Page 26 of The Vegas Rerun
"What joke?" I ask.
He exhales sharply, clearly frustrated, like he thinks I know exactly what he’s talking about and I’m just choosing to drag thisout. When he sees that I’m waiting for an answer with a blank expression on my face, he rolls his eyes.
“You’re going to make me say it I see,” he says. “I thought we might have been able to do this the easy way, but it seems you’ve chosen the hard way. I’m talking about the reservation you made for lunch. You booked it under the name Redfart. Now to be clear, I wouldn’t have found that funny anyway, but what made it worse is that the potential client overheard the hostess say it when they arrived."
I feel my face drain of color. There’s absolutely no way I said that.
"What? No. I didn’t say that I swear. I would never think that was funny,” I say. “The person I spoke to on the phone must have made a mistake when they put the name in the system.”
“Really?” Joshua says, looking even more pissed off, something I would have said was impossible a few seconds ago. “You’re seriously going to try and blame the restaurant staff?”
I stop, realizing I’m just annoying him more and that I’m going to have to just take this on the chin and not let him think it wasn’t me, even though I don’t think it was. But it could have been, I guess. I mean I could have misspoken just as easily as the person on the phone could have made a mistake entering the name on the system. It’s not like she was going to question the name because that would have sounded rude if it was that.
"Oh my God,” I say finally. “I swear if I said that, it was a total accident. I would never do that on purpose. I agree it’s not in the least bit funny."
His jaw tightens.
"Do you expect me to believe that?" he says.
"Yes," I say desperately. "I must have said it wrong without realizing. It wasn’t a joke, I promise."
Joshua studies me for a long moment before sighing. He runs a hand through his hair, looking more exasperated than furious now.
"Fine. I believe you. Although it’s almost worse that this wasn’t a joke. You realize why this is a problem?" he says.
I swallow hard and nod my head.
"Yes. I know,” I say. “I'm so sorry."
“Don’t let it happen again. I’m only being lenient this time because it didn’t stop the client signing with us. If it had, then we would be having a very different conversation,” Joshua says.
“You got the client?” I say, risking a small smile. He nods his head. “Congratulations.”
"Thank you,” he says rather gruffly. “Now make sure no one hears about this latest incident. If that nickname somehow spreads around the office, you’re fired."
I nod frantically.
"I understand," I say quickly.
He watches me for a second longer before shaking his head and muttering to himself.
"Redfart. Jesus Christ."
I fight the urge to groan. I’m never going to live this down.
CHAPTER 19
MOLLY
The morning startsoff normally enough, but that changes after I have my break. I come back and sit down at my computer. I have some reports that I need to print for Joshua to take into a meeting with him. it shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to get it done and the client isn’t due in for another fifteen minutes.
But when I try to log into my computer, I can’t get in. I enter my password, and the system displays a message saying that it is incorrect. I try again, and again, I get that same error message. My fingers move slower as I carefully type it in one more time. I’m certain I didn’t make a typo or anything this time and I hit enter, but no, it’s still wrong, and my stomach goes cold when I see the error message this time. It doesn’t just say that my password is incorrect. It says I am now locked out of the system and to contact an administrator to regain access.
Panic rises in my chest. How the hell has this happened? I know I typed my password correctly. Could it be Sarah back up to her old tricks again? But no – she has actually been civil to me lately and she hasn’t done anything to sabotage me in months. Plus, this doesn’t seem like her style. She did easy to put togetherthings like picking up something off my desk and moving it. Changing my password would be a bit more difficult although not impossible, because now I think about it, using my name as my password probably isn’t advisable. Oh well, I’m going to have to change it now anyway.
I pick up my desk phone receiver and look on the company intranet for the number for the IT department. I find it and type it into my phone and then I bring the receiver up to my ear.
“IT,” a male voice says, taking my call almost before it has started to ring.
