ChapterSix
DAVID
Matt kept me out late that Friday night, so I spent the rest of my weekend relaxing and catching up on work.
I got into the office early Monday morning to finish up some last-minute paperwork that I needed for the meeting I had scheduled with the legal department. Lily was going to be in that meeting, so I wanted to be completely prepared. She could try to ignore me all she wanted, but at the end of the day, I was her boss, and I was sure as hell going to act like it. I was going to keep things professional while also making sure I didn’t accidentally say or doanythingthat could undermine my authority. I got enough snark and questioning behavior from my dad, I didn’t need to give anyone else in the office reason to think I wasn’t capable of running Becker Tech.
That was another reason why I needed this meeting to go well, because the company was currently being sued by an ex-employee whom I worried could bring some bad publicity down on us if we didn’t handle things in the best way.
Seeing as all the other lawyers on our legal team were busy with other cases—not lawsuits filed against us, but ones that we had filed against other companies for intellectual property infringement and the like—Lily would be the one heading up this case. This would be the first time I actually got to watch her work, and I was curious to see if she was as good as she seems to think she was.
At 9:05, my calendar chirped to remind me of the meeting starting in ten minutes, so I gathered all the files and headed to the conference room down the hall. Lily was already there, but no one else from the legal team was with her.
“Good morning, Miss McAvoy, thank you for being early.”
“I’m always early to important meetings,” she said. “And good morning to you Mr. Becker. I haven’t heard a word from the rest of the team, but I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”
“Great,” I said. I sat down across the table from her and spread the various folders I had with me out in between the two of us. “Seeing as you are going to be the lead on this project anyway, I say we go ahead and get started without them. You can brief them later on. I don’t think this meeting is really going to take long at all. It’s a pretty cut and dry case, I think it’s obvious how we should proceed.”
She frowned. “Perhaps it’s more obvious to you than it is to me. Please, do tell me whatyouthink we should do.”
“Sure,” I said. “I think we should settle. Give Mark whatever he wants, enough to keep his mouth shut, and then move on from this.”
“With all due respect, sir,” she said. “I very much disagree.”
I leaned back in my seat and folded my hands in my lap. “You do? Why does that not surprise me? All right then, state your case. What doyouthink we should do to handle this mess?”
“Well,” she asserted. “First of all, I don’t think the company should pay this mana dime. I was talking to people who worked with him all of last week, and it’s obvious that he was a terrible employee. You had more than a dozen reasons to fire him. Everyone in the office disliked him, not to mentiontwodifferent women in the company filed sexual harassment claims against him.”
“I know,” I said. “Why do you think I got rid of him? He was hands down the worst employee this company has ever had, but he is claiming wrongful termination and I’m worried that if we drag this out, it could go bad for us in the press.”
“His case is thin atbest,” Lily said. “He’s claiming that you fired him because you found out he was a recovering alcoholic, but there’s no way he’s going to be able to prove that. Not to mention, I spoke to the janitor who cleaned out his desk after the guy was escorted from the building, and he told me he found a stash of empty liquor bottles as well as a few that were half full. He was drinking on the job meaning he wasn’t a recovering alcoholic. Or at least, the recovery wasn’t working.”
“Even still.” I tapped my finger on one of the files. “If he goes to the press with this, the headline is going to read that we fired someone who was trying to beat his addiction. Social media is going to eat us alive, and I cannot afford a scandal right now. If we settle, then we can get him to sign an NDA, he gets a bunch of money, and we can all breathe easy.”
“And what are you going to tell the two women he harassed? Oh, sorry, he made a pass at you and made you feel unsafe at work, but you see, he was probably drunk when he did, so we have to let him off the hook.”
“It sucks,” I agreed. “It’s not how I wanted things to shake out either, but this is our safest bet. We can’t let things like this rock the boat, not when they are so easy to dismiss with just a little bit of money. I’m sorry, but I’ve made up my mind.”
Lily shrugged and sat back. “Fine. If that’s what you want to do.” I saw a playful smile dance across her face. “I just didn’t take you for a coward, that’s all.”
I nearly jumped out of my chair I was so insulted. No one had ever called me a coward in my whole life. At least, not to my face. The reason for that is because if someonehadever called me a coward to my face, they wouldn’t have been able to say anything else to me before I got a chance to prove them wrong, right then and there. By whatever means necessary.
“Miss McAvoy,” I said, working very hard to keep my voice from getting too loud. “I’m not exactly sure what gave you the impression that you can talk to me like that, but I feel I must remind you that I am the CEO of this company. I can have you fired in a shorter amount of time than it would take you to walk back to your desk, do you understand me?”
“I do,” she said. I thought I heard the faintest whisper of concern in her voice, but to her credit, she did not break eye contact with me. “And if that’s what you want to do, then go ahead, fire me, but let me tell you this first—Your company hired me because I amverygood at what I do. I understand that giving this Mark guy a chunk of change is the easy way out, and you’re the boss so you ultimately get to decide what we do, but I’m just letting you know that I can win this case.” She laughed. “Hell, I could win this case in my sleep.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Fire me,” she said. “Fire me, and I promise I won’t come after you with my own wrongful termination lawsuit.”
She was staring me right in the eye, and while I was frustrated with her brazenness, I couldn’t help but also be a little turned on. This was a woman who knew what she wanted and was determined to take it, just like she knew the night we met thatIwas what she wanted. A memory from that night interrupted my train of thought, and I remembered what her body looked like underneath the tight black skirt and jacket she was currently wearing. My pants got a little tighter around my groin area, and I instinctively tucked my chair in more to not let her see.
“Tell me how you’re going to win this case,” I said after a few seconds of charged silence. “And I will decide whether or not you have what it takes.”
She smiled at me, and I stared at her mouth without meaning to.
God, I want to kiss her.