Page 63 of Free to Judge (Amaryllis Heritage #2)

“I repeat, is that understood?” I coldly address the room full of analysts sitting in front of me.

I’m holding my iPad that contains the files Caleb forwarded to me earlier. Their colossal mistake caught by our more seasoned analysts in New York managed to delay my leaving the Reston, Virginia, office of Hudson Investigations by several hours.

“Mistakes like this will not be tolerated. Consider this a written warning for everyone in this room. On this assignment you work as a team; therefore, you take your punishment as a team.” I pause for brevity. “You will also lose your jobs as a team if there’s not more attention paid to details.”

The silence that settles over the occupants of the room would weaken the heart of a lesser man. With few exceptions, it’s a good thing a heart is something I don’t have.

“Fix it. By Monday. If you have a problem with that, speak with your immediate supervisor. Otherwise, when I check in, this issue better be resolved.” I toss the iPad into my bag and swing it onto my shoulder. Without another word, I stride out the door.

I’m maybe fifty feet from the conference room when I hear my name called out in a sultry tone. “Keene, don’t you think you were a bit harsh on them?”

I pause and turn to the voice. I know who it belongs to—a one-night mistake.

“Your office,” I growl, my foul mood turning rancid.

I see her lips tip up slightly before she turns and walks away, swaying her hips slightly.

One time, I made the mistake of paying too much attention to those hips and what they had to offer.

Our encounter wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t worth a repeat.

It sure as fuck doesn’t give her the right to question decisions I make for my company.

Only Caleb has the right to do that, and that’s because he co-owns Hudson with me.

Once I close Melody’s office door, I turn, and her body is practically pressing against mine, forcing me back. Through clenched teeth, I grit out, “Step away.”

My words confuse her, and she appears uncertain about her next move.

“I don’t believe you misunderstood me, Melody. Step back and sit down,” I order. I’m pissed and ready to read her the riot act, but I don’t.

“Can you communicate your job description for me, Ms. Dempsey?” She starts to ramble, so I hold up a hand, stopping her. “Succinctly.”

Narrowing her dark eyes, she sits. Taking a deep breath, she says, “Managing the successful completion of investigations without compromising the integrity or privacy of our clients.”

“Something you failed at spectacularly today,” I sneer.

“Not only did your team”— I wave my hand at the smoky glass window separating her office from the conference room I was just in—“fail to meet the objective of a client who was paying us an exorbitant amount of money, one of them broke the privacy clause.” Before she can object, I continue.

“That individual will be dealt with by Hudson Legal. I suggest you stay out of it unless you want the same fate.” At those words, her aggressive stance fades and fear sets in.

“Moving on. I was inclined to hold you accountable for all of this, but Caleb convinced me to give you the opportunity to address these issues. However, he also agrees with me. This is a one-strike-and-you’re-out scenario.

” The panic eases from her eyes, promptly followed by something I’m used to when dealing with both men and women who think they can get something from me.

Calculation.

Melody stands and walks around her desk, and I hold my ground. Mentally, I’m berating poor choices made while drinking. God, I must have been more of a fucking mess than I realized over my sister missing for so damn long to have ever screwed this piece of work.

“What can I do to make it up to you, Keene?” she breathes, trailing her nails along my suit lapel.

I look into the corner of the office with mild disgust, seeing the small red dot of the hidden camera flashing.

I know I’m going to catch hell for this later with Caleb, but I’m glad I had the wherewithal to have him monitoring all conversations in this office for the duration of my time here due to the gravity of the situation.

“Mr. Marshall,” I correct her coldly. I step back away from her, making my lack of interest succinct.

Apparently, my intentions are not clear enough for the barracuda in front of me. “I can call you that…Mr. Marshall. Are there other parts of this…improvement plan I need to work on to make sure I’m on solid ground with the company’s executive staff?” Her hand reaches for me again.

Before it can make contact, I caution her. “Ms. Dempsey, I’d like to advise you this conversation is being recorded.”

Her seductive veneer fades away. “What?” she chokes out, her eyes darting to the corners of the room. She knows where the cameras are, at least she should. She helped install them.

“I was not required to advise you of this in advance since, as a part of your acceptance of this role at Hudson, you agreed to one hundred percent monitoring of your activities in this office. That includes video surveillance.” Her face is now chalk white.

Ah, the rush of power. I wish I could have justified continuous monitoring before this past week. I wonder what other information we might have found.

“I—I wh—” she stutters.

“With that understanding, Ms. Dempsey, let me make a few things clear. Number one, if it was entirely my choice, you would be gone. At this point, if half the analysts in that room left with you, I’m not certain that would be a hardship considering this disaster.

” Melody winces. I’m brutal, but I don’t care. Hudson’s DC reputation is on the line.

“Number two, we don’t enforce a ‘no-dating’ policy at this company, but certain rules must be followed. No means no, whether that means being involved with someone upward or downward. Have I expressed in the last”—I rapidly calculate—“sixteen months, any desire to become involved with you again?”

She lowers her head, but not before her cheeks reveal how frustrated she’s become. She grinds out, “No.”

“One could also make the argument that this could be considered harassment because we’ve spoken about this before. I. Am. Not. Interested.” I say the last words slowly, emphatically pounding the point home for what will hopefully be the last time.

I feel my phone buzz in my pocket. I’m certain it’s Caleb telling me to calm down.

“How can I make this any clearer, Ms. Dempsey? Do I need to send out an intradepartmental memo to all Hudson’s executive staff, advising them of a regrettable one-night stand?

” I lean forward across the desk. Her anger is now emanating from her.

Without caution, I continue. “Your job is to run this facility, not worry if I get my coffee each morning or if my cock has been sucked the night before. Am I understood?” I’ve made the issue clear enough.

