Chapter Four
Harris
It wasn’t even seven o’clock in the morning yet when I made my way through the maze of corridors that lead to my office. Rounding the corner, I stopped and my eyes narrowed. Addilyn Clement was at her desk. She was slouching over something and I wasn’t sure if she were asleep or not. It was another notch in support of my theory that she had joined my company with some sort of clandestine plan to undermine it—and thus me—in some way.
Walking forward with a quiet step, I stopped while still a good ten feet away from her desk and cleared my throat. Her head snapped up and her already mussed hair flew everywhere. What I had not been expecting to see were bloodshot eyes.
“What are you doing here so early?” I asked, sure that the answer would have nothing to do with racing in early to impress the boss, and if it was, then she had failed. Seeing an employee clearly too tired to have a productive day in clothes that were wrinkled and disheveled was not high on my list of favorable attributes.
I frowned then, I studied her clothes further. “Is that the same dress you were wearing yesterday?”
“I can explain,” Addilyn said, standing up at the same time as she closed a large binder on her desk.
My felt my mouth literally gape open. “Is that the quarterly report and the departmental reports?” I asked, already knowing the answer as I closed the distance to her desk.
“Yes, sir. I—”
“You’re fired. Get out. Leave right now or be escorted by security.”
“But sir!” she exclaimed as he cheeks paled. The thing she didn’t do was turn around and start her trek out of the building.
I started to reach for my cell phone in the inside breast pocket of my suit jacket.
“Sir, I found the discrepancy!” Addilyn blurted, stilling my reaching hand. “I know why the quarterly report is off by more than eight and a half million dollars.”
My brain ground to a halt. I had not even realized that the discrepancy was that large. I had known it was significant, but eight and a half million? Our profits dropping so drastically would have been a difficult conversation to have with our shareholders.
“You found it?” I asked, needing to confirmation that this monumental problem had been solved. That it had been solved me having to roll the head of more than one department lead was a huge bonus.
“I have, sir,” Addilyn said, standing up a little taller and squaring her shoulders. Even with seemingly no sleep, she was still one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen in my life. She put me in mind of a wild horse that had never been tamed.
Nodding my head to give me a second to think, I reassessed how to proceed. “Bring those reports to my office. Be there in five minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with open enthusiasm.
I made my way into my office, started a brew of coffee and did the other things and got me settled to start my day. By the time it was ready, Addilyn was tapping at my door.
She struggled with the weight of the large binders as she carried them the long distance to my desk, but I didn’t offer to help. I figured that if she’d managed to carry them out of my office all on her own—and without permission—then she could manage to carry them back in as well.
“Do you like your coffee with cream and sugar?” I asked as I retrieved a small pint of half-and-half from a recessed mini-fridge.
“Uh... yes, sir. Thank you,” she said as I handed her a cup of steaming joe.
I sat down behind my desk, picked up my office phone and dialed Samuel Druthers, our accountant. It was not lost on me that the man whom I had chewed up one side and down the other last night before leaving was not yet at work.
I hung up the phone, leaned back in my chair, and folded my hands in front of me. “Alright, Ms. Clement, why don’t you start with why you had these reports and how you got them.” It was possible that Pam had given them to her to review. I didn’t know why Pam would do such a thing, but it was possible.
“I couldn’t help but overhear your phone conversation yesterday,” Addilyn said after taking a sip of her coffee.
“You couldn’t help it?” I parroted her in a gentle challenge to her claim. Her cheeks turned pink.
“No, sir. I was waiting to give you the Sandburg report. Pam had told me not to interrupt you while you were on the phone but to wait until you were off before giving you the report. So, I had to... listen, sir, in order to know when it was okay to pass the report over to you.”
Grudgingly, I had to admit to myself that that made sense. I’d worked with Pam for years, and she knew my quirks. I did not like people walking in and out of my office while I was on the phone. But, that still didn’t explain how the quarterly report and the departmental reports ended up in her possession. “Go on.”
“I kept your door from closing after you left, and I went into your office so that I could get the reports.” Her head was held high, her shoulders were squared, and her gaze was unwavering as she looked me straight in the eye.
The sheer audacity of her confession kept me silent. She didn’t even have the good graces to be embarrassed by what she’d done. Of course, what she’d done was find a missing eight and a half million dollars. So, she’d said, anyhow. That alone had earned her a few minutes of my time for her to explain herself. “Go on.”
“I was... I am a bit of a math whiz.” This time she did look embarrassed, as if what she was admitting to was a bad thing. Why it would be or ever could be, I had no idea. “I knew that if I had a chance to look at the reports that I’d be able to figure it out.”
I glanced down at the reports and then back up at her. “So, you glanced at 800 or so pages of numbers and figured it out?” I leaned forward in my chair. “Are you wanting to get fired? Because from where I’m sitting, you’re doing everything a person would do who wanted to get fired. You eavesdropped, stole confidential information, and used company time on a task that was not in your purview.”
Anger flashed in her eyes, and I had to force a smile from taking over my lips. “And if I had asked to see them, what would you have said?”
“I would have said no.”
“Exactly! So, I didn’t ask.” Her chin was no longer level, it was held high, and her hands were white-knuckled on the chair. “It’s true that I don’t need-need this job. I won’t go hungry or homeless without it. But I’m here and I can make a difference. If I hadn’t done what I did, I wouldn’t have found the error where a decimal point had been put in the wrong spot, throwing off all the other calculations. And, on top of that, it didn’t happen just once. It happened twice.”
My brows went up. “Twice?”
“Yes, sir. Twice!” Her blue eyes sparkled. She was like ice and fire in one, and God help me, I wanted her. “If you want my opinion, I think someone is embezzling. Or your accountant is sloppy.
I sat back in my chair once more. “Did you make it all the way through the document?” I had to keep my mind on business. She was an employee. Just an employee. Nothing more and would never be more.
“No, I was about two-thirds of the way through by the time you came in this morning.”
“And you haven’t been home and haven’t slept?” She shook her head, and that was all I needed to make my decision. Standing up, I extended my hand. “Congratulations, Ms. Clement. You’ve just been promoted. I’ll think up a title later, but your new job is to review the rest of last quarters figures as well as the quarterly figures dating back the last ten years in search of other discrepancies. But first—” She took my hand and stood, meeting me eye for eye and toe for toe; it was everything I could do not to lean forward and kiss her lips—“Go home and get some rest. We’ll have a new office set up for you by tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir!”
I was aware I was playing a very dangerous game with her. But, who knew? Maybe it would add some spice to my otherwise, bland world.