Chapter 2

Whispers followed me back to my desk.

“Jesus. He really laid into her. That was brutal.”

“She actually bought a five-thousand-dollar chair? She really does think she’s his wife.”

I ignored the mocking looks and the pity, sat down, and quietly canceled the ergonomic chair.

Then I worked through the year-end cash budget, recalculating it one item at a time.

By the time I finished, the workday was nearly over. I opened my email and finally replied to the offer I’d been sitting on for so long.

“Hi, it’s Claire Bennett.

“Is your offer to bring me on as CFO at three times my current salary still on the table?”

Rachel leaned over and saw the projected $750,000 rebate drop to zero.

Her jaw fell open.

“Has Grant lost his mind? I handle cash flow. If the client’s payment comes in late and we don’t get that rebate, the company won’t even have enough to make payroll, will it?”

I sighed and pointed to the red mark on my forehead.

“He told me to get the hell out. What was I supposed to do?”

Rachel hesitated. “So… did you two have a fight?”

People around the office had been acting strangely lately, giving me those oh-this-is-juicy looks.

I frowned. “Why does everyone keep talking to me like that?”

Rachel had never been one to mince words.

“Well, you and Grant were always together. We all wondered if you were dating.”

“Lately, someone’s been saying the intern is his actual girlfriend. Now people are saying you’ve wanted to marry him all along, and you’re trying to come between them…”

“Me and Grant? We’re not together. He’s my boss. That’s it.”

She shrugged. “Who knows? People love gossip.”

I’d worked my way into this position, and they’d reduced all of it to something he’d handed me.

I forced myself to calm down, picked up the rebate adjustment confirmation for the canceled order, and headed back to Grant’s office. I was going to make this clear.

Eight years ago, when I’d needed money to cover my mother’s out-of-pocket surgery costs, he’d given me a job and advanced six months of my salary.

He’d helped save my mother’s life. I’d return the favor by saving his company.

I would spell it out: refuse to spend $5,000, and he’d lose $750,000.

Rachel hurried over and pressed her salary advance request into my hand.

“You know what’s going on with my baby… Please put in a good word for me.”

I took it, gathered the paperwork, and knocked before entering Grant’s office.

“Grant, I canceled the chair.”

He toyed with his pen without looking up.

“Good. Don’t buy expensive things in front of Vanessa again. She’s proud. It makes her feel bad.”

I frowned. So the $6,000 Lady Dior bag he’d given her as a welcome gift didn’t make her feel bad?

Before I could say anything, he snatched the confirmation out of my hand and scrawled his signature across it.

Then he lifted Rachel’s request between two fingers.

“Why are you bringing me this useless paperwork? Take it away.”

“Just because you’ve been here a long time doesn’t mean you get to play the hero with my money.”

I’d had enough.

“Rachel’s husband just lost his job. Her baby needs special formula and can’t go without it. It’s only five hundred dollars—”

Grant cut me off with an impatient frown.

“I think Vanessa’s right.”

“You old fossils are parasites. You’ve been here so long that every time something goes wrong in your lives, you expect the company to bail you out.”

“Today it’s a salary advance. Tomorrow it’s special treatment. How is this company supposed to grow?”

I looked at his cold, calculating expression and couldn’t reconcile him with the kind man I’d known eight years earlier.

Maybe being the boss for too long made it easy to forget that other people had problems, too. Harder to care about anyone beneath him.

“All right. Sorry to bother you.”

I took the signed confirmation and walked out.

Rachel was waiting, her face full of hope.

“He wouldn’t approve the advance. But I have something better. Want to hear it?”

By now, I should have a reply.