4. Rome
“She’s playing hardball.”I bit off the words, meeting Arthur’s troubled gaze across my desk. Cole swore and spun around, shoving his hand through his hair. I pushed away from my desk and crossed the few feet to stand by the floor-to-ceiling windows in my office.
Dozens of stories below us, Manhattan squirmed with life. Pedestrians jostled on the streets and cars sped past in a frantic flow of life and energy.
I loved the city. Loved the chaos of it, loved how there was always something to see or do. I’d grown up feeling like a cast-off, like I belonged nowhere. Now, surrounded by the life and turmoil of the millions of residents of Manhattan, I felt like I was part of something bigger than myself.
I’d built something bigger than myself. The one thing I was proud of.
And she was going to take it from me.
From all the way up here, the mayhem on the streets was quiet. All I could hear was the quiet hum of the air conditioning, my computer’s fan, and the movements of the two men behind me.
“Explain to me again,” I said, watching a cab swerve around a bike messenger and speed around a corner, “why she was hired as an independent contractor.”
The tense silence that followed my request prompted me to turn. I met Cole’s gaze as he pinched his lips.
“Cost savings,” he finally answered.
I swung my gaze to the lawyer rubbing his forehead as he stared at the wood grain of my desk. “Arthur,” I asked, “how exposed are we, company wide?”
He grimaced. “You currently have a hundred and seven employees hired as independent contractors. From my preliminary review, at least ninety-three of them could potentially have a case for misclassification.”
“Which is?—”
“A violation of state and federal employment laws. An independent contractor would have their own office, insurance, logos, letterheads. They maintain their own schedules and have specific deadlines and tasks outlined in their contracts… They’re not production assistants running around in a company-owned studio doing tasks set out by their boss.”
“Like buffing a perfume bottle for a shoot.”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
I met the older man’s gaze for a long moment, then looked at my second-in-command. “I want a thorough review of every employee in this company. Anyone who’s been hired as an independent contractor should either be let go if the terms of their contract have been satisfied, or they should be offered full employment with benefits.”
I’d never seen Cole look contrite. He exhaled, then dipped his chin. “Heard. But, Rome, the labor costs alone of?—”
“Arthur,” I interrupted, heat crawling up my neck. “What’s our exposure here? Give me a number.”
The old lawyer cleared his throat and adjusted his tie with careful movements. “Well, that depends on if each of them files independently or if we’re looking at a class-action suit. And then there’s the bad press and the cost of any lost contracts…”
“Give me a number,” I repeated, my voice hard.
There was a beat of silence before Arthur said, “We’re talking eight figures. And for someone like Ms. Jordan, who also has a case for retaliation since she was let go as a result of a workplace accident… Well, that alone could be disastrous. Even if she settled, if the press got even a whiff of this… It’s not a good look, gentlemen. Not a good look at all.”
Exhaling, I leaned my palms on my desk. Blood rushed in my ears. I could feel my pulse in my fingertips as I tried to pull myself back together.
I could see it: the end. The end of everything I’d built. The one thing I was proud of, gone. Destroyed by a vengeful woman in red lipstick.
Anger pulsed through me. Anger and something deeper, an itch I couldn’t scratch. She thought she could threaten me? She thought she could turn around and throw the book at my face because she felt like she’d been slighted?
She didn’t have the first idea what hardship was.
I held myself apart from people because this was how I thrived, and I refused to be brought low by the likes of her. Lifting my head, I met Cole’s gaze. “Fix this,” I told him. “Immediately.”
He nodded, then ducked out of my office. Arthur, grim-faced, waited for me to speak.
It took me another two breaths to get my temper under control to the point that I could say her name. Finally, I gritted out, “Ms. Jordan is coming in on Monday. I want you to sit in on the meeting.”
“What’s your game plan?” Arthur asked, braiding his fingers over the paunch of his stomach as he leaned back. He frowned his bushy brows, considering me. “If you say she’s ready to play hardball, how much are you willing to pay to make this go away?”
I pulled my chair closer and sat down, then woke my computer up with a press of the space bar. Calm descended over me like a weighted blanket. I hadn’t built this business without knowing how to react quickly to avert disaster.
Ever since I’d been a small child, I’d had to rely on no one but myself. I’d been born to stand on my own. This was where I thrived.
It was why I didn’t have a wife at my side the way Wilbur Monk wanted. It’s why relationships never lasted. It’s why I was able to take the privileges I had been afforded in the form of seed money from my wealthy family and turn it into something much, much bigger.
Nikita Jordan was an existential threat to me, and I had to face that head-on.
This was exactly the type of situation I was made to manage. No one could break me. No one could drag me down. Weakness had been wrung out of me by the time I was twelve years old, and that wasn’t going to change now.
Jordan might have thought she was clever, but I knew the truth: She was a grifter. She’d seen an opportunity, and she was going to squeeze me for everything I had.
Ha. She’d try.
But the woman didn’t know what happened to people who threatened me. I hadn’t gotten to where I was by rolling over at the first sign of a fight. If she wanted to get a dime out of me, she’d have to earn it. And I wouldn’t make it easy on her.
Last night, I’d seen something. She’d been crying when I arrived at the hospital. I watched her pull herself together and hide that vulnerability behind the lash of that sharp tongue of hers.
But it was too late. I knew just how close to the edge she really was.
The woman was desperate.
She was also beautiful, clever, and not afraid to speak her mind. I could use that.
If I played my cards right, I might just be able to wriggle my way out of this mess with no lawsuits at all—and snare Wilbur Monk in the process.
“I’m not going to offer her a pot of gold,” I told Arthur. “I’m going to do exactly what we’re doing with the other hundred-odd employees who were hired as independent contractors.”
He watched me, silent. It was my turn to indulge in a dramatic pause.
I gave him a shark’s smile. “I’m going to offer her a job.”