After embellishing her resume, Valerie-a single mom-lands a job as an administrative assistant to the hottest, most entitled and obnoxious man she's ever met: Preston Cartwright, the CFO of the prestigious Cartwright & Sons Enterprises.
Several yea...
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"Can I see you in my office, please?" I ask Valerie. Her head snaps up, an instant alarm flickers over her face. "Of course," she answers immediately and pushes back on her desk to get to her feet as soon as possible.
I don't miss the surprised look on Lydia and Alana's faces. It is not usual for me to ask someone to come into my office, especially not Valerie. And if I do, it's not without barking at her. Asking her nicely is new, but something I know I should've done the entire time.
The thought of how I've come off as a hardass, and how I've treated Valerie, has me dropping my head in shame. She never deserved that kind of treatment from me, or from anyone.
As to what Lydia and Alana think about it, I really don't care. They'll gossip about whatever I do, regardless.
"Close the door, please," I instruct Valerie as she follows behind me into my office. Her eyebrows go up in surprise because besides me not asking her nicely, we usually leave the door open, but for this we need privacy.
She closes the door, and I watch how she straightens her shoulders like she's gathering her courage and walks towards the desk. I hate that I've made her insecure.
My cellphone chimes with an incoming text message but I ignore it. It can wait. This is more important.
"Please, sit," I instruct Valerie and gesture to the chair across from my desk.
She does and looks up at me with a somber look on her face.
She's wearing her pink glasses and there's more of a curious expression on her face now than the concerned one a minute ago. I like it.
I'm really starting to like her.
And I want her help.
Me and my brothers came up with a loose plan. First and foremost, we agreed that we have to keep our knowledge about the fraud under tight wraps. The last thing we need is for Demers to find out that we know. So it's vital that there are no leaks.
Second, we need to find out how much money he's embezzled off the Marramount. And when we have time, go back through other jobs he's done for us to see if he worked them the same way. At this point I don't know how much money we're talking about overall, but it's in the millions and that makes me furious. Not just because someone took advantage of us and stole our hard earned money, but because I missed it.
Andrew agreed when I suggested that we all cancel whatever weekend plans we had, so we can spend the entire weekend going through the Marramount records. The only one grumbling about it was Easton, because he had a golf trip planned to Arizona.
"I want to pay you double time to help us go through the Marramount invoices this weekend," I tell Valerie.
She blinks and then blinks again.
"Double?" she asks.
"Yes," I frown. I know it's short notice and that she might have plans, but she's seemed so eager to help this far. And we usually don't offer our employees double their salary. Not that we usually need or expect them to work overtime. "If that's not enough I..."
