Page 22 of Forty and Fighting Dirty
“Is everything okay?” Nora asked.
“I never approved the expenses required to renovate Darling’s office,” I shot back, and my tone was way too harsh. I couldn’t get ahold of myself when Piper was concerned. “I know she needed stuff in there,” I amended, softening my voice slightly, “but we spent a fortune buying office supplies when we moved into this building. Couldn’t she scavenge things from around the office?”
“Well, none of it fit. The room is really small, Rhett, so we needed to buy things that would.”
Of course. But why did this feel like a very pointed message from Piper? Why did it feel like she suddenly had the upper hand?
I crashed to a stop in front of Piper’s door, lifted my hand to knock—and changed my mind. Instead, I turned the handle and stepped through?—
Only to stop a foot inside the door. I blinked, not understanding what I was seeing. I’d stepped into another universe. It was the same drab, gray, hard-wearing carpet that covered the entire office, and the walls were still concrete block, but somehow Piper had transformed the space into a cozy haven. The wall to my right was covered with a gigantic corkboard, upon which Piper had pinned swatches, samples, design renders, and inspiration photos. The wall to my left had a smattering of frames arranged just so, so that my eye bounced from one to the other. There was a historic photo of Lovers Peak, when it was just a small outpost. And then a few photos of the mountain that had given the town its name at various stages of the year, from various angles. Dried wildflowersthat grew around here—bluebells and larkspur and fireweed—were arranged artistically in an old frame.
The bare bulb had been lifted and covered with a sculptural shade. The tiny desk I’d seen when I first entered the room earlier was set back from the wall slightly, and it held a shiny company laptop and a phone charger, along with a small vase with a single flower and a photo of two boys who had to be Piper’s sons.
And then there was Piper, standing there, queen of her domain, staring at me with an arched brow.
The effect was staggering. This wasn’t a moldering, dusty storage closet where I’d relegated my newest and most troublesome employee. This was a warm, cozy space that felt homey but professional. It was, quite frankly, unbelievable that she’d been able to do all this in so little time and with what amounted to a very modest budget.
Ah. Budget. That was why I’d come here.
“You charged all this crap to the company,” I accused, waving a hand. “Who do you think you are, Piper?”
She lifted her chin slightly, then turned and tugged one of her desk drawers open. Pulling out a sheaf of papers, she flipped a few pages and handed it to me, pointing out a section she’d helpfully already highlighted.
“What’s this?” I demanded.
“My employment contract. Specifically, the section about reimbursement of expenses.”
“I’m not reimbursing you for flowers and pictures of the mountains,” I said, waving the contract at her. “This says ‘necessary office supplies.’”
Piper took on a patient tone, speaking to me like I was a dimwit. “Which is why I haven’t asked you to reimburse me for the photos. I’ve claimed the desk, the chair, the corkboard, and the light. Which you would have seen if you’d bothered to check before barging in here.”
I whirled around to see Nora standing just outside the doorway, staring at me like she didn’t know me. And this was exactly why Piper couldn’t stay here. Because being around her made me want to tear things to pieces. It made me feel itchy inside, like all of a sudden my skin didn’t fit properly.
I didn’t know what it was about her, and why she got to me so badly—and so easily. But the longer I’d have to interact with her, the harder it would be to keep up appearances.
I wanted Nora—and all my other employees—to see me the way they always had: generous, caring, fair, and hardworking. Those things weretrue, damn it. I did good things. I wanted people to keep thinking I was a good person.
But Piper made me want to explode. And when Nora shrugged and said, “She’s right. She only expensed the genuine office materials,” I knew I’d lost this battle.
Turning back to meet Piper’s glare, I could see by the gleam in her eyes that she knew it too.
“You should have asked before doing this,” I said, waving a hand toward her work.
“Why?”
“Because this is my company, Piper, that’s why.”
“Did Mila ask you every time she brought in a new plant to sit on the windowsill behind herdesk?”
“That’s different.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You should have asked,” I insisted.
“I thought you were a big, important man with important things to do. What do you care about a few photos on the wall?”
Nora’s gaze bored into the back of my head, and Piper’s into my front. I threw my hands up. “Forget it. This is why I wanted you in here, anyway. All this stuff is distracting for the rest of us.”
