“I’m here to help you,” Terry answered with a smile as he slowly stood up. “I hear you have family in… high places.” His eyes ran over her, and she felt her entire body shiver with disgust. The man was easily a hundred pounds overweight and at least twice her age. Not to mention that she knew he was married. She’d heard rumors that he’d had several affairs while working there but had yet to find anyone in the office who liked him, let alone would sleep with him.
“I don’t know what you mean.” She moved past him, but he caged her in.
“Oh, I think you do. It’s come to my attention that you’ve been keeping a secret from us. A pretty big one.” His eyes narrowed. “Harold Smith”—he wiggled his eyebrows— “is your father.”
She felt her back teeth grind as she pushed past him. “I am not keeping it a secret.” She sat down in her chair and logged into her computer. “Anyone with a brain could have figured it out.” She glanced up at him, hoping he didn’t see her hands shake or her temper grow. “Was there something else?”
Terry was frowning down at her, and his face was growing red like it did every time he was agitated. “No one else knows.” He moved closer to her and reached out. He would have placed his hand on her shoulder had she not scooted her chair back a few steps. Arching her eyebrows, she chuckled.
“I will happily head out right now”—she nodded towards the door— “with a bullhorn and let everyone in on my secret.” She air quoted the last word.
His face grew even redder. His eyes moved around as if gauging his next move. “Then I’m sure you won’t mind if I let your father in on your last client.”
She laughed. “Why don’t you regroup?” She pushed herself back towards her desk and turned her attention towards her screen. “When you come up with something else you deem worth blackmailing me for to get to my father’s money, let me know.” She glanced up and smiled and then dismissed him and returned to her work.
Shortly after the man left her office, she felt the tension in her body relax. God! She hated her job. She hated being associated with one of the richest men in the world.
It took Terry a week to come up with a new angle. He barged in while she was finishing up with an email.
“Kasey, I’m going to have to call you back.” She hung up. “Yes?”
Terry had moved over and sat across from her and had gone as far as to prop his feet up on the edge of her desk again.
“I was thinking,” Terry started slowly. She bit the edges of her tongue.
“Yes?” She glanced at the clock and realized she only had a few minutes before she could technically clock out.
“I’ve gone about this the wrong way.” His smile grew. “I think we should have drinks.”
She laughed. A burst of it escaped her before she could control herself.
“That is not going to happen.” She hit send on the email. The email instantly popped back at her that her account was locked, and she frowned.
“I think you’ll reconsider.” He motioned to her computer.
“What did you do?” she asked, hitting send again. She sighed and leaned back. “Paid off the IT guys?”
His eyes narrowed. “It’s amazing what you can find going through someone else’s email. I think your father would find a few of these very interesting.” He set down two papers he’d been holding.
She didn’t even spare them a glance. Instead, she stood up and smiled at him. “Thank you, Terry,” she began as she leaned on the desk. “You’ve made this decision easier for me.”
The man’s bushy eyebrows rose slightly as he removed his feet from her desk. “We can discuss this over—”
She laughed again. “When hell freezes over.” She pulled her purse and jacket from the bottom drawer and took her time slipping on her jacket. “You’ve just made it easier for me to walk out.” She smiled and started out of her office.
He followed her until she stopped by Barb’s desk. Her supervisor glanced up at her with annoyance.
“Terry here has seen fit to have my email account locked, which has finally given me the spine to quit,” she said with a smile. Then she leaned down closer to her boss. “In the last two years that I’ve worked under you, not once did I see you stick up for what was right. You treated your employees like tools to better your own career.” The woman looked put off and annoyed. “Terry has also informed me that it may not be common knowledge who my father is.” She smiled when Barb glared up at her. “The name Harold Smith might ring a bell.”
She waited until she could see in Barb’s eyes that she’d made the connection before turning around and leaving.
It was the best feeling in the world, until she stepped out on the snow-covered curb and shivered. How the hell was she going to pay her rent next month?
That night, sitting in her small one-room studio apartment listening to sirens outside her window while she sipped the cup of noodles, she realized the magnitude of her actions.
She had been paying for night classes at the closest community college in hopes that her art career would take off. But now that she couldn’t even afford a meal beyond what she was currently eating, she knew her entire life would have to be put on hold.
She had some money in her savings account that she could live off if she had to, but she preferred not to touch it. At least not yet.
She was job hunting on the small secondhand laptop she’d purchased a few years back when her phone rang.
Seeing the unmarked number, she almost didn’t answer it, but then she remembered she’d put her number on a few online applications.
“Hello?”
“Tell me it’s not true you quit today?” Her father’s voice boomed in her ears. She hadn’t seen him since the day before her eighteenth birthday and she wondered if he was older and frailer looking now.
“Yes,” she answered. “My hand was forced—”
“You’ll go back tomorrow.” It was a demand not a request or question.
“No, I won’t,” she said quickly. No matter what happened to her, she would no longer be indebted to anyone.
“Yes, you will. I’ve arranged everything with your supervisor.”
“I don’t care. I won’t go back.”
“Then you leave me no choice to see to it that you will have no references. I’ll make sure that it’s noted that you were officially fired. I can even arrange to make sure that it’s difficult for you to be hired anywhere else in the city.”
“I don’t care.” She shut her eyes and tried to hold firm. “I don’t need anyone’s handouts.”
“How will you pay for the room you call an apartment?” he asked, causing her eyebrows to rise. Did he know where she lived? If so, why? Why was he keeping track of her? His exact words from a few years ago were that his obligations as far as she went was over. Why would he care where she lived? Or even worked?
“I’m no longer your obligation.” She threw his own words back at him.
He was silent for a while and she almost believed that he had hung up. Then he said. “A job isn’t an obligation.”