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Chapter Six
Sophie
I decided to take a much-needed mental health day after I reached home. I sat on my deck rethinking life choices. The fragmented flower petals which scrabbled along my deck hours ago had been cleaned up and the flowers were switched with new long-stemmed red roses from Miles. This wasn’t usually how I acted. Calm, cool and professional was my natural state until today. What was Miles doing to me that was making me act crazy? After a few hours of reading the raving reviews from the newspapers on the new CEO of Forever Fitness, I saw Drake walking on the deck. He was oddly quiet.
“Nice, long-stemmed roses.” It was difficult for him to hide his internal happiness.
“You like this a little too much.”
“Oh honey, I’m enjoying all this, but we have an issue.”
My face dropped. Drake declaring we had an issue was never a good thing. He had been open to some of the most challenging issues my company faced and was always optimistic. He tossed The National Enquirer on the table in front of me.
A photo with an unclear shot of my face enjoying Miles’s pleasure in Colorado with the headline ‘Miss Dash forcing employees to pleasure her stared at me. I gasped when I looked closely at the photoshopped picture of the Janitor’s face, the same janitor that was screwing the old CEO, Jamie, on the conference table. My eyes blazed with fire. My reputation and dating life had always been sealed tight from the public and, most of all, the press. Tossing the article on the table, I dropped my voice. “Get the team here now.”
Drake agreed with a nod but I could see his shocked expression when I said “here”. Mixing my home life with the professional one was a line I never blurred. As Drake paced away to make the calls, my phone chimed.
Miles: “They could have at least given me some credit for that face.”
Sophie: “Didn’t you delete the recording?”
Miles: “Yes, I paid the hotel generously and hacked into the system. This was not taken from their cameras”.
Miles: “I’m pulling everything on your old CEO now and will be at your home in 20 minutes”.
I never expected this from a scorned ex-employee, but it was always a risk when firing someone. We went from coffee to wine a few hours later, and my home looked like a mobile FBI station.
“We already filed the suit against her this morning; however, yesterday she filed harassment and wrongful termination charges.” Steve, my lawyer who had been with the company from the beginning, stated giving Julie from PR, an update. Julie was a bit overweight, in which people disagreed with her working at my fitness company, but I always hire people in all stages of their fitness journey. She was nice and great at her job. That’s all what mattered to me.
“I don’t think we should respond.” her appeasing suggestion came to light. The moment Miles moved into the hall our eyes met and my body felt an electric shock. He walked in and stood next to me, a little closer than I was comfortable with in front of my staff. My heart fluttered as the air filled with the smell of his aftershave. Finally, he rounded the corner of the kitchen and looked out at my backyard lake view.
“Nice place,” he turned, smiling in my direction acting as though he had never been in my house before.
“Thank you.” I mocked amicably to return his compliment. Julie’s eyes were fixed on him, taking in his attractive frame. Sexy would have been an understatement for him and he could probably get any women he wanted. However, this didn’t intimidate me. I was confident.
“Have we contacted the Janitor? Does he still work for us?” Steve, my lawyer, interrupted the moment.
“No, I didn’t fire him. Human Resources sent a recap of the investigation. She was the one to take advantage of her position. He was just playing along.”
“Perfect, let’s get him to give a statement that you are not in a relationship.” Julie was in the middle of a PR nightmare but she still managed to think in the right direction.
“Or, let’s take the narrative and run with it,” Miles suggested making direct eye-contact with me.
“I’m not following.” I understood what he meant by those words but I couldn’t believe he was even suggesting it.
“Let’s ask the Janitor to build on the story. What is wrong with the CEO finding love with an hourly associate?”
Julie argued, “everything, it’s against policy and makes her look like… like…”
“A normal person,” Miles interrupted Julie.
Julie countered, “Besides, he’s a contractor.”
Steve was always great at strategy. He thought for a second and with a frown on his forehead proposed, “have we confirmed if he would even agree to such terms? It’s easy for me to remove the policy portion as she is no longer the CEO and now a business stakeholder. The issue would be making it believable.”
“To be honest, making you look more human would help the company in the long-term. I don’t think you have ever been in a public relationship ever.” Julie seemed to get convinced at the suggestion and her words came out as if she was changing her mind.
I interjected as it was now getting harder for me to follow. “I’m sorry, do we think this is the best plan?” How could the team even think that I would be comfortable with this?
