The Rancher Meets His Match (The Millers of Morgan Valley #4) - Kate Pearce Page 0,95
advice?”
“Because it’s so much easier to give advice than to take it?” Kaiden murmured, and searched for his phone. “I should text Mom and let her know where I am.”
“While you’ve got your phone out you could easily call Julia,” Ben said.
Kaiden sent him a death glare and Ben grinned.
“You came here for advice, Bro. If you don’t like what you’re hearing that’s definitely on you.”
Chapter Nineteen
“So in conclusion, we’ve had an excellent year.” Blaine smirked at Mr. Bashear. “I truly believe that my taking over the leadership role really improved our standards and morale, which were, in my opinion, getting sloppy.”
Julia tried not to roll her eyes as she sat on the sidelines of the conference room in front of the rest of her team watching while Blaine kissed Mr. Bashear’s ass. She’d had an excellent and insightful breakfast meeting with Mr. B earlier, and had come out with more hope inside her than she’d had for months.
From the other side of the room, Melanie applauded as Blaine shut his laptop and the lights came up.
“Well done, Blaine.” She smiled at Mr. Bashear. “I told you he’d do well, didn’t I?”
Blaine was about to rejoin his group when Mr. Bashear stood up.
“I have a couple of questions about your presentation, if I may?”
“Sure!” Blaine swung around. “How can I help you?”
What followed was little short of a massacre. Blaine couldn’t answer almost any of the big boss’s pointed questions mainly because he’d had no interest in learning anything Julia had tried to teach him. Whenever he tried to deflect or blame her or the rest of the team, Mr. B refused to accept his excuses. He wouldn’t even let Melanie answer for him. By the end, even Julia was beginning to feel sorry for her archenemy.
Mr. Bashear turned to her.
“Julia, can you help with any of this?”
“Yes, of course, Mr. Bashear.” She gestured to the rest of her team to stand as well. “What do you want to know?”
* * *
Julia waited as everyone except she, Melanie, and Blaine filed out of the conference room and Mr. Bashear beckoned them to come forward.
“Melanie, after watching that debacle do you still stand by your decision?”
“Of course I do. I wasn’t going to mention it, Edward, but Julia has done nothing but undermine Blaine since the moment I put him in charge.” She shot Julia an angry look. “I’m not surprised he didn’t have the ability to answer you today. She probably fed him the wrong information.”
Mr. B turned to her. “Is that true, Julia?”
“I’m not sure how it could be true, sir, seeing as you asked me exactly the same questions you asked Blaine, and I used the information in the report to answer them.” Julia kept her voice and her gaze level.
“That is correct.” The big boss nodded. “Blaine was underprepared.”
“Because Julia constantly turns my team against me!” Blaine spoke up. “She just wants me to look bad!”
“I think you managed that all by yourself, son,” Mr. Bashear said. “I was almost embarrassed by your lack of knowledge.” He looked at Melanie. “And I must confess that I was interested enough in your negative reports about Julia, who happens to be one of my protégés, to check out her credentials, and compare them with Blaine’s.”
Melanie went still.
“Imagine my surprise when I found out that not only did Blaine barely manage to get his law degree, but he happens to be your nephew. Something he didn’t declare on his application. Would you like to comment on that, Melanie?”
Julia fought the urge to gawk as Melanie’s hand crept to her throat.
“That . . . didn’t weigh on my hiring decision, I—”
“I believe it did,” Mr. Bashear said gently. “I abhor nepotism. I wouldn’t even take my son into this firm until he’d done ten years with a competitor.”
He looked over at Julia. “Thank you for your time, Julia, and please thank your team.”
“I will, Mr. Bashear.” Julia smiled.
Even as she left the room, she wished she could be a fly on the wall. Would Melanie and Blaine manage to keep their jobs, or would Mr. B fire them both? He was quite a stickler for the rules. Whatever happened next, she wouldn’t be working with either of them again, which was the best news ever.
In the outer office, Miley came bouncing up to her, braids flying in every direction.
“Hey! We did it! We crushed it!”
Julia accepted the high five and finally smiled. “You were all awesome.”