilton asked; his voice was loud. Too loud.
Liz gripped her the arm of her chair tightly. Darcy was still on speaker phone, and his
archenemy was in his newly procured office. “Who is that?” Darcy’s voice asked. Liz froze.
Liz knew Darcy would not be happy to find out Hamilton was in the office. Liz shook her head at Hamilton and put her finger over her lips, praying he wouldn’t speak any more, and she could tell Darcy that it was just a sales guy.
Hamilton ignored her cues and bent down over her desk, getting closer to the speaker phone. “Hi, old friend.”
Liz gripped the side of her desk; her knuckles were immediately white.
“Why is Hamilton in my building?” Darcy snapped.
Liz could hear the anger in Darcy’s voice, and she was definitely glad they were separated by several states and hundreds of miles.
Before Liz could say anything to calm Darcy, Hamilton leaned closer to Liz’s phone and spoke again. “Didn’t you know I’m spending time with your most valuable player?” Hamilton smiled at Liz and winked.
Liz wasn’t ready for this. “Can I call you back, Darcy?” She didn’t wait for Darcy’s answer. She hung up the phone, stood, and grabbed Hamilton by the cream linen jacket he was wearing.
“Hamilton, I’m working.” She tried to pull him out of the office, but he didn’t move. Instead, he stepped closer. They stood there, the fabric of his jacket balled up in her fist. She felt the heat off of his chest.
She looked up into his piercing blue eyes, and he grinned. “Have dinner with me?”
She couldn’t help but smile back. “I’d love to, but I can’t tonight.” She pointed to the stack of papers on her desk.
“Are you sure? I am only in town for one night.” He pulled her in tighter until his body touched almost every part of hers. “Last chance.” He raised his eyebrows.
She looked around, trying to find a way out of the pile of work in front of her, but there was no one who could do it, no one except her. Her heart broke as she realized she was stuck at work.
“I’m sorry. I can’t,” Liz said. Her words came out thick and hushed. She wondered if she could turn him down if he asked twice.
She realized she still had his jacket clenched in her fist. She let it go and smoothed the fabric with her hand. He stepped away from her. “No worries. I’ll just have to try harder next time.”
Liz exhaled and nodded, and he walked out of her office without another word. She thought about running after him, but before she could put one foot in front of the other, her phone rang.
She looked at the number. It was Darcy. This time there was no–even a short—greeting. This time, there was just anger. Liz started to apologize for hanging up on him, but before she could get the words out, he got to his point.
“Don’t be stupid. He’s using you to get to me.”
Wait. Did he say stupid? Was it so hard for Darcy to believe that someone liked her?
Liz stood up at her desk, towering over her speaker phone so Darcy could clearly hear her voice. She didn’t want to call her boss a “rich jerk” . . . again, but she wanted him to know he couldn’t talk down to her. Liz took a deep breath, then chose her words very carefully. “I am not stupid.”
A few moments passed on the phone. She expected an apology from Darcy, but she didn’t get one. “I don’t want my employees dating the competition. I don’t want that type of culture,” he said after a few more seconds.
Liz didn’t want to be reprimanded by the man she was working eighty hours a week to guarantee Pemberley Savannah’s success.
“Please do not date him,” Darcy added. “Please.”
Liz took two sharp breaths in. She pictured the scowl that was probably fixed on his face. She took the phone off speaker, grabbed it with her right hand, and put it up to her ear.
“I’m your employee, and you can tell me what to do while I’m at work. You can make me run your office, even babysit your partner.” She looked up at James, who was flirting with Rose. “But you cannot tell me whom I can see after work.”
A few more seconds passed, then almost a minute. Liz looked down at her phone to see if Darcy hung up on her. “Are you there, Darcy?” she asked.
“Goodbye, Liz.” His tone was emotionless, but she knew he was not. Click. He hung up the phone. Liz froze with the receiver in her hand. She moved her eyes back and forth, trying to figure out what just happened.
Liz sat back down at her desk and put her face in her hands. Her heart ached for her relationship with Darcy. Despite his rough exterior, she liked Darcy. She respected him as her employer.
All that didn’t matter because if he didn’t respect her decisions and her life, then even the best working relationship was doomed.
10.
For a month, the only communication between Liz and Darcy was a few curt emails. As their correspondence disappeared, so did the easy relationship they’d established during the first few months of opening the Savannah office. There was no joking and no bantering back and forth. Just emails containing questions, requests, and responses. Not even a ”sincerely” to end the exchange.
