The Project

“What’s going on?”Lucas asked, frowning in confusion as he glanced over his shoulder.

Devyn followed his gaze only to shrug when he spotted Andi sitting on the couch with a file opened on her lap and a large stack of them by her side. “She’s commandeered my office.”

“Was that the VP of marketing’s assistant I saw out there?”

“Yes,” Devyn said, shrugging it off since he hadn’t been left with much of a choice. He needed help and he didn’t have time to go through all the bullshit required to hire someone new, so he enticed Ben to come work for him with the promise of an insane raise.

“That explains why Jeff’s pissed,” Lucas said, chuckling as he sent Andi another curious look. “And what about her?”

“I fired her,” Devyn said, watching as Andi frowned down at whatever she was looking at before grabbing her iPad, swiping to another page and began worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she looked back down at the file in her lap.

“Doesn’t look like she got the message,” Lucas said, sounding amused.

“I gave her another job,” Devyn said, shifting his attention back to the email that he’d been reading when Lucas showed up.

“One that involves taking over your office?”

“Apparently,” Devyn said, reading through the board’s email response to the bullshit that went down yesterday. “I gave her the office next to this one, but apparently, it didn’t work for her.”

“What is she doing?” Lucas asked, sounding curious.

“I have no idea. She won’t tell me,” Devyn absently said as he finished reading the part where the board members wanted to express their gratitude to Andi for catching the mistake before it destroyed Carta Hotels and letting him know that they expected answers.

Soon.

“Did you ask?” Lucas asked as Devyn closed the email and moved to open the next email, only to realize that it was from Janet.

“Yes, but she didn’t seem to hear me,” Devyn said, deleting the email without bothering to read it, in no fucking mood to deal with her today. When Carta Hotels started interviewing him, she’d barely said a word to him other than a few politely murmured questions. That all changed after he was hired and she decided that his job duties should include fucking her on command. She wasn’t happy that he wasn’t interested in the job.

“The same work that you have no idea what she’s doing?” Lucas asked, throwing him a questioning look.

“The very same,” Devyn said, closing his email and sat back in his chair, wondering how they were going to fix this.

“And this seems normal to you?” Lucas asked, frowning as he glanced back at Andi again.

“I was asking myself that same question an hour ago only to decide that it was probably in my best interest to leave her alone when she dropped this on my desk,” Devyn said, picking up the legal pad that she’d left on his desk with a mumbled, “You should probably look at this,” before stealing his coffee and returning back to the couch where she immediately ignored him and set back to work.

“What’s this?” Lucas asked as Devyn tossed it to him.

“The email that sent the original digital file,” Devyn said, watching Lucas’s reaction as he read the email address written across the legal pad in red pen.

“It’s the same email that I’ve been corresponding with for the past two years. What am I missing?” Lucas asked, looking up as he moved to toss the legal pad back on the desk only to go still when Devyn said, “No, it’s not.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Take another look,” Devyn said, gesturing to the legal pad in Lucas’s hands.

“What am I looking for?”

“Look at the domain. Hillshire Hotels’ domain is HillshireHotels.com. This one is HillshirHotel.com,” Devyn explained, watching Lucas very closely.

A muscle in Lucas’s jaw clenched as he noticeably swallowed. “Shit,” he said, tossing the legal pad back on the desk as he rubbed the back of his neck. “How the hell did we miss that?”

“I have no idea,” Devyn said, wondering the same thing. Then again, he was wondering about a lot of things.

Lucas’s team had been handling this project from the start, managing every aspect of the deal and going over every detail to make sure that everything was perfect. There was no way in hell that they should have missed the fact that Hillshire Hotels was bankrupt, but somehow, they had and he wanted to know why. He also wanted to know why the IT department was able to trace the original email back to this building.

“But you plan on finding out,” Lucas said, nodding as he slowly exhaled. “Okay, what’s the plan?” he asked, reminding Devyn why he liked him so much.

“I’m working on it,” Devyn said, leaning back in his chair with a heavy sigh.

“Might want to work on it faster,” Lucas said, only to add, “The board is pissed,” at Devyn’s questioning look.

“How pissed?” Devyn asked, drumming his fingertips on the desk as his gaze flickered back to Andi to make sure that she was still absorbed in whatever it was that she was doing.

There was a telling pause, and then, Lucas was sighing heavily as he said, “They’ve already started looking for your replacement.”

“How long do I have?” Devyn asked, wondering how he was going to come back from a fuck-up this big.

“As long as you’re careful, I would say you have until your contract is up to turn this fucking mess around, which is really fucked-up since this wasn’t your mistake,” Lucas said, ramming his fingers through his hair. “I tried talking to my godfather, but-”

“It’s fine,” Devyn said, waving it off because he knew from the start that if anything went wrong with this deal that the blame would be laid at his feet.

“This isn’t your mess to clean,” Lucas pointed out.