Free Steal: A Bad Boy Romance by D.G. Whiskey Page A

her desk.
They spent half the day shooting the shit, talking about their weekends and
what happened on their favorite shows. Polite
requests to get back to work only broke them up until I was back in my office.
    “My
office. Now.” I hung up.
    I
took a deep breath to steady myself. Outside of meetings with Nick, interacting
with my team caused me the most anxiety. New to managerial ranks, it was hard
to get a handle on how to treat them. Add in their older age and greater
experience, and it was a nightmare trying to wield authority.
    Marcy
opened the door and stuck her head through. “What?”
    The
woman was ten years older than I was and had been with ARCANE since near the
beginning, back when it was little more than Nick, a few software engineers, a
sales guy and an accountant.
    “Come
in and sit. And close the door behind you.”
    I
didn’t take meetings in my office—it was too small for the entire team,
so we normally took the small meeting room across the hall. This was the first
time I’d closed the door with a single team member inside. Sean and Todd still
sat around Marcy’s desk, looking over.
    Marcy
thumped into the chair opposite mine. “What do you want? I was busy.”
    “Marcy,
you still haven’t given me an update on the state of the IT conference strategy
we discussed last week.”
    She
slumped back in the chair and waved in the general direction of her desk. “I’m
working on it, just been busy.”
    “Doing
what, exactly?”
    Marcy
shrugged. “Handling campaigns. Talking with our ad people. The usual.”
    I
sighed. She wasn’t even trying. “Marcy, I’m afraid I have to let you go.”
    That
got her attention. She sat up straight, the beady eyes that criticized my every
move in team meetings darting from side to side. “What do you mean, let me go?”
    “You’ve
done nothing but set obstacles in my path from the moment I took this position.
You don’t do your work and you are a terrible influence on Sean and Todd. I’ve
asked you to deliver updates and statuses regularly and receive nothing back.”
    The
woman’s jaw dropped—as if she didn’t think she would ever be called to
account for the way she’d undermined me for the past few weeks. “I send you updates
all the time. They must have gotten lost in your email.”
    “Really,
Marcy? Don’t make this worse by lying and giving excuses that would make a
fifth grader cringe.”
    “You
can’t do this!” she said. “I’ve been with ARCANE since the beginning! Nick
won’t let you fire me.”
    I
shook my head. “Nick isn’t your boss. I am. And as your boss, I may terminate
your employment due to a neglect of duties.”
    “But…
you can’t…” She folded her arms like a petulant child. “I’m not leaving.”
    I
ignored her statement. “I’ll give you the afternoon to pack your things and say
goodbye to your former colleagues. Then you must turn in your badge and ID
card. Now, please leave my office.”
    Marcy
got to her feet, legs trembling. “You can’t fire me. Nick will be livid, and
then we’ll see who gets thrown out on their ass, you bitch.”
    I
stared dispassionately at her as Marcy insulted me. She wrenched the door open
and then slammed it behind her, the sound so loud that my ears popped.
    Good riddance.
    If
Nick wanted to keep that cancer around, there wouldn’t be much I could do about
it, so I didn’t bother worrying how he would react. Instead, I turned to the
bigger problem in front of me.
    How do I turn the numbers
around?
    New
subscriptions were down forty percent from the previous quarter—a huge
deficit to make up. I’d hoped charities might prove to be the answer, but if
they couldn’t spare the cash, then the only way to get ARCANE in the door would
be to give it away, and that wouldn’t help revenue one bit.
    Wait a second… If we donated
services to charities, we could drastically increase awareness.
    Not
only would employees of the charities learn ARCANE’s systems and how they