“Says he’s auditing the project and he’s putting some new policies in place.” He offered her a clipboard. “Sign this.”
She took it and glanced at the list of welding supplies. “What is it?”
“One of those new procedures the asshole is demanding. He wants double signatures on all supply orders, like we’re fucking first graders. You’re the welding foreman, so you need to check over the order for welding supplies.”
She supervised a welding crew of six, all of whom were working on lower floors today. Approving an order had never fallen under her job description before. “This is stupid.” She offered the clipboard back to him. “You’ve been doing your job as long as I’ve been doing mine. You don’t need me looking over your shoulder.”
Alex rested his elbow on a ladder rung. “Look, he just let six of our day laborers go. I don’t think this is the time for either of us to be telling the guy his ideas are stupid. This isn’t a big deal. Let’s just make the fucker happy.”
“Well, shit.” Miranda took the board back and looked over the order. “This is a big order. More than we need for the next couple of months. Why are you ordering so much?”
“For the better price.”
“Is it a substantial savings? Because if you have to store this off site, it could end up costing you the same or more in the long run.”
He pointed to a line item for welding wire. “Look. I’m getting a spool of wire free. Heard you were coming up short at Warrior Homes. I was going to talk to Jen about approving one or two of those spools for donation.”
Miranda looked up. “Are you serious? Even with this audit going on?”
“This audit is about control, not money. You let me worry about the paperwork.”
“That would be so amazing. It’s the very last thing we need to plow through the rest of the homes.” She signed the order. “This project is still viable, right?”
“Of course, sure. Hey, don’t worry. You’ve got seniority, you do amazing work, and you’re dependable as hell. You’ll be fine.”
He took the clipboard back. “Between me and you, this guy is a grade-A asshole. I spent a lot of time with him growing up when our dads were building the company. He’s always been an arrogant, entitled little shit. Never had to work for a damn thing growing up. He’s a cutthroat, pompous ass, and he’s sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. Don’t worry, I’ve always got your back.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
She watched Alex climb down the ladder and jog down the stairs to a lower floor, hoping he had enough pull to keep her job safe if it came to that. The last thing Miranda needed was to lose this job before she had either funding or enough savings to launch her business. And there was medical insurance and retirement to think about.
Pinnacle took the best care of their employees, offered the highest wages and generous bonuses. She was vested now, and she didn’t want to change companies at this point in her career. Not unless she was starting her own. And now, as she watched Alex disappear down the stairway, getting a jump on that business of hers suddenly seemed even more important.
She pulled her welding mask back into place and twisted herself into an upside-down pretzel to start the next weld. Miranda laser-focused her attention on her torch to push her worries away.
Twenty minutes later, she heard Alex yelling her name again. Still upside down, she glanced in the direction of the stairs and found a gaggle of supervisors in jeans and florescent orange T-shirts emblazoned with the company logo. They were clustered around a man dressed in business casual, wearing one of the shiny company hard hats they kept around for visitors.
Shit. She didn’t want to deal with this. The men loved to show Miranda off, the token female on their crew. And a foreman to boot. Miranda resented the dog-and-pony show. She just wanted to do her work and be left alone. Miranda ignored him, hoping he’d give up and move on. Unfortunately, he didn’t.
When she looked over again, the group was closer. Her gaze skimmed the men and focused on the one that stood out. The man who had to be the boss’s son. A man who looked a lot like…Jack.
Heat seared a path straight down her chest. She pulled herself back to the top of the beam, let the blood drain from her head, and looked again.
It was still Jack.
Her stomach dropped to her feet. Her mind skipped back to the bar, then to his hotel room, scrounging for information to make sense of this. One by one, the pieces clicked into place, and the resulting picture was not pretty.
Jack was the son of Pinnacle’s owner. The owner who’d been mentally derailed for the last year and stripped of the company’s operating funds by his partner. That partner was Alex’s father. The company Jack was trying to save was Pinnacle.
Holy. Shit.
His gaze scanned the open space, his expression grim. Miranda’s heart was beating so hard, she heard it in her ears. Anxiety crawled along her skin. Her chest grew tight, her stomach jumpy. She wanted to throw up.
Her instincts had always told her to keep her work and personal lives separate. As the only woman on a hundred-and-something-man crew, how her peers saw her was vital to her success. Especially as a supervisor. Men didn’t take well to having women telling them what to do on the job.
She put a lot of effort into keeping the men she worked with thinking of her as one of the guys. It was why she let them call her Randy, why she swore up a storm whenever she hung with them, why she never brought up anything remotely female while they were sitting on the edge of a skyscraper having lunch, why she’d turned down so many requests for dates, no one even asked anymore.
And she had no doubt, the second Jack locked eyes with her, every man present would know exactly what was between them. She wasn’t prepared to face that. Not here, not now. Not with the boss’s son.