Karri

“Well don’t you look wonderful,” she muttered to the bleary, puffy, and dark-colored eyes looking back at her from the little flipdown mirror on the car’s visor.

Karri hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. Now she was back at the office, anticipating another day of running the show. She wasn’t excited to find out how much fun that was going to be running on an empty stomach and no more than a couple of hours’ worth of sleep.

Not that the day before had been her first taste of handling things for the entire company. She’d done it on several occasions, when her father had been ill, or even away on a business trip. Not often, because he still preferred to handle things himself over the phone if need be. But the meeting hadn’t been something he could do over the phone, so he’d been forced to delegate it to her. Then an issue had arisen with one of their suppliers, and she’d had to leap into action, telling them that they had better deliver their products on time or her company was going elsewhere. It had been some hardball back and forth, but she’d eventually gotten them to agree to handle the added cost of hiring another driver to get the load to her facility on time.

She’d done well yesterday, and she knew it.

Which is why the instant she walked into the office and heard her father blasting someone she felt her shoulders droop. Today was just not the day. She wasn’t up for it, wasn’t interested in dealing with his bullshit. What the hell was he going on about now? Nothing had gone wrong on her watch, which meant something had gone wrong that morning, or far more likely, he was just being a douchebag and yelling at someone for something that wasn’t actually an issue.

Her father thought yelling encouraged his employees to do better work.

Her father was an idiot.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?” he was shouting at full blast as she entered through the front door. He was down near the back, where her office and his was located, along with the other higher-ups in the company.

“What the hell is he on about today, Joy?” she asked one of the women from their finance department who was up there doing something that looked very similar to hiding.

“Oh, Miss Blaine. So good to see you,” Joy said, flashing her a nervous smile, hoping she wasn’t about to get yelled at for hiding.

“Relax, Joy.” Karri cocked her head, listening for a moment. “It sounds like he’s really gotten going on this one,” she remarked.

“Ah yes, Miss Blaine,” Joy said tentatively.

“What is he screaming about?” she asked, then held up her hand. “Also, who is he yelling at? Did something go wrong this morning?”

Joy shook her head. “Um, no. I think it’s—”

At that moment her father’s voice rose to another level.

“THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. WE CAN’T JUST GO AROUND SIGNING THINGS! WE’LL LOSE ALL OUR PROFITS. IF THAT HAPPENS, IT’S COMING OUT OF YOUR POCKET, MIKE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

Karri jerked upright. Mike Mencine was the vice president of Blaine Enterprises, and a damn good man. They couldn’t afford to have him quit because her father was having a fit over something.

“Hold that thought,” she said to Joy, walking down the hallway.

Karri wished she was heading the other way, back out the door to her car. That would be an infinitely more enjoyable solution, for her at least. Mike would understand, but he certainly wouldn’t appreciate it. Especially because it sounded like he was getting yelled at for the deal she had signed. A deal that had come in well under the figures her father had told her to aim for. Well under. So what the hell had gotten up his ass that morning?

In all honesty it was probably because he’d been forced to miss a day of work, and wasn’t happy about that. Then he was probably upset that she’d scored a better deal than he likely would have ever been able to get. It was ludicrous for him to take that out on Mike…but that was her father. Mike had simply filled out the forms and paperwork as she’d told him to.

Karri couldn’t leave him to be berated for that. What kind of boss would she be if that was how she treated her employees?

“Hi,” she said, coming upon them at last.

Her father paused in his rant, turning away from Mike, who flashed her a relieved and thankful look. Karri just looked at her father deadpan.

“What’s up?” She phrased the question as innocent and innocuously as she could, trying to make it sound like there was no reason to be mad, and that everyone should just drop it. Shockingly though, her father didn’t take the bait to let things cool off. Instead she saw his chest rise as he inhaled.

He’s going to drop dead of a heart attack one of these days, while yelling about absolutely nothing. Unbelievable.

“DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS?” he all but screamed, turning to face her and directing his rage at a fresh target.

“About what, Father?” she asked, already struggling to keep herself calm.

“THIS DEAL HE MADE WITH SAWNE? DID HE RUN IT BY YOU?”

