Chapter 32
CHAPTER 32
“ G ood luck, Nick,” Dana said, giving him a hopeful smile as her husband took her hand in his and gave it a gentle pull that had her following him to the door. He wanted to go after his little recluse before she consumed a shit load of sugar, but he had to fix the damn problem she’d just created.
She’d worked too damn hard to throw it away now and as much as he appreciated her concern, he could take care of himself. There was no doubt in his mind that she could sign with any publishing company in the world, but he wanted her here where Rick could watch over her.
“Can somebody please explain to me how we just lost our two best authors in one day?” Jonathan demanded as soon as Dana and Edward left.
“Because instead of allowing me to explain the situation, you listened to Miss Johnson,” Rick explained tightly as he stood up and walked over to the minibar to pour himself a drink. “And now, we not only lost one of our best agents,” he said, gesturing towards Nick with his drink, “But the two top authors in the world.”
Who in the hell was Miss Johnson? Nick wondered as he joined Rick at the bar. Since no one had called security on him yet, he decided to stick around and try to fix this mess for his little recluse.
“I think you should reconsider your position on Miss Harris’ job. She’s a damn good editor and our clients trust her, but more importantly, they rely on her,” Nick said, taking a sip of his drink.
“He’s right. As soon as they find out that she’s no longer working for us, they’ll panic and the ones that were considering signing with us will go somewhere else,” Rick said, backing him up.
“I didn’t want to fire either of them in the first place, but after what Miss Johnson said, I didn’t feel as though we had a choice and now look at the mess that we’re in,” Margaret said as she joined them and gestured for him to pour her a drink.
“Who is Miss Johnson and what exactly did she say that cost me my job?” Nick asked, curious about the woman who’d just fucked them over as he poured Margret a drink and handed it to her.
“Holly,” Rick drawled as Nick looked for the woman who’d fucked them all over only to discover that she’d already made her escape.
“Oh? And what exactly did she say?” Nick asked in a bored tone as he took another sip, welcoming the burn as it coated his throat.
“Apparently, she decided to go behind my back after I refused to allow her to return to help with the tour,” Rick said, making him wonder why she tried to come back.
“She claimed that under your direction, Miss Harris wasn’t getting much work done and that you were ignoring your duties to be with her. At first, we didn’t think much of it,” Jonathan said as he joined them for a drink. “But after that video, the tour cancelation and, of course, the complaints we received in the past few days-”
“What complaints?” Nick asked, interrupting him.
Anthony, who’d been pretty quiet up to this point, joined them. “We started to receive complaints that you were ignoring vendors, were rude to readers, and were late to signings and left early without a word. When we asked Miss Johnson about it, she reluctantly admitted that you refused to help her with the signings and at one point, Miss Harris disappeared, leaving a long line of angry readers with absolutely no idea when she would be back.”
“I don’t understand why you didn’t ask me what happened,” Nick said, pouring Anthony a drink. “I could have cleared this whole thing up quickly. None of it’s true. We never left early. In fact, Jamie worked her ass off and stayed as long as it took to meet everyone that came to see her because she felt bad about leaving, knowing that they’d been waiting to meet her. In case you haven’t noticed, she’s painfully shy and that was a hell of a lot of stress for her to deal with, but she did everything that we asked of her.”
His little recluse worked her ass off and shouldn’t be dealing with this bullshit. She had enough to deal with. Her family screwed her over and lied to her, and thanks to a few phone calls, he now knew they’d fucked her over again. She’d just lost her home. She had a fucking psycho on her ass and he’d be damned if he let them take away something that she loved.
“As far as Miss Johnson is concerned,” Nick said tightly, “I’m afraid you’ve been misled. During the brief time that Miss Johnson accompanied us on this tour, she proved to not only be incompetent but also resentful as I explained to Rick. She caused problems that I was forced to deal with and she left Miss Harris near tears. Before the convention was over, I decided that she wasn’t capable of doing her job and asked Rick to remove her.”
“He did,” Rick agreed, finishing his drink. “But, before I had a chance to speak with Holly, she went over my head and filed complaints with your offices. If you’d explained your concerns earlier, I would have been more than happy to go over this with you.”
They let out a collective sigh as they shared another one of those looks that gave him hope that they’d take his little recluse back. “I apologize for the misunderstanding, Mr. Quinn. Would you please consider forgetting this incident and continuing working with us?” Jonathan asked, suddenly looking exhausted. Not that he could blame him since this little episode had left him reeling.
“As long as you allow Miss Harris to do the same,” Nick said without hesitation.
Jonathan didn’t bother looking at his partners as he nodded. “Consider it done.”
“Thank you,” Nick said, more than willing to let this go as long as his little recluse was safe and happy. He was just about to go after her when Eric’s assistant burst into the room and-
“The police are looking for Miss Johnson.”
“Stupid lock,” Jamie muttered as she gave up trying to break into the filing cabinet and rescue her poor, lonely coffee roll that desperately needed her attention.