Even though Liz was disappointed to lose her relationship with Darcy, but she wasn’t going to apologize for seeing Hamilton. She had spent her twenties apologizing for things she wasn’t sorry for, and she wasn’t about to spend her thirties doing the same thing.
When Darcy called her on a Tuesday afternoon a month after their phone fight, she swallowed the lump in her throat and picked up the phone. “There are three ten thousand-dollar charges on sequential days: September 22, 23, and 24,” Darcy said without a greeting.
Liz pulled her hair over her shoulder. Earlier that morning, she’d seen the credit card statement, and the breakfast she’d eaten was still swirling around in her stomach undigested. She had no idea where $30,000 had gone.
Liz already looked through the meticulous notes she had started keeping on every purchase since the last incident, and she knew she hadn’t made any $10,000 purchase, let alone three consecutive ones.
“Liz?” Darcy asked.
“Yes.” She knew she should tell him the truth that she hadn’t made the purchases. But this wasn’t just a few grand like last time. This was a huge chunk of money that was unaccounted for, and she was pretty sure he was going to fire her this time.
“Did you make these purchases?” he asked. Liz knew the answer to that question: no. She just didn’t know how to say it.
She wanted to run outside and get fresh air. Instead, she evaded his question. “I don’t know. A lot has been going on.” Maybe if she could just get a couple days to investigate, she would figure out what was happening.
Darcy muttered something under his breath. “Find out. You have a week.” He hung up the phone.
Her tactic had worked, for now. “I will,” Liz whispered into the receiver, knowing she was on paper thin ice.
For the next week, Liz kept the credit card so close to her that she almost went to sleep with it. It didn’t matter. Seven days later, another purchase showed up, but it was worse. Way worse. This time there was an $100,000 purchase, again to a random website, that wasn’t accounted for.
As Liz scanned the bill, she allowed one giant tear to roll down her cheek. Her head started spinning. There were too many ad campaigns running at the same time for her to keep track of everything; she still didn’t have administrative help, and now she was supposed to figure out a financial mystery. There was nothing Liz hated more than feeling like she was failing.
Liz took a few deep breaths, then she wiped away her tear and got back to work. She had to pitch a new client in twenty minutes, and she didn’t know the first thing about their landscaping business, or grass for that matter.
The second her pitch was done, she was back in her office and poring over her bill. And a second later, Darcy called.
“Did you authorize it?” Darcy asked.
This time, she didn’t need fresh air. She needed something harder—like a half-gallon of mint chocolate ice cream. She tried to keep calm, but she couldn’t help her voice from shaking. “I don’t know what is happening,” she
said. “Are you sure we can’t freeze our accounts?”
“No. If someone in the office is doing this, that won’t help,” Darcy said. “It’s not about the money, Liz. It’s about loyalty. Figure it out by the end of the day. Or I will.”
Liz opened the spreadsheet of purchases. She had no idea how she would figure out the problem, but she had to try. “Okay, Darcy.”
He didn’t wait a second before he continued, “I’m coming down tomorrow morning if you don’t have an answer today.”
“Okay,” Liz said slowly. On one hand, she was grateful he wasn’t blaming the crazy expenses on her. On the other, she didn’t want him to come down. It was hard enough talking to him over the phone.
“Goodbye, Liz.”
“Goodbye, Darcy.” She hung up the phone, pored over the spreadsheet, and vowed to stay at work until she figured out the answer.
By the end of the workday, Liz wasn’t any closer to an answer. For the hundredth time, she looked at her written record of purchases she’d authorized, and there was nothing even close to $100,000.
Liz looked through the glass wall into the rest of the office. The truth was too scary to admit. There were only four other people on staff. At some point, at a lunch for a client or during a busy day when Liz didn’t have enough fingers to type, she’d handed the credit card to Rose, Stella, Elise, and her new salesperson, Glen. Any of them had a chance to write down the information and use it whenever they wanted, but Liz couldn’t fathom that amount of betrayal from her creative team.
The only other possibility was Glen. She watched him pick up his lunchbox and walk out of the door. He was twenty-four, ambitious, and great with clients, but he had just stopped shaking when he talked to her. She didn’t think he had the nerve to steal that much money.
When Liz hadn’t called Darcy with an answer by the end of the day, she knew her fate was sealed. He would be coming tomorrow. Liz hoped she would at least get a good night’s sleep before he confronted her, but a minute after Rose, the last employee left in the office, went home, the building door swung open.
