Chapter 2 #3
It’s not like Braxton to hire an employee like that, and since he was the CEO when she was hired, this had to be his decision. There must have been a compelling reason.
She’s a good HR head—exceptional, even. She restructured the department once she got here, implementing policies that actually made sense.
After her arrival, the employee turnover rate decreased drastically, and while in her California position, several policies were passed that benefited both the company and the employees. Her work speaks for itself.
If Natalie thinks I’m going to let her leave after all the effort I put in, she’s going to have a long uphill battle. Even if the personal aspect wasn’t involved, she’s too skilled of an employee to be let go of—too valuable to lose to a competitor.
I flick the edge of the paper in my hand, a plan already forming.
Did she really think she could get away from me that easily? I made sure to block every exit for her before I officially took over this position. Every major HR firm in the city has connections to my companies somehow.
She can try to escape all she wants, but all doors will lead back to me.
I’ve waited five years for her.
I don’t intend to wait any longer.
Braxton Thompson didn’t hand over all the internal documents of the company until he actually left, the coward. As I study the financial records and the ongoing projects, I feel a wave of fury building. It’s five in the evening. The workday is ending, but my work is just beginning.
Pressing the intercom, I scowl at the innocent device. “Clarice, get me the head of marketing. I don’t care if she’s on her way home. She had better be in my office in the next ten minutes.”
Leaning back in my chair, I compare the reports of the Marketing Department to the ones the Finance Department has compiled over the last six months. The discrepancies are glaringly obvious—so obvious that there was no way Braxton was not aware of this systematic manipulation.
When the intercom buzzes five minutes later, I have more reports in my hand, and my blood is boiling with each new discovery.
“Mr. Wilder, Miss Campbell has arrived.”
I nearly slam my hand down on the button with excessive force. “Send her in.”
The door opens and a young woman looks in hesitantly, clearly nervous about the sudden summons.
She’s not very tall, her blonde hair cut in one of those edgy styles that Megan keeps rambling about in our family dinners.
She looks young—way too young to be heading a department in a company this size.
One look at her has me making a sound of disbelief. I have a sinking feeling I know exactly why she holds the title, and it has nothing to do with her qualifications.
“Miss Campbell, can you tell me how you got the position as head of marketing?”
She pales instantly, two bright spots appearing on her cheeks like warning flags. “I—What? ”
“I’m asking you how someone as young as you became the head of marketing?” I ask, keeping my tone steady despite the irritation building inside me.
Her lips part, a flush of humiliation creeping over her face like spilled wine. “You can’t be suggesting?—”
“I’m sure Mr. Wilder knows better than to suggest that every female employee within this company has climbed her way to where she is by using her body.” Natalie’s voice from the doorway has me going completely still, every muscle in my body tensing at the sound.
She enters the room with the confidence of a woman who’s ready for battle, eyes blazing with protective fury. “I’m sure he’s not implying that, Iris, because he knows that such discriminatory behavior is grounds for a lawsuit. Am I right, Mr. Wilder?”
I stare at Natalie, both amused and annoyed by her dramatic entrance and the way she’s immediately jumped to defend her colleague. The fire in her eyes does something to me—something I’m not entirely comfortable acknowledging. “Of course. We wouldn’t want a lawsuit now, would we?”
Natalie crosses her arms over her chest, glaring at me with enough heat to melt steel. The pose draws my attention to the way her blouse pulls slightly across her chest, and I have to force myself to focus on her face. “I would like to be part of this meeting, if you don’t mind.”
My brows arch at her presumption, though I find myself oddly pleased by her protective instincts. I gesture towards the visitor chairs with exaggerated courtesy. “By all means.”
She’s like a mama bear, ready to claw my eyes out if I blink wrong. My dark mood evaporates almost instantly as I watch Natalie usher Iris Campbell into a chair with gentle efficiency, her maternal instincts on full display.
Once the two of them are seated, I set down the financial reports and the reports from the Marketing Department in front of Iris.
“Can you explain why the recent reports from Finance relating to Marketing’s expenses are not matching the ones your department is generating?
For the past two years, Marketing’s budget has been increased by 15%, yet you are not spending your allocated funds.
” I gesture towards the reports. “You can see for yourself.”
Iris glances at Natalie for reassurance before turning her attention towards the reports with obvious confusion. After a few minutes of careful study, she frowns deeply. “There is no discrepancy. Both amounts are the same.”
“They look the same because they have been altered. Now look at these.”
I slide the same papers towards her, only this time I’ve marked the altered amounts in the marketing report with red ink. She doesn’t look at them immediately, however, her eyes still on the ones I handed her before.
“This can’t be right.” She looks at Natalie with growing alarm.
“We were very much under budget this year. We only had one new model come out, Serenity 90, and that was last year. We were told to use the previous material to market it. I should know—I prepared the reports myself. These expenses are all wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Natalie leans in towards her.
“Here. We took a potential buyer to dinner a few months ago, the one who wanted to display our yachts in their club’s grand opening ceremony, remember?
We spent around one thousand. It says three thousand here.
” She looks genuinely bemused, her confusion apparently authentic. “I called you that night.”
