Free Taming the Bad Girl by Emma Shortt

though. It would be the first night we actually met outside the
office. I’d casually asked her to dinner. She’d agreed. Now we would see where
it led us.
    “No troubles,” Gabe asked. “Nothing
else that needs to be fixed?”
    “In what way?” I asked, unsure what he was getting at.
    Gabe grinned and poured us both a coffee. “I
suppose I mean was everything okay with, Lucy? We… erm …Pam
and I heard your altercation on the first day you took charge.”
    How different that all looked to me now. With our relationship, if you could call it that, so drastically
changed. Knowing she did want
me. Knowing that the last four months were wrapped around a
misunderstanding that could have been settled immediately if she’d just opened
up, if maybe I hadn’t jumped off the deep end.
    I ran a hand across my face. “No, she was fine
once she got it out of her system.”
    Gabe nodded. “She does seem different. Maybe because the stress of this has been taken off her shoulders?”
    I tensed. “Different? How do you mean?”
    “She was round for dinner last night at Pam’s.
She seemed less…of a bitch?” Gabe shrugged. “I’m not sure exactly but something
was definitely off about her. She was softer, I guess. And then this morning
she came in to tell me she’d won the Peterson bid, it’s only ten grand, but she
was really hyped about it and she even thanked me for going easy on her
department, for giving her your help. It was a turnaround alright. She even
smiled at me, and she hasn’t done that since I got here. Not
in that way at least.”
    I swallowed against the sudden dryness in my
throat.   “She is doing well. She just has
trouble with the budgets.”
    Gabe nodded. “I know, and we need to do
something about that for the future.”
    “I can teach her,” I began but Gabe shook his
head.
    “She’s not a numbers person, not at all.
Realistically she shouldn’t even be head of marketing, she should be creative
director or something, and if I was being hardheaded I’d remove her and put
someone else in her place.”
    “But you’re not going to, are you?”
    Gabe grinned. “Pam convinced me not to. What can
I say? I’m putty in that woman’s hands.”
    “Pam convinced you?”
    “This is just between you and I ,”
Gabe said. “But from what Pam has said Lucy can’t take a pay cut right now.
After years on this salary it would be unreasonable to expect her to. She has
some financial issues.”
    I started at that and took a quick drink of my
coffee to hide my surprise. We were paid extremely generous salaries. I barely
made a dent in mine with my living expenses, so how anyone could struggle on
the money we made baffled me. Okay, sure I was paid a fair bit more than either
Lucy or Pam, but I knew what sort of money they made and it wasn’t negligible.
    “Do you know what these issues are?” I asked
casually.
    Gabe shook his head. “Just something Pam
mentioned to me a couple of days ago. Lucy was very worried a few weeks back. Stressed beyond belief about losing her job. The money
seemed to be the main factor.”
    “Right….”
    “She seems to be in a much better place now that
her job’s secure,” Gabe continued. “We’ll sort her out an accountant to take
some of the stress away. It’ll be her responsibility to cover that expense by
increasing her teams’ income. Win-win all round. We have another job to offer
to someone, and Lucy keeps her mind on the things she’s good at.”
    I nodded. “Win-win.”
    But as I made my way back to my own office a
half hour later my thoughts were in turmoil. I’d attributed Lucy’s lack of
recent bitchy behavior to the change in our relationship. But maybe it was just
because her job was now secure? I wondered how the heck she could be in
financial difficulties and added it to my long list of things to find out.
    “Lucy called,” my PA said as I passed. “Can you
ring her back?”
    I pivoted back out the door. Far easier to just
go and see her