“I already have a gym membership, Suze,” Cat points out. “And it’s hard enough to use that. At the rate I attend, I’m paying about twenty pounds a class.”
“Ah, come on, girls,” She pouts at us. “Everyone is talking about it; it’s amazing. It gets rid of all your cellulite.”
“Really?” I snort. “Nasa would have more chance filling the craters in the moon with poligrip.”
I can’t so much as look at a goat’s cheese pie without the cheese shooting straight through my system and landing on my butt.
“Actually, Charlie” Cat looks at me thoughtfully. ” She does have a point. Jenny in the Maths department has better legs now than our gym teacher. She has been preaching about Bikram yoga for months now. And a few other people I know have been raving about it.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Don’t you want to look your best with Danny Walker walking around the office?”
“I suppose, since I’ve lost all dignity, I should try to look half decent,” I reply, through gritted teeth.
“Come on,” Suzie whines. “It’s in London Bridge; it is literally around the corner from your office!. Please, please, please…”
“Fine,” I snap, knowing it was easier to give in and go to the one and only class Suze will ever attend. “I’ll do one class.”
“Yeah!” Suze claps her hands. “Now, let’s celebrate.” I called over the waitress.
“Caesar salad please,” Julie shuts her menu, uninterested. She would have been as excited ordering sawdust. If it didn’t contain nicotine, she could take it or leave it.
The waitress looks at Suze, who hasn’t opened her menu. “I’ll have the steak burger with blue cheese and onion rings as extra, with the mayonnaise and chill dip and a portion of mini wedges with guacamole.”
“Jesus,” Julie’s face distorts in disgust. ‘Do you know that off by heart?’
‘I have a good memory,’ she snaps defensively. ‘And I’m allowed a treat every now and then. It’s going to evaporate off me at Bikram!’
My phone buzzes again, wanting attention.
“I’m going to smash that bloody thing,” Julie grumbles, and the others don’t argue with her. I look down.
Charlie
Meet me in my office. 8am Danny Walker
Shit.
Charlie
I didn’t sleep a wink last night worrying about this meeting. Why did he have to be so vague? Couldn’t he have given some indication as to what this was about?
He has a nerve. Emailing me at 9pm the night before and expecting me to just be on call all the time to check my emails. My contracted hours don’t start until 8. 30am. I was under no obligation to see this git before then.
Even his emails are devoid of manners like every word is too much effort. An automated messaging service would have more charisma.
Of course, I didn’t have the guts to say that. It’s 7. 59, and I’ve been pacing up and down the floor outside his office for ten minutes. It’s an office he’s commandeered for the acquisition.
I’m wearing my most professional-looking grey skirt and white blouse, ironed for the first time since I bought it.
I take a deep breath in, smooth my hair down and knock on his door.
Nothing. Did he hear me? I know he’s in there. Is he making me stew? I knock again.
“Come in,” a gravelly voice responds after a minute.
I wish he didn’t have that deep Scottish voice that triggers my heart to beat double time.
I trundle into the office and close the door, standing metres from the desk.
He sits behind his desk, staring at his laptop, scowling, and doesn’t look up.
“Sit down.”
I take the seat opposite him, pushing my grey skirt down to my knees when it creeps up. I sneak a look up at him while he’s frowning at his laptop screen. Even at 8am in the morning, the bastard looks sensational. His thick roman nose flares at something on the screen.
I had rehearsed the scenario over and over in bed. I was going to walk in, self-assured and composed, look him dead in the eyes, and make sure he knew I was a highly confident, high-powered woman, not affected by his presence.
Instead, I’m sitting there, gormless, as he ignores me. I pick at some imaginary fluff on my skirt to kill time. This silence is killing me. It must be a CEO tactic of intimidation. “Hi.” My voice comes out louder than I expect it to. “What do you want?” His eyes snap up to mine as if taken back.
“Good morning Charlie.” He leans forward in his chair, folding his large arms across his chest. “I hope that’s not how you greet clients.”
“I’m support, not sales,” I reply bluntly. “I only talk to clients when they are already pissed.
Anyway, you’ve never seemed one for niceties. Not with me anyway.”
“Very well.” He cocks an eyebrow. “We’ll skip the niceties and get down to the reason I asked you here.”
“Listen,” he starts in a smooth voice, readjusting one of his cufflinks. “I wanted to tell you as soon as possible, given our common connection.” Unease rolls through me.
“As you heard at my introductory meeting yesterday, we’ll need to streamline some of the company’s departments into our parent company, Nexus.”
Streamline. Cutting the fat.
“It’s simply not economical to keep the team structure as it is,” he continues, scanning my face.
“I’ve secured you an excellent position in another tech company with the same package. And of course, your leaving package here will be very generous. More than any other payout, so I’d advise you keep it to yourself.”
I stare at him aghast. He’s fucking firing me?
“You’re firing me?” I blurt out.
“No,” he says, his stance cold and detached. “You are getting offered a very generous redundancy package. And a new job elsewhere. This is special treatment given the circumstances.”
I blink at him, confused. “How have you decided this so quickly?”
“What with our connection to Tristan, I wanted to secure you a decent package quickly…” he trails off, searching my face for comprehension.
This is about me being Tristan’s sister? I feel my temperature rise. How dare he.
“Special treatment?” I explode, glaring at him. “You think you can fire me and decide where I work? How dare you.”
His eyes flash with anger. I guess no one talks back to Danny Walker.
Then he shoves back his chair and moves to the front of the desk so that he’s towering over me.
“You’d do well to treat me with some respect, Charlie. No one talks to me like that,” he growls, his hands gripping the desk hard. “If it hasn’t sunken in yet, I own this company, I say who stays and who goes.”
I drew in a sharp breath.
“This can’t be legal! I’ve worked here for 5 years, and you fire me after day 2 of -”
He cuts me off. “It’s not a firing; it’s a very generous redundancy offer.”
“I can assure you our lawyers are very comfortable with this.” He lets out a harsh breath. “I can’t play nice here. We don’t need both support teams going forward; there will be 40% redundancies, minimum. See reason.”
“You haven’t even looked at my credentials or what I’ve done.” My eyes narrow at him.
“What about what you haven’t done?” he responds, raising his eyebrows. “There are constant outages. Development is crawling. Your department is inadequate.”
“I know that!” I’m fuming. I can’t believe Tristan is friends with this asshole. I can’t believe I ever found him attractive.