“Why am I not surprised?” I saw the look on his face. This was him holding back laughing, but trying to remain serious.
“Kill her?” I rolled my eyes. “I’m not in the mafia, for Christ’s sake. I told her she’d regret messing with Addy again, though, and I meant it. That bitch was completely out of line.”
“You can understand why that might sound mafia-like to an old woman from Santa Monica, Avery,” he said, trying to hit me with that look again. I noticed him rereading the paper in front of him, and then I saw that tick he seemed to have when deep in thought. He touched each fingertip, one-by-one, to his thumb while he read. “You’ve been here for nearly nine days, yes?”
“Yes,” I said, angry that I’d fucked-up a new and excellent job. Jim was too serious, and I was too pissed that I’d let that woman get the best of me today.
“Well, I’ve never seen someone get reported to me in that amount of time. Honestly, I don’t believe I’ve ever had anyone reported to me for their behavior ever. Not unless there’s some sort of sexual harassment charges, but in your case,” he looked at me, “it’s regular harassment charges. It takes a hell of a lot to bring an employee past my HR team and directly to me. Would you know why that could be in your case and after only nine days working here?”
“I don’t know.” Tears were welling up in my eyes now. “Why don’t you just tell me?
“Avery.” He came across the desk and sat in the chair next to me. “I see that you are quite protective of Addison. I would have hoped you trusted that I was taking care of that woman after I talked with her yesterday. I didn’t need your threats toward her this morning to add to my removal of her.” He smirked. “I’m fairly sure you wouldn’t have followed through on those threats too.” His eyebrow arched, and damn, I missed him. “But it makes my case to remove her from that preschool more difficult than it needs to be.”
“You have to understand something about me,” I said, turning to face him and appreciating him coming to my side of the desk, perhaps as an understanding boss instead of the big exec standing imposingly behind his desk. “I’ve been in too many positions to protect Addy from the BS that comes her way. That woman started giving her the third-degree for forgetting her backpack. She’s three! I wouldn’t tolerate that from any teacher—here or at another preschool.”
He took my trembling hands into his large ones. “My lawyers—”
“Your lawyers? Are you suing me for this?”
“No.” He sighed. “Ms. Spokes threatened to sue my company over your behavior today. The lawyers were brought in with human resources and Alex late this morning. While we went through the surveillance footage, we noted a behavior with the woman that—well, let’s just say, she’s not suing anyone after the discussion we had with her. She signed off to leave the company.”
“What the hell was on those videos? I have a right to know. Did that woman fuck with Addison after—”
“No,” he said, rubbing the back of my tense hands. “She was negligent in her work. The videos also proved that she wasn’t acting according to her job requirements. Thank God other teachers were in her company, or perhaps, children could have been harmed. She was getting paid to play solitaire on her computer. She was given the option to pay us back for lack of working for the two years of having her with us or leave without a fuss.”
“So I’m not fired?”
“Actually, no,” he said. “But I am kindly asking that if you are upset with staff, you do not threaten to make anyone regret it next time.”
“If they come at Addy?”
“You’ll come directly to me,” he said with that CEO voice that was sexy until he used it on me. “I will handle it. We have security watching the preschool nonstop. No reason to go all Godfather and threaten to make anyone sleep with the fishes, okay?”
“All right,” I said. “Is that it then?”
He pulled his hands from mine and stood and smiled. “Yes. I would like to say that I don’t ever want to have to see you up here in my office again,” he pinched his lips together as I stood, “but that wouldn’t be true.”
His face seemed pained like he meant something else, but—hell. I