Page 5 of All Out of Love

Grayson was surprised. Travis didn’t usually make mistakes. But it was a mistake that cost him fourteen million dollars already and the full amount hadn’t yet been calculated. “You’re fired,” he said to Travis. They all worked at the pleasure of the CEO. The only person with more authority than Grayson was his father, who was the Chairman of the Board. But all personnel decisions went through Grayson’s office. “Effective immediately,” he added.

The shock that shook that room was palpable. So much so that nobody heard the phone blaring again. Travis was the golden child. If Grayson fired him, he would easily fire them. Even Dena wanted to come to his defense. But none of them did.

They all had their own high-level jobs to protect and families to feed. And they all knew that once a Carrington made up his mind there was no changing it.

Grayson plopped down in his chair and was thinking about how in the world he could recoup some of his money. But then he looked up. Travis, still stunned, was still there. “What you didn’t hear me?” Grayson asked him. “Your ass fired. Get out of my office.”

“But sir, it was an innocent mistake sir,” Travis said.

“An innocent mistake doesn’t cost me fourteen million dollars. That’s incompetence. That’s I don’t give a damn. That’s it’s not my money so let’s roll the dice and play with it.” Grayson’s look turned hard. “Get the fuck out of my face and get out now!”

Nobody could argue with a word Grayson had just said. Including Travis Holden. He got careless in his assessments and it cost the boss a fortune. And that was why he walked on out. But he slammed the door behind him.

Which angered Grayson. “And why isn’t anybody answering that damn phone again?” He took his anger out on that phone.

“Paige is on maternity leave,” Dena said as she hurried to the conference table. “And I don’t know why Lois isn’t answering it.”

“Then hire somebody!” Grayson demanded. “Why hasn’t anybody been hired yet? What are you waiting for?”

“Miss Javits--”

“Stop bringing Lois into this. She can’t be expected to run my household and field phone calls too. Hire somebody until that child returns from maternity leave for goodness sakes. And I mean somebody had better be on the job before this day is over!”

“Yes sir. I’ll get right on it, sir.”

“That damn phone is going to be the death of me before any of you get a shot at it!”

“Yes sir,” Dena said again as she grabbed the phone and finally stopped the screeching. “Carrington Capital. This is Dena,” she said as if it was a relief just to have a moment of silence again.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Where you going all dressed up this time of day?”

Toya had just come out of the bedroom she shared with her little nephew and was headed for the front door.

When she returned to Baltimore almost a month ago, she tried with all she had to fix up what she could of that shack of a house, but all the scrubbing and cleaning she did was quickly reversed every time they threw a party. Which seemed like every other night. Liquor would spill on the sofa again. Cigarette burns in the chairs. Holes in the walls. She couldn’t keep up, so she gave up.

“You heard me, Toya,” her sister Keisha said. She was standing behind a chair in the kitchen braiding her boyfriend’s hair. “Where you going all dressed up like that?”

Toya wore a lavender pantsuit with a black turtleneck tucked-in, and black heels. It was none of her sister’s business where she was going, but she was too excited to keep it to herself the way she did most things. “The temp agency just called. They got me a job.”

“A job? Who gon’ hire you after what you did? Burger King?”

Keisha and her boyfriend laughed. Toya ignored them. But that was the very reason she kept herself to herself. The only reason they knew what happened to her in Ocala was because she called her mother and her sister and begged them to try and bail her out. She knew they couldn’t, and wasn’t sure if they would even if they could. But they were all she had.

“So where you got a job at?” Keisha asked again. “You was all high and mighty down there in Florida with your big-time office job. Didn’t have time for us then. Always had to work. But your ass gets fired and arrested and you found our number then, didn’t you?”

“I never lost your number.” But Toya knew the facts never mattered to her baby sister.

“You found our number then,” Keisha said again, “and had to turn-tail and run right back home to mama and get your high ass back down to earth with us little people. Seems you’re a little people too now. Even smaller than us,” she added laughing. “At least I can make money braiding hair. You gots to flip burgers to survive.”

Toya shook her head. Because that last comment was her baby sister in a nutshell. She made up something about somebody, like the job Toya was heading to was at Burger King, and then she talked about it as if it was a fact.

But Toya didn’t match her energy nor did she try to respond at all. She knew it was a receptionist’s job for Carrington Capital, a venture capitalist corporation headquartered on the outskirts of Baltimore. She knew she wasn’t flipping anybody’s burgers. But that was none of her business.

“But for real where you going?” Bam asked her too.

Bam was Keisha’s boyfriend and he was always checking out Toya’s well-put together, slender body. Keisha had serious curves, but Toya had them the way he privately liked them: not too much, and not too little. She was in between slender and curvy. She was perfect in his eyes. And unlike Keisha, who had a pretty face but she also had buck teeth so pronounced they looked like horse teeth, Latoya had the face to match her gorgeous figure. And what he loved about her even more than that was that Toya didn’t realize she was hot. Keisha and girls like her gave themselves too much credit in the looks department. Toya didn’t give herself hardly any credit at all. “Where you going, Toya?” he asked her again.