GABRIELLA
I’m going to murder him.
My boss, Jake Cassidy, had been ordering me around all morning like a sour, grumpy, somewhat neurotic pirate captain. He stood at the top of the stairs outside his office and barked orders down at me for the whole office to hear while I worked tirelessly at the front desk. The only thing missing aside from the giant chip on his shoulder was a parrot—equally as grumpy as its master—to squawk his orders like a high-pitched echo.
Jake hardly gave me time to breathe between tasks before belting out more directions, some of which entailed duties that were totally out of the scope of my job, like compiling a spreadsheet for him of all the office staff in order of seniority. I didn’t dare ask why. The last thing I wanted was for him to actually walk his ass down here and talk to me face to face.
Jake Cassidy was more than a little intimidating.
When I was first hired to replace his last receptionist, everyone treated me like cannon fodder. After weeks of being ignored by other office staff I finally asked the one person who’d bother to make eye contact with me and offer a smile, Donna, if I was doing something wrong. She’d shaken her head and told me it had nothing to do with me. She explained that Mr. Cassidy had a tendency to hire and fire receptionists as quickly as three or four days after hiring them. Apparently, the last girl only lasted three weeks before he canned her, and the one before her had been let go after two days after bursting into tears every time he called her name. I couldn’t blame her. The last thing you wanted in this office was for Jake to call your name. Ideally, he didn’t even know it. Donna claimed that was how she’d survived so long. He hardly knew she existed.
Maybe my brother, Beck, was onto something. He’d told me ages ago to quit working for Jake. So had my parents, but I was so stubborn when it came to anything they told me to do that I’d written it off as an option. I felt trapped here. Stuck. Weighed down.
I’d read countless books on burnout the past few months. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that burnout was the reason I couldn’t seem to get up and go in other areas of my life. I used to love creative hobbies like finding old furniture at flea markets and garage sales and flipping them just for the fun of it. I always opted for bright colors nobody else would ever pick and got playful with floral stencils and over the top fixtures, like ornate gold handles in the shape of feathers or bumblebees. I also enjoyed taking myself out on weekends for brunch and thrifting, but even that had lost its shiny luster in the wake of Jake’s relentless need to make me miserable.
“Gabriella!” Jake’s voice carried across the deck.
I knew he could see me, so I resisted the urge to slump in my chair and swiveled around. I clasped my hands in my lap like a good little girl and smiled. “Yes?”
“Come up here. I need to speak with you. Fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll be there,” I said through clenched teeth.
Every pair of eyes in the office fell on me. I could feel the heat of their stares and the weight of their curiosity—and their relief. They were glad Jake was on my ass today, not theirs. I didn’t blame them. You never wanted Jake to shout your name across the deck. It was almost always a bad sign.
I should have taken the check from Mom and Dad,I thought bitterly. Jake was probably going to fire me as soon as I set foot in his office. He’d been pushing me extra hard today. Part of me wondered if he was hoping I’d up and quit on my own and spare him having to fire me and pay me severance.
No way in hell. If he was going to fire me, he could bet his grumpy ass that I was going to take the severance I was due, along with the weeks of vacation pay he owed me that I’d never taken.
Every passing minute ticked by with agonizing slowness. I left my desk at the thirteen-minute mark and reached the top of the stairs outside his office with one more to spare. His windows weren’t tinted for once. I could see in, and he could see out. He sat behind his desk, casually leaned back in his chair, with one hand drumming a pen on his mousepad and the other holding his phone to his ear. Interrupting Jake when he was on a call could be disastrous, but he’d called me up here, and being late was worse than interruption.
So, I knocked.
He didn’t react.
With a storm of nerves in my gut, I nudged the door open, poked my head into his office, and waited for him to invite me in.
He didn’t.
He continued talking to whoever was on the other line, or rather, listening.
I cleared my throat.
Jake frowned. “I didn’t agree to that.”
Seriously? He calls me up here and has the nerve to make me wait when he’s also put a to-do list on my plate for today that’s a mile long?
I cleared my throat again.
Jake sighed, pushed away from his desk, and pinched the bridge of his straight nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Listen, if you’re not willing to put in the work, it doesn’t matter how much you have in investors. You can’t lean on your fall-back plans like this. If you don’t turn things around by the end of the quarter, I’m pulling out.”
Jake’s investment company made an obscene amount of money. I’d read countless articles about him online that depicted his incredible growth in the industry over the past five years. He had an eye for picking businesses that would explode in sales and revenue, and he knew how to work with them to strike fair deals that benefitted their business and his own. Sometimes things went awry, like what seemed to be happening right now, but for the most part, he never missed the mark.
It was perhaps the only admirable thing about him.
With nerves still dancing in my stomach, I moved the rest of the way into his office and let the door fall closed behind me. Jake carried on with his call like I wasn’t there, and I waited with my hands clasped in front of me and my heartrate freaking out. I could feel my pulse in my thumbs, wrists, and throat.
This is silly. I drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly through my mouth. He’s just a dude. Don’t give him the satisfaction of letting him see how nervous you are.