“What did you want to talk to me about?” Donna said between bites.
Right. Business. He cleared his throat and worked to get his mind on the reason for his ire.
“I spoke to the gardener today.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”
“Aye. I told him he was fired.”
“Okay...well, I’ll strike that off my to-do list then.” She avoided the salad and stole a forkful of his half of the pie.
“The funny thing was, when I told him he was done at the mansion, he held out his hand for severance pay.”
The fork stopped halfway to her mouth, and her cheeks turned pink. “Strange,” she said before the fork continued to her mouth.
“That’s what I thought too,” he said dryly. “You wouldn’t know anything about severance pay, would you? Because he seemed to think it was normal practice here at the mansion, and I don’t remember authorising you to give anyone cash when you kicked their arses out of here.”
She grabbed another bite of his pie and made a big show out of not being able to talk because she was chewing. He twisted in the seat, folded his arms and waited her out. She couldn’t run. He had her hemmed in. And at some point, there wouldn’t be any food left for her to stall with.
Her thigh touched his as she angled away from him although he noticed she slid the plate closer to herself as she did so. He felt the warmth of her touch through his body, and for a second, he lost track of what they were discussing. All he was aware of was her leg against his.
“You’re right,” she said, making him fight to focus on the conversation and not the heat of their legs pressed together. “You never okayed any severance pay. He was obviously mistaken.”
His eyes narrowed. She was a crap actress, and her attempt at looking innocent fell far short of the mark.
“That’s what I thought too,” he said. “Until I made a list of all the people we’ve fired in the past few years and called them to find out if they’d received any severance pay.”
“Oh.” She looked around, and he wondered if she was trying to figure out a way to slip under the table and away from him.
“Aye, oh. Everybody I spoke to had received a cheque. Some of them hefty.”
Wide eyes blinked up at him. “Are you sure they weren’t all mistaken?”
“You want me to believe everybody I called lied about you writing them a cheque?”
“It could happen.”
“Aye, and pigs could fly if they put the effort in.” He leaned into her, her vanilla and cinnamon scent filling his nostrils and making his mouth water. Had she always smelled like baked goods? Or was this a new thing? He racked his brain trying to remember, but he honestly didn’t recall ever noticing how Donna smelled. “You wrote those cheques. What the hell were you thinking?”
She let out a heavy sigh and pushed the plate away. “Mainly I was thinking that I wanted to get them out of the mansion without any drama.”
“And you thought the best way to do that was to give them money?”
“These people have lives, Duncan. They have bills and commitments. You can’t just turf them out with nothing and hope they’ll survive until they find another job. That’s why companies offer severance pay. To help people out.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose while he took the time to get his head around her crazy reasoning. “I’m not a company, Donna. I’m a man trying to run a historically significant building that his wife had set her heart on. And you don’t give severance pay to people who haven’t even worked here much more than a da
y. Most of the folk you fired hadn’t been here long enough to get a normal pay, let alone anything extra.”
“To be fair, you were the one firing them. I was only the messenger. And because I was the one firing them, I was the one who had to watch them cry and worry about how they’d make ends meet until they got another job. I had to give them the money. It was the right thing to do, and I didn’t want anyone to think you were mean.”
It took all his self-control not to roll his eyes. She was unbelievable. A walking magnet for every conman and loser in Scotland. After the calls he’d made to past employees, he knew for a fact that some of them had only taken the job at the mansion because they knew Donna would hand them money when she let them go. They’d abused her soft heart. And he wasn’t going to stand for it any longer.
“I’ll do the firing from now on.” He was firm.
Donna looked like she’d swallowed sea water. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea. You tend to scare people.”
“Aye.” And from the sounds of it, some of them needed a good scaring.