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“You’re fired,” I say simply. Jensen’s jaw drops.
“I…I…” he stammers.
I lift my eyes ensuring he sees the seriousness in my expression. “End of discussion. Leave my meeting. I’ll let HR know you’re stopping by for your severance arrangement.”
“On what…what grounds?” he manages, looking around the room. But nobody wants to meet his gaze.
“Loyalty. It’s something I require on my leadership team. You showed your hand; I’m showing mine. Get the fuck out, Jensen. Don’t make me repeat myself. Find your hard-earned retirement at another company. It won’t be here. Let me be explicitly clear with everyone in this room that I am a team with my wife. Disrespecting her is disrespecting me. I have zero tolerance for it.”
After the shock wears off, Jensen rises and storms out of the room. I tuck the document back into the manilla folder, then lift it up and let it fall on the desk with a heavythud.“Whose idea was this?” I ask. Nobody responds. Leaning back in my chair, I add, “I could just start firing you all one by one until somebody fesses up.”
Hank clears his throat. “Dex, let’s take a breath. You made your point. No need to go on the warpath. It was a senseless suggestion. Now we can move on, unless anybody else would like to make their opinion known?” He raises his brows and looks around the room.
There’s a quiet knock at the door, and then it pushes open. The young woman who brought Lennox to the meeting room pokes her head through. “I am incredibly sorry to interrupt, but Mrs. Hessler, you just got a call from home. It’s important.” They exchange a glance, and the woman at the door pumps her eyebrows. “Extremely urgent matter. They need you right now.”
What?What calls are Lennox getting at the office already? And who is this woman? As far as I know, Lennox doesn’t have an assistant.
Obediently, Lennox rises, smoothing down her skirt. She looks around the room, then her eyes land on me. She gives me a tepid smile before turning her attention back to the leadership team. “Well, as much as I’d like to say it was nice meeting you all…I’m not a liar. Nor a criminal. Have a good day.”
With that, she slips out of the room. I watch her disappear down the hallway through the glass walls. Her hips sway side to side as she power walks to keep up with the woman who freed her from the meeting. The way I’m watching her walk away reminds me of the bar the very night I asked Lennox to marry me.
She had no idea the shitstorm I was pulling her into.DidI?
I thought I’d go to my grave never seeing Lennox cry…
But marrying me was the thing to push her over the edge.
28
Lennox
Spencer leads me silently down the hallway toward the elevators. I don’t bother asking her what the home emergency is. I’m more than positive it was just an excuse. The elevator dings, and the door peels open. I step inside, and Spencer darts her gaze to the right, turning the toe-end of her stilettos inward. She’s wearing the most earnest expression I’ve ever seen on another human being.
“So…you know how to find your office from here, right?” she asks, biting her bottom lip.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” I ask, leveling my stare.
“No, ma’am. Not particularly.”
I nod over my shoulder. “I think I’m headed down to the cafeteria. Join me? My treat.”
The doors start to close, and I have to kick out my foot to stop them. Spencer scuttles inside the elevator, and the minute the doors close, she blurts out, “I’m so sorry I called your husband man candy. I had no idea who you were. I would’ve never?—”
I burst out in a relieved chuckle. “That’s why you’re acting so nervous? Heisman candy. Thanks for noticing.”
Spencer’s eyes bulge. “You’re not mad?”
“Not in the slightest…well, not at you anyway.” I take in a deep breath, my lungs straining. It took every ounce of restraint not to pop off in the boardroom. I wanted to give each of those rich, arrogant bastards a piece of my mind, but I didn’t want to dig a deeper hole and let Dex down. And anyway, he was just as livid for me. “How’d you know to come rescue me?”
Using her top teeth, she pulls on her bottom lip. “The breakroom on the fourth floor. The meeting rooms are soundproof, but there’s a vent, and when it’s open on both sides, you basically get a front-row seat to the action. My friend Cade and I are basically trauma-bonded because we have the worst bosses at the office. We were chatting in the breakroom when he told me who you were. Apparently, his boss Jensen mentioned something. Anyway, they were being so cruel to you over some stupid article. I couldn’t stand you getting attacked like that for another minute. Plus, it sounded like Mr. Hessler was about to punch through a wall.”
“Yeah…I suppose we’ll be finding Cade another boss soon.”
“I heard.” She scoffs. “Good riddance. Jensen is…”
“An asshole?” I finish for her. “Yeah, I’m not the kind of CEO you can’t say ‘asshole’ in front of.”
She laughs. “How about prick? That’s what I was going to say.”