Page 24 of Don't Bet On It
“Yes,” Olivia replied, not missing a beat. “What’s this?” She held up the final sheet of paper in my file.
For a moment, Kyla looked confused. “I’m not certain. What does it say?”
“It says that there was a complaint from one of the other workers regarding Tallulah’s attitude.” Olivia’s brow creased. “It doesn’t say who the employee is.”
“As you well know, we have a pro-whistleblower environment here,” Kyla replied stiffly. “I don’t have to report who made the complaint. They’re allowed to remain anonymous.”
“But the details here are sketchy,” Olivia persisted. “It just says she’s obnoxious and rude in the hallways of the employee area. Don’t you think the complaint should be more—I don’t know—intricate? There are a variety of ways to be obnoxious.”
“Perhaps she hit them all.” Kyla smiled as if she was making a joke, but when Olivia didn’t return the gesture, she sighed. “You can’t just throw that complaint away. We encourage all of the employees at the Stone to report any issues they might face during the day-to-day operations of the facility.”
“Yes, but that was enacted for the female workers who might be subjected to sexual harassment.” Olivia looked frustrated. “It wasn’t so a random individual in the coffee shop can complain about a server in the high rollers section.”
Kyla merely held out her hands and shrugged. “I don’t believe the complaint came from the coffee shop, if that helps.”
“That was an example.” Olivia sounded exasperated.
Kyla wasn’t backing down, however. She held out her hands and shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. This employee was concerned about Ms. Hayes’s conduct in the employee hallway. I believe they think that Ms. Hayes has attitude that isn’t warranted given that she just started work here.”
Olivia opened her mouth, but I sent her an almost-imperceptible shake of my head to stop her. It wasn’t worth it. If Olivia kept harping on Kyla, the manager was going to make life more difficult for me. I did not want to be everybody’s least favorite nepotism baby. That wouldn’t end well for any of us.Instead, I managed a smile. “Thanks so much for your time, Kyla. I greatly appreciate getting those matters cleared up.”
“Yes, it was enlightening,” Kyla readily agreed, flipping her red hair over her shoulder. She was a tiny woman—as if she was always too angry to eat—but she came across as formidable. “If that’s all?” She flashed a flat smile in Olivia’s direction.
As for my best friend, she looked torn. It was obvious that she wanted to push the issue further. Since I didn’t, however, she backed off. “I’ll have to stop in more often,” Olivia said instead. “I forgot how much I love the ambiance here.”
The ambiance could best be described as modern pit lizard, but I smiled in return. “Yes, that will be fun.” I waited until Kyla walked—more like stormed—away. “You can’t always swoop in and save me,” I said to Olivia when she was gone. “That’s just going to make her more unhappy.”
Olivia didn’t look as if she cared. “I don’t like her attitude.”
“Her attitude is because she believes I walked in here and stole a job that belonged to her sister.”
Olivia snorted. “She doesn’t make that decision.”
“She doesn’t feel I worked for this. It’s okay. I honestly don’t blame her for thinking that.”
“Well, I blame her.” Olivia’s fury was a thing of beauty. “I’m going to talk to Zach.”
“Don’t,” I pleaded, shaking my head. “Just let it go.”
“Except there’s a complaint in there from some random employee.”
“Yeah, that was weird.” I took a moment to consider it.
“Have you fought with anybody since you got here?”
My knee-jerk response was Ronan. He and I had sniped at each other multiple times before the incident in the storage room. Immediately, I wanted to discard the notion. He wouldn’t do that. And yet…
“What are you thinking?” Olivia demanded. She looked as if she were about to start breathing fire out of her nose. “Who is it?”
I hesitated, but only for a moment. “Ronan wasn’t happy about me being here. Maybe it was him.”
“Do you really think he would do that?”
I held my hands palms out. “I don’t think it’s beyond his scope.” Especially since he was outed because of your big mouth, my inner voice reminded me. Was this payback for that? It was frustrating to think about. I’d done my best to mitigate things. What if he wasn’t satisfied? What if he was out for revenge?
“I can talk to him,” Olivia offered. “I’ll find out if it was him.” She seemed determined, which worried me.
“Don’t.” I was firm. “If you go over there and throw down with him, you could get in trouble.”
