Hate to Lose You

10

Bronson

How did I fuck this up again?

That’s the refrain on repeat in my brain as I try to work out the best way to convince Daisy to stay. To give me a chance. If not a chance to date her, then at least a chance to retain her at the bank, because my father’s warning still echoes in the back of my mind. If you lose one single individual employee from the staff this time, that’s it.

I walked away from my parents and my life once before, but I’d always retained a fallback option. My father had never officially disinherited me—and, if I’m honest, I always knew he wouldn’t. Not then. Besides, I was too busy living it up to think much about my future, back in my gambling my life away in Vegas days.

Now, however… Now I’m old enough to realize that without my father’s intercession with those casino thugs, I’d have wound up dead in a ditch somewhere. I’m also old enough to know that I won’t be able to make money like this anywhere else. And I need money like this if I ever want to settle down, start a real life, especially with someone like Daisy.

I could take care of her. Buy us a really nice house, start the family she hinted more than once that she dreamed about. But I can’t do that if I’m some broke nobody, a disgraced disinherited bum whose own father couldn’t even see fit to keep him employed. And without my father, without the lifeline he represents…

I shake my head at myself in the bathroom mirror. It’s Monday morning. The first day back in the office. My first time facing Daisy again after she walked out on me Saturday morning. I need to convince her to stay. To give me a shot. If nothing else, I want to know why she’s so desperate to go. Was it me? Or the company? Or just, everything?

I finished shaving off the weekend stubble from my jawline, and towel my face off with a sigh, before I reach for the aftershave. One way or another, I’m going to get some answers today.

My phone rings at 9am sharp. I pick it up, and hear the breathy voice of our new front desk manager on the other end. “You asked me to call when Ms. Rider arrived?” she says.

“Thank you, Cheryl,” I respond.

“A pleasure, Mr. Burke,” she answers right away, in a way that reminds me how often I’ve caught her stealing sideways glances at my ass, or winking seductively when I stride past her into the office. We’ve only been here a week and already she’s treating me like a piece of walking man candy.

I need to watch myself around this one. I hang up without another word and stand up, striding out of my private office and out into the common area. Well, Cheryl might be overly flirty, but she’s effective—right on cue, Daisy steps through the doors into the main office section, walking toward her desk with purpose.

She’s dressed down today, for her at least, in flats and a baggy cardigan, which unfortunately for me hides those curves I adore. She even has on what appear to be sweatpants.

What on earth?

I don’t pause too long to wonder. I stride across the office, making a beeline for her desk. “Ms. Rider,” I say, loud enough for people at the surrounding desks to hear, before she’s even had a chance to set her purse down on the desk. “Can I see you in my office?”

She startles, then visibly forces herself to still before she spins to face me. When she does, her eyes and her posture are both hard as iron. “Is it important?”

“Very,” I reply, gaze locked on hers.

She narrows those baby blues. “I just got here, Mr. Burke,” she says, laying a little heavily on my last name. “Can’t it wait a minute until I settle in?”

“I’m afraid not,” I reply smoothly. “It’s urgent.”

“Urgent and important,” she repeats, a note of sarcasm in her tone. A couple people around us are starting to notice the conversation. Heads turn, and in the distance, I can spot whisperers near the water cooler starting to gossip already. Probably guessing whether Daisy Rider is next on the notorious Bronson Burke’s chopping block—since I have an (admittedly earned) reputation for firing people around here.

If only they knew the truth, I think, and it makes me clench my jaw to avoid smirking at a completely inopportune moment.

Daisy has no such compunctions. She rests a hand on her hip and brings that Southern drawl out to brawl. “If you could give me a hint what this is all about, Mr. Burke, I’d be happy to accompany you to this urgent meeting.”

“It’s about the work environment here,” I reply smoothly, “And how I’d like to improve it for the entire office.”

She smirks. “Well, then, perhaps you ought to invite the entire office in to discuss this.”

“I plan to,” I answer, silently cursing her for that. Now I’m going to have to sit in meetings taking complaints all day. But to judge by her self-satisfied expression, she knows exactly what kind of a corner she just backed me into. “But I’m starting with you,” I say, “since you were the first person to express your concerns to me in private so far.”

Her eyes tighten at that. She can’t exactly deny it, not with all these onlookers. So she purses her lips instead. “Good,” she answers. “I’m glad someone is finally planning on listening to what the lower-level employees at this company think, instead of just polling those at the very top reaping all the rewards for working here.”

Startled laughs burst out of a couple of the desks nearest to us, and a spate of loud whispers break out as those near enough to catch what Daisy just said start repeating it to those positioned farther away in the office. I don’t stay to watch. I just smile and extend a hand to guide her in front of me. “After you,” I say.

She struts up the hall toward my office with her spine stiff, her fists clenched at her sides. She holds her conscience this time, though. At least until I follow her into my private office and shut the door behind us.

Then she whirls on me in an explosion of fury. “If you think you’re going to win me back with some cheap trick like the asshole boss in Naughty Secretary—” she starts, but abruptly stops when I burst into laughter.

“I’m not trying to manipulate you, Daisy,” I say when the laughter just makes her fists clench harder. “In fact, I agree with what you said out there.”

She blinks, startled. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re right about the people at the top. That’s how I wound up in this position in the first place, actually. Nepotism, and a healthy dose of my father thinking I’d just go along with the way he’s been running things all along.” I stride past her to my desk and take a seat in front of it rather than behind it. There are two chairs side-by-side here, and it seems less like a formal employer-employee chat to me. But when I gesture to the other chair, inviting Daisy to sit, she just leans against the back of it, still standing, towering over me now. The first time she’s ever been taller than me, since I stand a good head and more over her normally.

I’ve got to admit, it’s kind of hot. I smirk at her, and she narrows her eyes at me. “So you agree the company you’re poised to inherit is a corrupt mess.” She rolls her eyes. “Good for you. What are you actually going to do about it, though?”

“Well, for starters,” I say, “I fired the upper management at this branch after they drove a whole group of employees into quitting. Twice,” I add.

She lifts a single eyebrow. “So that’s what happened here?”

/>   I nod. “We had two employees who had been at the company forever. My father turned a blind eye to how badly they were treating people—he told me they were loyal to us for so long that we needed to reward their loyalty. Never mind that they were taking advantage of their positions, making everyone beneath them work triply hard while they lounged around skimming off the top and doing nothing. Everyone kept quitting in droves, and my father was happy to just let things continue as they were all along.”

She crosses her arms. “It’s not just here,” she says. “That’s how the other branch I worked at was run too. It’s why I got transferred, actually.” Her cheeks redden a little. “I complained to the branch manager. I was hoping he’d fire me, actually, because you offer such a good severance package, even for people who haven’t been here very long.” She scowls. “Instead, he sent me here. He said he thought I’d have more opportunities here.” She rolls her eyes again. “More opportunities to stuff my foot in my mouth, more like.”

“Not at all,” I reply. “You’re saying what needs to be heard. I admire that kind of courage. I wish more people at this company would do the same.” I shake my head. “I’ll be honest, though, that severance package is why my father was extra furious with me for firing those two managers. They’d been here so long, the amount we had to pay to get rid of them…” I run my hand through my hair. “But, it doesn’t matter. It’s done now. Problem solved. Now I just need to prove to my father that I can run this branch the right way; that I can stop people quitting, where those two drove them to it.” I turn my gaze back to her. “That’s why I need you to stay, Daisy. If there’s any way you can—”

“I can’t,” she cuts across. “And I can’t quit, either. Bronson.” She slides into the seat next to me, finally, and reaches out to rest a hand on my knee. “I need you to fire me.”