Chapter 16 – Andrea
SIXTEEN
ANDREA
Our basement café was a replica of Mr. Lewis’s very first location in his Tennessee hometown. The “windows” were wall-length screens that simulated waves rippling atop a lake.
“You look well-rested, Miss Stone.” Harrison smirked as I stepped inside.
I looked past him and realized he and Aaron weren’t alone. Almost every executive I’d ever worked with was here, huddled around tables and booths.
“Glad you’re here, Miss Stone.” Aaron pulled out a chair at the center of the room. “Have a seat here, please.”
I moved closer, obliging.
“Do you know anything about how the receivable and escrow accounts are set up here?” he asked.
“Yes.” I nodded, glancing around the café.
Everyone in this room knew all about that.
“Well, your team members have suggested that you may know more, so… we’re going to need your help over the next couple days.”
“Um, okay…”
He slammed a packet in front of me, and Ciara slid her laptop toward me.
“We’re missing millions across the last three quarterly reports, so if we were thinking like you, where should we start?”
“Depends,” I said, confused. “How many millions?”
The room fell silent, and everyone looked as if they didn’t want to give me the answer.
“Miss Stone didn’t have access to these things.” Harrison spoke from across the room. “I’ve checked the codes and already told you this. She can return to pretending to do work until the rest of us figure this out.”
“Fifty to seventy-five million?” I asked, ignoring him.
“More,” Aaron said.
“One hundred to two hundred?”
“More than double that.”
I stifled a gasp and nodded. “You should start with the vendor accounts,” I said. “Sometimes we’d forget to transfer payments for months.”
“We looked there already.”
“I doubt it.” I tapped the laptop and logged into one of our banking accounts. The screen flashed a fifteen-thousand-dollar balance.
“See?” I asked. “There’s some money.”
“That’s not even a drop in the bucket, Miss Stone.” Aaron sighed. “Although, at this rate, we’ll find everything two decades from now.”
“Each vendor had its own account with us.” I ignored the condescension in his tone. “There are over two hundred.”
Silence.
“It’s an amazing start.” He shifted his tone and sat across from me. “Accountants, focus on that. Miss Stone, tell us where to look next…”
At ten o’clock, my eyes drooped and my brain begged me for a break.
Just one more account. One more account.
I forced myself to look through a few offshore accounts where Mr. Lewis once kept special funds for employees. Then I jotted down a few notes and set down my pen.
Standing up from the table, I picked up my bag.
“Going somewhere, Miss Stone?” Harrison called out to me from across the room.
“Yes,” I said. “Home.”
“Do you see anyone else going home?”
I didn’t have the energy to look around.
“I need to get some sleep,” was all I could say. “My eyes are burning and my back needs a break.”
“Have you ever heard someone say, Pain is merely weakness leaving the body?”
“No one with actual compassion or brain cells…”
The room somehow fell even quieter, and I could feel everyone staring at me.
Not wanting to wait for whatever came next, I walked out of the café and headed straight for the exit doors.
My hand was on the push bar when Mr. Cross grabbed my waist from behind and spun me around.
“I don’t recall giving you permission to leave, Miss Stone.”
“I’m aware.” I glared at him. “I don’t recall asking for it.”
“This is a two-week project—at minimum—and you’re required to stay as long as everyone else,” he said. “You’ll be dismissed at my discretion.”
“We’ve been on the clock since sunrise.” I refused to back down. “If we keep going much longer, we’ll pass out and accomplish nothing. It’s best to cut our losses now.”
“Have I missed an announcement where you’re the CEO instead of me?”
“You’ve missed being a decent person, but I haven’t held it against you.”
Silence.
He tightened his grip on my waist, narrowing his eyes as the vein in his neck swelled.
“Miss Stone,” he said, his voice terse, “this is a serious project—and you’ll be required to work on it whenever you aren’t doing your usual things for me.”
“You can’t seriously think I’ll be able to handle assistant tasks and do this for weeks…”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have said it,” he replied. “You did say that you were days ahead of everything…unless that was a lie.”
My right hand twitched—ready to give this man the slap he’d long deserved.
“Just so you know, Miss Stone—” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “The only reason I’m so hard on you is because I believe in you.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m just repeating a quote your old boss used to say,” he said. “If that’s what it’ll take to get the best out of you, I’ll pull more of those quotes off Pinterest.”
“My old boss believed in human decency, lunch breaks, and compassion.”
“Is that why he never promoted you and left you working out of a cubicle?” He finally let me go. “Get back to the room and get to work.”
“After you tell me thank you.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll go back to the room after you tell me thank you.”
“I don’t thank people for doing their jobs.”
“It’s for busting my ass day after day and continuing to work on a special project for you,” I seethed.
“For not jumping ship like plenty of other people are planning to in the coming weeks because they can’t stand working under an egomaniacal tyrant who’s too damn selfish and self-absorbed to show appreciation. ”
I should’ve left it there, but I couldn’t stop.
“You treat me like I’m your personal teleporter, but the subway doesn’t run on your schedule,” I said.
“I can only use your town car when you’re not in it, and since that’s pretty often, I don’t understand why you complain about things taking me longer than usual instead of simply saying, ‘thank you.’”
“Why are you just now telling me that you’ve never had town car access?” he asked. “Mr. Lewis didn’t give that to you?”
“You’re missing the entire problem.”
“No, I’m seeing her quite clearly.”
“You’re an asshole,” I said. “But I’ll get back to work until I don’t have to be here anymore. Goodbye.”
“Stop.” He moved in front of me. “Say a different word than that to end the conversation.”
“You mean, asshole?”
“Goodbye.” His irises flashed with fury—and something darker. “Don’t ever use that word around me again.”
“Fine.” I shrugged. “See you later. Better?”
“Much.”
I moved past him and returned to the café.
Plopping down in my seat, I could feel his stare on me long after I stopped looking back.