Karri just stared at her father. Was he beginning to lose it? Could he seriously have forgotten that he was the one who’d told her to get it done and had sent her numbers that were the maximum they were willing to pay?

“Father,” she said calmly, slashing a hand across the air as he began to speak again. “Father,” she repeated more sternly. “Think for a moment here. Use your brain.”

Steam whistled from his ears as her father turned a shade of bright red she wasn’t sure she’d seen on him before.

Interesting. He can get angrier.

“WHAT?”

She shook her head. “Father, did you take any drugs for your sickness yesterday? Anything that made you extra sleepy or out of it?”

“Absolutely not,” he snapped instantly. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, considering the fact that not only did Mike clearly not make that deal, since he’s not involved in sales in any way, but that you told me to have the meeting with Sawne, it would seem that if you weren’t on drugs, you might have some sort of mental disease going on.”

For a short moment there Karri thought her father was going to hit her. His hand twitched, and despite her best efforts she couldn’t keep her eyebrows from raising at the sign. Never before had he struck her, or anyone to her knowledge. But then again, how often did someone suggest he might seriously be going senile?

“And secondly,” she said, her voice cooling as she pressed her momentary advantage. “Why the fuck are you yelling at Mike for a deal that is at an incredible price? Did you read the details about it? I got them to agree to twenty percent less than the figures you told me to aim for as our best guess, let alone what you said our maximum was! This is a damn good deal,” she continued, her voice rising as the Blaine temper overtook her as well. “If you weren’t so pissed off that you had to miss a single solitary day of work, you might actually realize that!”

She gestured sharply for Mike to go at that moment, and the VP disappeared faster than a magician could have done it. That left just her and her father standing in the hallway, like opponents in some sort of battle scene. Without waiting for her father to work himself back up into another tirade, she stepped into her office.

Almost immediately she began to shake as the adrenaline rushed through her body. Never before had she confronted her father like that in public. Even in the few private shouting matches they’d had, she’d never gone up against him so directly like that. This was a first for her, and she already didn’t like it. He might be an asshole, but he was her father in the end. Yelling and screaming at him was not something she wished to have to do.

Why couldn’t he just be reasonable? Then this could have never been an issue, dammit, and he would have seen that I did a good job yesterday!

The door to her office opened to admit her father. Karri stood still. She’d never seen him look so angry before, and that was saying something.

“Don’t you ever disrespect me like that in front of people again,” he hissed icily, his voice brittle and hard. “You don’t sign deals like this. This is my company. I do the deals,” he snapped. “Got it? Stop trying to take over, or you’re done. I’ll give it to Liam.”

Anger exploded inside of Karri like someone had dropped a bomb.

“WHAT?” she snapped. “Are you for real?” Tears began to well up in her eyes. “Father, I’m sorry that I didn’t come out with a dick, and that that’s made me such a disappointment in your eyes. But I got that deal for way cheaper than you thought we could. If you would just stop being so blind to my anatomy and look at things neutrally, you’d see that I can be of help to running this company. I’m good at it!”

There might have been some compassion in his eyes, something from the dad part of his personality, and not the more neutral father portion. But they were at work and he quickly quashed it before it could bloom.

“Liam doesn’t cry when he yells,” he said with what sounded like disgust, and then left the office.

Fuck you.

It’s what she wanted to say to him, to scream out loud enough for all fifty people working there to hear. She wanted to tear into him, to call him out on the sexist, misogynistic bastard that he was. The tears weren’t something she could control. They always came when she found herself extremely mad. They weren’t an impediment of her judgment or ability to do her job. All they did was get in the way of her eyesight. Why the hell did that have to seem like it was a weakness? She knew it was quite natural.

Slamming her bag down onto her desk, she practically fell into her chair already feeling defeated, and the day had only just begun.

Her eyes moved over to the calendar on her screen. It was only Tuesday.

Well isn’t this a wonderful start to the week. What else can I expect to happen?

After work she decided she was going to go for a jog, to try and destress. She probably wasn’t dealing with what had happened the night before properly, but it was the only way she knew how. Karri Blaine might hate to admit it, but sometimes she was as stubborn as her father.