I’m sick of walking into this office week after week, fending off this woman’s advances.

“It’s your word against mine, Mr. Marshall,” she warns, emphasizing my name. Her fury could light the room on fire.

“Actually, Ms. Dempsey, it’s not.” Leaning closer, I say softly, knowing the mics can pick up every word, “Not when you’re emailing your girlfriends on company time or talking on the company phone.

We’re permitted to record and review all traffic on our networks.

Everything.” I point to her computer, her phone, and again to the recording device in the corner of the wall as I speak.

Her face colors from crimson back to ghost white. Her hands are shaking when she leans away from me and folds them in her lap.

“You should feel incredibly lucky I’m leaving Virginia for the foreseeable future, Ms. Dempsey.

But rest assured, your actions will be closely monitored.

” I straighten to my full height. Is it wrong to take great delight in her being so nervous?

Because I do. She swallows audibly. “Excellent. Any questions about my directives in the boardroom?”

A quick negative head shake.

I think I’ve finally made my point, just in time to make my flight back to New York.

“Then we’ll see what kind of damage control your team can do by Monday. Enjoy your weekend,” I conclude and make my way out of Hudson Investigations to start my journey home.

Home. A word I haven’t used in years.

“You’re such a prick. It’s amazing we have any staff left in the Virginia office,” my best friend, brother-in-law, and partner, Caleb Lockwood, laughs in my ear a few minutes later from the back seat of the hired car driving me to the terminal, where I’ll fly the company jet into Teterboro. “For that matter, New York.”

“I can’t deny that I enjoyed it immensely,” I say calmly.

Caleb laughs harder. “You would.”

True. I can’t dispute that. Melody Dempsey was a huge mistake in more ways than one, in my opinion.

First, I’ve found her work in the Virginia office to be merely par when we need superior performance at every turn.

Her credentials and her interview were exceptional, but now that she’s in the role, she’s barely making the grade.

That won’t continue much longer, or she’ll have the choice of stepping down from her current role to one with less responsibility or leave the company altogether.

We can’t risk her jeopardizing a recently repaired relationship with our government contract holders by allowing shoddy work to pass through.

Second, I shouldn’t have gotten drunk that close to my sister’s birthday years ago.

My anger and guilt for failing to find her always left me self-destructive.

I was tempted, briefly, into a single night in Melody’s bed and didn’t have the common sense to restrain myself.

It crossed every moral line I had. Don’t fuck around with employees.

Don’t fuck around with the business. Don’t show weakness to an enemy. Don’t show weakness, period.

But at the time, my sister had been missing for twenty-four years.

The flicker of hope I carried around inside of me was slowly beginning to fade.

And between a bottle of Scotch, a depression so deep it was like a crater, and the persistent seduction of Melody’s curves, I threw my rules out the window.

She’s been trying for a second round ever since. I’ve tried to shut her down, politely, until today.

Her scheming machinations to get me back in her bed and lack of attention to our work would cost us a cool million.

My temper rekindled at the realization. And while I know my best friend would enjoy taking a few shots at me over the next few weeks with the things he’s learned from reading Melody’s emails and listening to her phone conversations, it was worth listening to him to shut that crap down. This time for good.

“I swear, if that office isn’t in order by Monday, we’ll run ops back out of New York and shut it down. She’ll be out on her ass,” I threaten, dropping my head back against the seat.

“I believe you, buddy. I’ve already put the team leads here on alert.

” He doesn’t stop clicking away on his computer, saying, “Seriously, it was a massive fuckup. And if I wasn’t worried about the fallout we’re already taking because of the Mildred issue, I’d have let you fire her ass already. We had plenty of justification.”

The Mildred issue. I let out a long sigh of frustration. I can’t even take his head off for the incident he just brought up, because that burden is equally shared between us.

Thirty years ago, Caleb’s mother, Mildred, and my father, Jack, were having an affair.

They colluded together to abandon their respective families, including all their children, and run off together.

That plan would have been fine, except my father was still sleeping with my mother. Consequently, my sister was born.

As the story’s been pieced together, my father was so overcome by his conscience after my sister arrived, he decided to give his marriage another try, ignoring his lover. In retaliation, she decided to dispose of the child that took him away.

For years after my sister disappeared, I despaired, wondering if she was alive. When I was old enough, I spent every spare minute searching for any trace of her, until last year, when I found her alive and living under the name Cassidy Freeman, now Cassidy Lockwood.

Amazing how we’ve come full circle in some ways.

Driving over a pothole on the Dulles Toll Road, I’m jostled from my thoughts. I hear Caleb still clicking away over the phone line. “Is there anything else?” I ask brusquely.

“Not on my side. Other than did you talk with Cassidy? Dinner tonight?”

I outright groan. “Shit, I forgot. It’s not tomorrow?”

Caleb laughs again. “I take it you don’t want me to request any anatomically correct food demonstrations tonight?”

I shudder at the thought of any of my sister’s adopted family making phallic symbols out of food. “If you do, after the day I’ve had, I’m walking out the door,” I warn.

Caleb, the bastard, continues to laugh at me, knowing there’s no controlling the Freemans when they’re all together.

My car approaches the Dulles VIP terminal. “Hanging up. I’m pulling up to the airport.”

“Safe travels, brother. FYI, Cass arranged for your place to be cleaned and stocked. Just letting you know so you won’t think that someone broke in.”

I’m touched by the small gesture. My relationship with my sister is still too new for me to take such things for granted. “I’ll thank her later. What time am I expected at the farm?”

“See you anytime after six.”

“Later.” I disconnect the call and jump out of the back seat of the car.

Grabbing my carry-on, I walk through security to the Hudson private jet. Within thirty minutes, I’m airborne, heading back to New York.

Toward home.