Page 94 of Resting Grump Face
The fact that I wish I could continue doing this instead of taking care of work probably says something about my suitability of being the boss of a big conglomerate.
After soaking up each other’s company, I finally ask Barbara to come to my house. It’s not about blindsiding her as much as it is about preventing a scandal at the office. Despite what she has done with that blog, her work has always been excellent, which just makes this whole thing even harder to comprehend. She has been a confidante and my closest employee for years now.
Barbara doesn’t even knock when she enters my house. Instead, she dives right in. “We have a million things to catch up on,” she rambles and slaps a big folder against my chest. “We’ve really been falling behind with you being absent from the office. Bruce is holding down the fort, but the board is not amused to say the least. And, also, you bought a giant building complex inthe city? What are you planning with tha—” Barbara stops when she sees Sienna sitting at the dining table. “Ohh, Sienna, you’re here. That’s?—”
“Barbara, please take a seat,” I say and pull out a chair for her to sit.
She complies reluctantly, her eyes bouncing from Sienna to me and back.
“We know what you did, Barbara.” I come right out and say it. “How could you? I mean… you.”
“It’s not what it looks like.” Barbara quickly claims and pinches the bridge of her nose. “It’s… I… I just wanted to protect you.”
“That’s a really fucked up way of protecting me,” I let out and just now notice how much her betrayal actually bothers me. How it has been bothering me. Sienna’s company made me forget about it for a couple of days, but I did get deceived by one of the people closest to me. Again. “How fucking long have we known each other? I trusted you. I…”
“Ryker,” Sienna interrupts me. “Let her explain.”
I grumble and lean back in my seat.
“Mr. Grayson… Ryker, all I ever did was to protect you,” Barbara begins to explain. “I know this looks bad, but the blog isn’t mine. I just figured out who was behind it. I noticed that after you fired Ms. Fate, the articles took a bit of a turn. They were always odd, but they turned more hostile afterwards. I wasn’t entirely sure at first, but I confronted her and she admitted it. Apparently, she was a big fan. Obviously not in the healthiest of ways. She wasn’t much of a fan after you fired her, though.”
“She did steal $10.000.”
“Yeah, so did I.”
“You did what?” I shout more than anything.
Barbara sighs deeply and rubs her face with both hands. “When I found out it was her writing those articles, I tried to talk her into giving up the blog, but she wasn’t very perceptive to the idea. So I tried threatening her to hand it over, which resulted in that one article about your secretary, me, mistreating your employees. And then, well, I had to try a different approach. Turns out, she was very perceptive to the idea of $25.000. I tried low-balling, but she wouldn’t accept anything less. So, I took the $15.000 that I had in savings and stole $10.000 from the company.”
“For fuck’s sake. You shouldn’t have done that! You should have just come to me.”
“And get you involved in potentially illegal activities and even more scandals?” Barbara asks without much emotion in her voice.
“Fuck,” I say and get up. “How the fuck?—”
“That’s kind of amazing,” Sienna butts in while nodding approvingly.
“No, it’s not. It’s reckless and stupid and your money. I could have dealt with it.”
“Well,” Barb continues and wipes a tear from her cheek, “the bribe worked, and she handed the site over to me, which is when I may actually have fucked up.”
“There’s more?” I ask, so ready to put all of this behind me.
“I figured if the posts stopped altogether that would have been suspicious as well and,” Barb shifts uncomfortably in her chair, “with all the recent developments, I was afraid your head might not be where it should have been.” She looks over at Sienna and then back to me.
All I can muster now is a low grumble as anger builds up inside me even more than before.
“I am really sorry. I didn’t mean to harm either of you. I just thought it would be best if you guys broke up. I am sorry, Sienna.It’s not about you. It’s just that we need Mr. Grayson at his best to run the company. We can’t have him distracted the way he’s been ever since he met you. And we definitely can’t have him as sad as the last time someone broke his heart.”
Sienna nods, thinks about it for a moment and then says,‘No offense taken’like she is perfectly fine with all of this.
“Really?” I ask. “Youare not mad?”
“About what?” Sienna asks. “About Barb caring enough about you to spend all her savings to stop the rumors? About her willingness to break the law to help you and your company? About her worrying about you getting your heart broken? From where I’m standing, it looks like she had the best of intentions. She was trying to protect you. Now, maybe her way of going about it wasn’t ideal, but… I am probably in no position to judge. It’s not like I never made similar mistakes.” She gets up and crosses the room. “All we can do is apologize, hope for forgiveness, and do better the next time.” She extends her hand towards Barbara, who seems to be as surprised as I am.
Barbara gets up as well and embraces Sienna in her arms, before turning to me with tears running down her face. “I truly am sorry. None of this was what I wanted to happen.” She grabs her bag, rummages through it, then hands me an envelope. “Which is why I hereby tender my resignation and will accept any punishment and legal repercussions you deem fit.”
I look at her stand before me, crumble the envelop in my hand, and think about what to do. I am still pissed because I know I could have solved all of this without anyone getting hurt, but I do understand why she did what she did.
