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Nerves making her hands shake, Skylar took her seat at the oblong table, politely greeting the people on each side of her, and waited for the chit-chat to die down and the meeting to begin. Despite her own self-warning to not look at Hardy, she cast a glance in his direction.
He looked right at her.
Damn. Not much she could do but fake a smile.
“Skylar, be a doll and brew us all a fresh pot of coffee, would you?”
She blinked. What? That was for one of the staff to do, not her. She noticed the others in the room turn their heads to her as Hardy moved on to discuss something with the CFO from an investment firm in Japan to his right.
A wave of anger immediately raced through her veins, scalding hot. He thought she wouldn’t say anything. That she’d meekly push back her chair and, with a tucked head like a dog’s tail between its legs, hurry out to the break room. He thought thathehad all the power.
What a sexist, misogynistic fuck.
She’d planned to wait until the end of the meeting. After all, the shareholders of Embrette deserved excellent service, and after the bombshell she was about to drop, no work would get done today. She doubted any of the potential investors would have anything to do with the company after what she was about to do.
She stood in such a fury that her chair rolled back and clanged against the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Financial District. Every bald patch in the room twisted around to see what caused the racket.
“Skylar,” Hardy said, his tone chastising as if she were a child. “Some decorum would be expected when leaving the room.”
She gave Hardy a wide smile as she felt every pair of eyes on her.“But I’m not leaving the room. And I’m not office staff—getting you coffee is not my job. AndHardy, it’s Ms. McKenzie.”
A blossom of red spread across Hardy’s pale cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand and interjected before he could get a word out.
Smiling at her now-stunned audience, she said, “If you all don’t mind, I’d like to tell you a quick story.”
Hardy crossed his arms and grumbled, “We do mind, Ms. McKenzie. No one wants to hear your story. I’m not sure what’s gotten into you, but if you don’t sit, I’ll have you removed from today’s meeting.”
“Oh, someone’s going to be removed from this meeting, but it won’t be me. Here,” she said, handing a sheaf of papers to the people on either side of her. “Take one and pass them on.”
“Skylar,” Hardy snapped out, “is this some female issue you’re having? We don’t interrupt meetings like this at Embrette.”
“We also don’t embezzle money,” she said, undeterred. She focused her eyes on Hardy, who had suddenly gone silent.
Around the conference room table, everyone exchanged confused glances
Hardy paled as his eyes narrowed in fury. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Skylar, but this needs to stop. Now.” The person next to him passed him a copy, which he took without looking at it.
Skylar glanced around the conference table. Everyone was reading the article silently to themselves. “We all have causes that are near and dear to our hearts.Empowered in Financeis mine. I’ve volunteered for the charity for years.” She looked at Hardy, whose pale face turned gray. “But recently, I’ve learned of someshenanigansgoing on with the charity’s finances. A charity whose entire financial holdings are controlled by Embrette. By Hardy Priese, actually.OnlyHardy Priese.”
“Skylar, I’m warning you . . . ” Hardy’s voice was low and deadly. He still hadn’t looked at the paper he held in his hand.
“You’re a sexist, disgusting pig, Hardy Priese. But I could deal with it when you made your stupid little comments about me. Mostly, I ignored them. I clapped back at times, but I should have done iteverytime. Maybe if I had, you wouldn’t have felt so emboldened as to steal from a charity designed to help women. Maybe you could have learned. Grown. Or maybe not.” She shrugged. “Because once an asshole, always an asshole.”
She glanced around the conference room, hoping her lecture had given the others time to read the article. The room was filled with tense silence as Hardy glared at her, daggers in his beady eyes.
“Read what’s in front of you, Hardy,” she said, a smile curving her lips upward.
Slowly lowering his gaze to the paper in front of him, he did. And his face grew beet-red. His hands curled into fists. He crumpled the paper and threw it at her.
She felt a sense of victory when Hardy’s hands curled into fists on the table.
“Anyway,” she laughed, looking around at the stunned board members and the CEOs, “I’m obviously not great at telling stories. Not like the New York Times or the Washington Post or the LA Times or the Chicago Tribune or . . . hell, even the Wall Street Journal had something to say about Hardy Priese today.”
She turned and walked out the conference room door, leaving behind stunned silence and a sputtering Hardy. As she slipped down the hall to her office, she passed Security. Good. Someone had made the call.
Hardy was toast.
When she reached her office, she closed the door and leaned against it, eyes closed, suddenly exhausted. But also exhilarated. She’d done it. No, they’d done it. She and Julian.
