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“I’m not,” she argued. “All I’m saying is that I don’t have to try cocaine to know that it’s bad for me. The same goes with abuse. I don’t need to be in love to see what it’s not.”
“You have to be able to read in between the lines with this job, Ms. Tinley,” I told her. “You have to hear what’s not being said, and if you are too wrapped up in your own emotions, then you’re going to miss the whole point of being here.”
“Oh, believe me,” she hissed. “I know better than most the purpose of these call centers, so don’t presume to talk to me like I don’t, simply because I needed a moment to be human.”
There was a fire blazing in those dark brown eyes of hers, and she looked beautiful when she was fired up. Passions were a dangerous thing because they could be addicting; just ask anyone that’s ever been involved in a volatile relationship.
While I knew that there was something deep beneath the surface that haunted Posie, I hadn’t ever looked into her past beyond what I had needed to in order to hire her. I wasn’t one to violate an innocent person’s privacy, so anything that hadn’t come up in her background check or psychological evaluation had been off-limits at the time.
However, now…
“So, what is it that haunts you, Ms. Tinley,” I asked softly, crossing the line. “Why is it that you know better than most why these call centers exist?”
Her head jerked a bit as her beautiful face paled. “Nothing that will interfere with the good that I do here, Mr. Warrick,” she finally answered, her voice hoarse and full of emotion.
I regarded her for a long while before finally saying, “The hardest part about this job isn’t dealing with victims, Ms. Tinley. The hardest part about this job is not becoming a monster yourself when you’re surrounded by nothing but evil for eight hours a day. The second that you start to feel desensitized or start focusing on the abuser, it’s time to quit.”
“What about when you start judging the victim?” she asked.
“I suppose that depends on what you’re judging her or him for,” I answered. “Remember, these calls aren’t about what you would do in their situation, Ms. Tinley. It’s about what they should do in their situation, and the only way that you can offer effective advice is to keep that in mind. I don’t want my specialist handing out fortune cookie advice.” Her brown eyes blazed again, and I was finding myself more and more curious about her.
“I’ve never handed out fortune cookie advice,” she seethed, and seeing her backbone snap was better than seeing her looking broken. “Now, unless you are sending me home or firing me, I’d like to get back to work.”
“When is your next renewal week, Ms. Tinley?” All my employees were offered a benefits package that included three weeks of vacation annually. However, my call center employees were required to take a renewal week every two months in addition to their vacation weeks. Whether they realized it or not, it wasn’t healthy not to step away from their line of work regularly.
“In two weeks,” she answered through clenched teeth, not appreciating how I was insinuating that she was at a breaking point.
“Very well,” I replied. “I’ll leave you to return to work.”
“Thank-”
“However, I will be keeping an eye on you for the next couple of weeks,” I warned her. “And if I feel like I might need to push your renewal week up, I will.”
Posie looked livid, but she knew better than to say anything. Regardless of our current conversation, I was still her boss, and she knew it.
“Of course,” she bit out.
I released another heavy sigh as I watched her walk away from me and down the hallway back to her workstation. While there’d been a bit of inappropriateness sprinkled into our conversation, I wasn’t going to stress over it. Posie could report me to H.R., or she could not. Either way, I wasn’t going to worry myself over something that I couldn’t control. I liked to focus my energies on the things that I could control, and everyone knew that you couldn’t control a woman that didn’t want to be controlled.
Nevertheless, it wouldn’t stop me from fantasizing about it a little.
Chapter 3
Posie~
I walked into my condo, ready for this day to be over. Tossing my purse over the couch on my way to the kitchen, I didn’t care if it was too early to go to sleep and call it a night.
I really didn’t.
Grabbing a quick microwave meal from the freezer, I also grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator before bypassing the oven to the appliance that cooked most of my food. Living alone, there was no need for me to cook real meals. Besides, formal dinners weren’t for me. Despite what my bank statements claimed, formal or fancy weren’t my thing.
While there were millions of people in the world that had lives way more tragic than mine, my issues had begun at an early age, and no amount of money could get out the stains of my childhood.
No amount of money.
My father, Steven Tinley, was a hedge fund investor by trade, but his wealth came from the most unsavory of places, and my mother was no better. Oh, sure, Hilde Tinley wasn’t into anything corrupt, but her love of money had damaged me in ways that no one could understand.
I had an older brother named Gilbert, but he had gotten through life unscathed because our parents had shipped him off to boarding school when he’d only been four. He hadn’t lived in our household, so when he looked at our parents, all he saw were accommodating dollar signs that he had no issues with. Only two years apart, I’d only been two-years-old when I’d been left alone in my house with my parents.
