There was a whole hell of a lot that she was dancing around about behind the public relations vocabulary.
“My husband took advantage of my generosity and abused his power here. I was aware of some of his… flaws. But I was not aware of just how inappropriate he’d become.” Her tone was steely and anger all but crackled off her. I hoped she got the guy’s balls in the divorce.
I stayed silent and forcibly choked down the kajillion questions I had.
“I was so focused on growing a brand, transitioning into digital-first, and enjoying the perks of being a powerful woman in an exciting industry that I didn’t look closely within my own family, my own company. Maybe I didn’t want to.”
“But it’s over now,” I guessed.
She nodded. “Years too late. So much damage could have been avoided. But the past is in the past. It has no bearing on the present and future. I brought my son on to take his father’s place and tasked him—perhaps unfairly—with cleaning up his father’s mess. As you saw last week, the strain is getting to him.”
I was busy wondering exactly what Dalessandra wasn’t saying when that last bit of information landed.
Oh, shit.
“Charming is your son?”
She looked bewildered. “Who did you think he was?”
“I thought he was your date. I told him you could do better than him,” I said.
Dalessandra laughed again.
Again, I heard the swivel of chairs from the other side of the glass.
“Dominic is my son.”
Maybe I could empathize just a tiny bit with the man being called in to clean up a family mess. But still, I wasn’t an asshole about my situation.
“So, why, on my first day as an admin, am I in your office?” I asked. I felt like I was missing a few very large, important puzzle pieces.
“Because my son owes you a job, and Russos always pay their debts.”
More mystery. The woman seemed like a vault of secrets.
“Okay,” I said, drawing out the word Linus-style.
Dalessandra leaned on her elbows. “And if by some chance you manage to take the temperature of our staff and find out if there’s something I can do to make our environment more stable…” She held up the palms of her hands. “Then I hope you’ll feel inclined to discuss it with me.”
And there was the ask.
A vague one.
I felt like we were communicating in code… and only one of us had the code… and the other one of us was me.
“I’ll do what I can?” It came out more like a question. But it was the answer my new boss was looking for.
“Good. If there’s anything you need, please tell me,” she said, picking up her reading glasses and sliding them on.
“I do have a few questions.”
She peered over the frames at me. “Yes?”
“Can Charm—your son fire me?” I asked.
Her smile was feline. “No. Dominic can’t fire you.”
“Okay, then. Do I have to be nice to him?”
She leaned back in her chair, considering. “I think you should have the relationship you feel most comfortable having with my son.”
7
Dominic
My mother’s assistants were glued to whatever was going on in her office and didn’t see me approach.
I muttered a greeting, startling the guy so badly he sloshed water down the front of his checkered shirt.
“Oh, Mr. Russo, your mother is in a meeting,” the less terrified assistant—Gina or Ginny—said, rising as I reached for the door handle.
My mother laughed at whoever was sitting across the desk from her.
I frowned. “Who’s in there?”
“Uh. Um. A new hire,” the damp assistant squeaked, patting himself dry with napkins.
I hadn’t heard Mom laugh like that in a long time.
They were standing now, and I decided it was as good a time as any to interrupt.
“Speak of the devil,” Mom said when I stepped into her office.
The other woman turned around. She was smiling.
She was… here?
“No,” I growled.
I heard a thud behind me and assumed the nervous assistant had fallen over trying to eavesdrop.
“Oh. Yeah,” FU pizza girl said smugly.
“No,” I said again, shaking my head.
“Dominic, meet Ally. Ally is joining our admin pool. Ally, Dominic is our creative director here at Label.”
“A word, Mother,” I said. She couldn’t just dole out jobs to people who were too rude to keep them. She’d already hit her quota with me.
“I’m sorry, darling. I don’t have time. Be a dear and show Ally to HR,” she said, picking up the phone. “Get me Naomi.”
We were dismissed. But I was going to have several words with my mother at her earliest convenience.
I stopped by the assistants’ desk and took a stab at her name. “Gina, schedule me an appointment with my mother at her earliest convenience. Tell her it’s a budgetary meeting so she doesn’t try to cancel it.”
She blinked at me. Her mouth opened and then closed. Shit. I should have gone with Ginny.
“Is there a problem?”
“You know my name.”
“Of course I know your name,” I snapped, secretly relieved.
“You’re a real man of the people, Charming,” Ally said dryly behind me.
I turned on her. “Don’t bother getting comfortable here,” I warned her.
“Or what? You’ll ruin another job for me?”
“You and I both know that you deserved to lose that job,” I insisted. “You can’t be that rude to customers and then be surprised when you’re called out on it.”
“And you can’t be that rude to people and not get called out on it,” she countered.
“You started it,” I snarled.
“And you thought you were above the rules.”
Okay. She may have had the thinnest, most microscopic point.
“It was an important call,” I lied.
“Was it?” she asked, wrinkling her nose in theatrical disbelief. “Everyone else in that restaurant had no problem following the rules.”
“The rule is bullshit.”
“Of course it is!” she threw her hands in the air. “George also had rules like servers can only have half a slice of pizza per six-hour shift. Toppings were extra! And you could only take one pee break per shift!”
“If it was so miserable, why are you so upset he fired you?”
“You got me fired,” she yelled. “And I need the money, you buffoon!”
No one in my entire life had ever called me a buffoon. At least not to my face. I would guess it hadn’t been bandied about behind my back either. Asshole, yes. Motherfucking bastard, definitely.
“Buffoon?” I repeated, smirking.
“Shut up. I’m mad.”
Good.
“You should be thanking me,” I insisted, pushing the button I knew would set her off.
“Are you completely delusional, Charming?”
My mother’s easily startled assistant whose name I definitely did not know gasped behind me, reminding me that we had an audience.