She was stressed out, which, unfortunately for her, never ended well. She needed chocolate, sugar, caffeine, just something sweet to calm her down, Jamie thought as she left Nick’s office. For a moment, she stood there contemplating her options only to realize that there weren’t many since she couldn’t leave the building. Well, she could, but then she’d have to face the horde of paparazzi that were waiting outside.
Granted, she had to leave sometime. Why not now? She needed to get her hands on some sugar and clear her head and there was no way that she would be able to do that with an office full of people that watched her have sex. It was definitely time to leave, Jamie decided as she lowered her gaze to the floor and made her way to her office only to frown when she smelled it, the overpowering stench of cheap perfume leading to her office door.
She opened her office door only to find Holly looking at her laptop, the same laptop that she’d left in the bag beneath her desk.
“What are you doing?” Jamie asked as she walked into her office in time to see Holly remove a thumb drive from her laptop and quickly slid it into her pocket.
“I was just leaving you a note,” Holly said smoothly as she plastered a smile on her face.
“On my computer?” Jamie demanded as she quickly made her way around her desk only to feel her stomach drop when she realized that Holly had somehow got around her password.
“It was open,” Holly said, shrugging it off as she made her way around the desk and headed for the door.
“No, it wasn’t,” Jamie said, clicking open the recent documents folder and what she saw there had her seeing red. “You went through my private files?” she demanded as she looked up to find Holly watching her with something close to pity.
“Someone else must have gone through them, Miss Harris. I only came in here to leave you a note,” Holly said dismissively.
“Then, where’s the note?” Jamie demanded even though everything in her screamed for her to shut up and leave it alone, but she just couldn’t. Holly had gone through the books she’d written, her e-mails, and her lists.
“I figured out what I needed, so I guess I didn’t need to leave a note after all,” Holly said as Jamie picked up the phone.
“Fine. Then, we’ll just let Rick handle this,” Jamie said, starting to press the extension for Rick’s office only to find the phone suddenly yanked out of her hand.
“You can’t do that!” Holly snapped, looking furious.
“Watch me,” Jamie said, moving to take the phone back only to have Holly pull it out of her reach. “Holly, give me- What did you do to my computer ?” Jamie snapped as she watched in horror as the files on computer began to flicker before disappearing one by one.
Trying not to panic, Jamie tried to turn off her computer and when that didn’t work, she began clicking on her files, hoping to save them only to watch everything on her desktop disappear faster until the screen turned a stomach-clenching black.
In a matter of seconds, everything was gone, her notes, her lists, the books that she was editing, and the two books that she owed Rerum Publishing. They were due next month and there was no way that she was going to be able to finish them in time.
“Why?” Jamie mumbled hollowly as she looked up to find Holly swallowing hard as she glanced from her to the door behind her.
“I-I...” Holly stammered as she dropped the phone and rushed towards the door only to have Jamie step in her way.
“Why did you destroy my work?” Jamie demanded as Holly tried to move past her, but she wasn’t going anywhere.
She was done letting people push her around.
For so long, she’d allowed people to take advantage of her, to walk all over her, and push her around simply because they knew that they could, but now…
She was done.
“If you don’t start talking right now, then I’m going to call the police,” Jamie bit out as she watched Holly swallow hard seconds before she reached for her. Jamie tried to duck out of the way, but unfortunately for her, Holly was faster than her.
“You can’t do that!” Holly snapped as she squeezed her arms tightly. “You’ll ruin everything!”
“Let go of me!” Jamie ground out as she struggled to break free, but Holly refused to let her go.
“Look, I can fix this. I’ll get Rick to push back the date on your contract. I already planned on doing that. Now that Nick’s gone, Rick will have no choice but to let me take over your contract. It should have been mine in the first place, but now that Nick’s gone, I can make you bigger than Dana Pierce,” Holly said as her manicured fingernails dug into Jamie’s skin, making her wince.
“Let me go,” Jamie snapped as she struggled to pull away from her.
“You have to believe me. If Nick had just backed off like he was supposed to, I never would have had to resort to destroying your books, Jamie. He didn’t need you, not like I needed you,” Holly said with a crazed look in her eye that actually terrified her.
“What are you talking about?” Jamie demanded, trying to pull free again, but the crazed woman refused to let her go.
“Nick’s already a senior agent. He didn’t need you, but that bastard was too selfish to give anyone else a chance. Don’t you understand?” Holly demanded as she shook Jamie roughly. “I had the best chance of getting J.L. Lewis. I’ve been here the longest. It was supposed to be my turn,” Holly angrily bit out with so much venom that Jamie momentarily forgot about the pain in her arms while she watched Holly struggle to stay in control as she pushed her against the wall.
“I thought you wanted Nick,” Jamie said quietly only to have Holly slam her against the wall.
“Want him?” Holly asked with a humorless laugh. “Why would I want him? He’s a whore just like his mother, only he does it for free,” she said acidly. “But before you came along, he was the key to everything.”