Brazen Bossman: A Hero Club Novel, стр. 45

She kills the call without even saying goodbye.

For my entire life, I’ve released pent-up stress, anger, and sadness in the form of rage-filled fights, sometimes with words, sometimes with fists, but never with an ounce of forethought.

As I got older, the fights evolved into taking out my aggression in the form of sex, which was a much more exciting and invigorating way to mentally cope with anything life threw at me.

Now that I’m at Lennox, dealing with the imminent death of my father’s mind, it’s showing itself in the form of being an aggressive, mean asshole of a business owner and employer.

I claw at my tie until the knot comes loose then pull it over my head, tossing it at my desk before yanking my office door open and marching down to the conference room to drop a bombshell on my staff in the wake of a grenade being dropped on me.

***

The buzzing sound of one hundred and fifty voices all chattering at once comes to a halt as soon as I walk in the door with my hands shoved into my slacks pockets. Our conference room is vast, with a black, U-shaped conference table taking up most of the space. Each seat is filled, plus chairs line the windowed wall, each of those occupied as well. Every single eye is on me as I take my place in the open space in the middle of the room, but mine are searching for a pair of sapphire blue ones.

She is seated in the back corner of the room, on one of the chairs lining the windows. Her legs are crossed one over the other and she has a tablet in her hand, prepared to take any notes needed, just as she does every time we have a meeting.

“All right. Let’s just get this over with, shall we?” I speak out loud to no response from anyone in the room. “I suppose there is no simple, or easy way to say this, so I’ll be as blunt as possible. Lennox Publishing is no longer going to be under the ownership of my family. We are in the market for an interested buyer, and when that occurs, there will be a transition of power.”

A steady hum of questions, statements, and gasps overruns the room, and I hold my hands up to quiet them. “Enough. Stop speaking and let me continue,” I snap. I take a breath to steady myself. “I don’t know when this is happening, but my hope is it will be sooner rather than later. I think that will be better for everyone involved.”

“What about our jobs? Is this something we should be concerned about?” I am not sure who the voice belongs to, but it’s a male seated to my right.

“Once the new management and ownership steps in, I will have no control over what they do with the staff in place. That will be at their discretion.”

That answer certainly causes a ruckus, and voices erupt across the room, continuing until I hold up my hand to stop them.

“Now, I know that’s probably not the answer you were looking for but…”

“You’re absolutely right about that, Mr. Lennox,” a voice I know intimately, as she was just moaning my name in my ear two nights ago, speaks from the corner.

I turn my body toward the side to see her rising to her feet as all heads sweep to her direction.

“Ah, Ms. Kingston, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I…”

“No.” She stops me again with a shake of her head. “Whatever you have to say isn’t going to be good enough. Every person on this staff has been nothing but loyal to you and your family. Lennox Publishing is a cornerstone in the publishing industry and is only growing larger. While that should give all of us a small amount of ease and job security, it doesn’t, because we don’t have a voice in our corner anymore.”

I look around the room to see nearly everyone nodding in agreement with her.

“Mr. Lennox, with all due respect, you haven’t wanted to be here since the moment you walked through the doors. I’m usually so willing to do whatever is asked of me. Do I push back sometimes? Of course I do. I’m from Brooklyn.” She pauses briefly as there is a flutter of quiet laughter at her joke. “But I can’t stand by and watch as people I care about are told they could lose their jobs because their soon to be ex-boss is refusing to fight for them. Regardless of what is happening in someone’s personal life, they should always remember the little people in their lives who are counting on them to survive, and you, sir, seem to be forgetting that all of these people in this room count on Lennox Publishing to just that… Survive.”

Before I’m even given the chance to respond, a burst of applause ignites in the room for her. I could be proud of her if I wasn’t so fucking pissed off at her for taking me to task in front of the entire company. And the dig about my personal life… well that just won’t fly.

This woman, even as she is bucking up to me in front of everyone, pushing back as she always has, looks so fucking incredible. I want to take her over my knee and spank the shit out of her for the outburst, but then I want to make love to her for being so goddamn incredible and loyal to those she cares about.

“Have you quite finished, Ms. Kingston? Because if so, I’d like to see you in my office. Now.” I stand firmly in place, checking the time on my watch. “If everyone else could return to your desks. Ms. Kingston will be sending an email to you this afternoon, outlining everything I had intended to say during this meeting that she so gracefully