Natalie blinks in recognition. “You said that one grand was too much for this client, and I told you to send a receipt to the Finance Department.”
“It should be in my email,” Iris says quickly, her professionalism kicking in. Her head whips to face me with sudden determination. “Wait, I have the expense report on my laptop, the one I prepared for the Finance Department. I can show it to you.”
She takes out her laptop from her bag and sets it up. As her fingers fly on the keyboard, she looks tense but determined to prove her innocence. Natalie glances at me, and I see the frown in her eyes—concern mixed with something that might be approval for my thoroughness.
“Here. See!” Iris turns the laptop around with evident relief.
“I emailed these to Charlie, Robert’s assistant.
These are what I sent. Not that fabricated nonsense.
I also said we were under budget and the budget forecast that I made for the next half of the year was significantly lower.
It’s July. I sent this email near the end of March.
All the campaigns we’re carrying out are digital.
We were not having any large-scale campaigns for our clients. We didn’t need that much money.”
“I see.” I study her screen carefully, cross-referencing the information with what I have. “Send me this email. Does anybody else have access to your laptop?”
She shakes her head emphatically. “I work from home as well, so I take it with me. I never leave it unattended.”
“Alright, Miss Campbell.” I watch her forward me the email with obvious relief. “You may go now.”
She begins packing the laptop, looking somewhat relieved but still shaken by the experience. As she heads toward the door, she pauses and turns around to look at me with vulnerable honesty. “Am I going to be fired?”
“Not today,” I assure her, and mean it.
She presses her lips together and nods with visible gratitude. “Thank you.”
Natalie is right behind her, but she doesn’t leave with the woman as I expected. Instead, she closes the door with deliberate force and then turns around to face me, her posture radiating barely contained fury.
I get to my feet, anticipating the explosion I can see written all over her expressive face—and finding myself oddly excited by the prospect.
The silence between us is broken by the sounds of the wall clock ticking away as each second passes, the tension building like pressure in a steam engine. Then she speaks, her voice cold as ice but with an underlying heat that makes my pulse quicken.
“Before you start firing the female staff or asking them if they’ve been spreading their legs to get their promotions, you should perhaps ask me first. I was the one who hired Iris.
She was the marketing assistant at a rival company.
I offered her the marketing manager position because she was doing an exceptional job there, and I felt she could do it much better here.
She joined us two years ago, and since she did, she single-handedly managed to revive our backlog yachts—those that are still in circulation but were marketed poorly.
When the previous marketing head retired, I nominated her for a promotion, and she got it.
She has a lot of experience in managing large numbers of people.
She’s worked in teams, and she knows how to lead them.
She’s honest and incredibly creative, and?—”
Natalie’s cheeks are flushed red with passionate indignation, and I can’t help but be fascinated by the scorching fire in her eyes. She’s magnificent when she’s angry—absolutely breathtaking in her fury.
“I understand.”
Confusion flickers in her eyes like a candle flame. “What?”
I tuck my hands in my pockets, walking towards her slowly, as I speak. “I admit, I may have been presumptuous there. She looked quite young, and I’m well aware of Braxton’s nature and his hiring practices. However, I should not have assumed. I should’ve talked to you first.”
The fight begins to leave her body gradually, and she looks more confused than ever, as if she’d been prepared for battle only to find her opponent laying down arms. Did she expect me to argue with her, to dismiss her concerns ?
“Oh.” She looks genuinely uncomfortable with my response. “Well. Yes, I’d appreciate that next time.”
“Next time?” I raise a brow, moving closer until we’re mere inches apart.
We’re close enough now that I can smell the enticing vanilla and lavender scent clinging to her skin.
I look down at her, noting that her lipstick has faded throughout the day, yet she hasn’t bothered reapplying it.
Her red hair that had been clipped into a tight bun is beginning to unravel, some of the strands framing her exquisite face like silk threads.
I reach out and take a strand of her hair, curling it around my finger with deliberate intimacy.
“I thought you were planning to leave the company.”
She smacks my hand away with sharp precision, but not before I catch the slight tremor in her touch. “I didn’t give you permission to touch me.”
Delight fills me at her reaction. She’s not as unaffected as she wants to appear. “And will you? Give me permission, that is?”
“If you’re here to become Braxton 2.0, you’re going to have a hell of a fight,” she begins sharply, making me scoff with amusement.
“I’m not interested in following in your previous CEO’s footsteps. I’m only interested in one woman, not everything in a skirt.”
“Yes, well, find a woman who’s interested in you back.” She steps away from me, her hand already reaching for the door handle, but there’s something in her voice—a slight breathlessness that tells me she’s not as immune to me as she pretends.
I don’t stop her, simply asking with calculated casualness, “Are you done going over the contract?”
When she looks over her shoulder at me, I see the fire return in those blue eyes with renewed intensity. If looks could kill, I’d be lying on the floor.
She slams the door in my face, and I can hear her heels clicking furiously as she storms off, each step echoing her frustration.
I chuckle into the empty room, the sound filled with dark satisfaction.
“All roads lead to me, Natalie. Just where are you going to go?”