“What were you thinking, jumping in front of him?” she repeats, wringing her hands now. All her veneer of calm and composedness has been stripped away. She looks scared and anxious. Because of me.
I like it.
She can claim to despise me all she wants but here she is worked up over an insignificant injury. But her question gets my attention.
“You expected me to watch him stab you?” I retort, displeased. “I know you say you don’t like me, but there’s a limit to how awful of a person you think I am. I wasn’t going to let him hurt you.”
She looks flustered and tries to hide it by turning around. “What’s going to happen now?”
“Plenty but you don’t have to worry about it. I’ll make sure you’re not involved.” I examine my hand. “You did a good job patching this up.”
Natalie picks up the fallen papers from the ground, as if needing something to do, and sets them back on the desk. “Did you suspect that Robert would become violent?”
I raise a brow. “Would I have had you in the room if I had known? He was let go from his father’s firm because he didn’t enjoy working. He was siphoning funds from there. He knew that if he lost his job, he wouldn’t get any references. But I did not expect him to resort to violence. What I don’t understand is why he blamed you.”
Natalie grimaces. “A lot of the people that Braxton hired, and ones you might potentially fire, will blame me. He was the CEO, but he often hired friends and people he knew without consulting HR. I always maintained files about their quarterlyreviews. I did it for all the employees, but their files were marked. They were well aware of this. Robert must’ve thought that I gave you his file.”
“Did you?”
She looks uneasy. “I didn’t have a detailed file on Robert since he was already here before I arrived, and Braxton covered for him, citing meetings and whatnot for all his late arrivals. I didn’t know he had been hired by Braxton personally.”
“And Braxton had no issue with it?”
She takes her time in replying. “When I work at a company, my full interest is not in making the CEO happy but making sure that the company runs like a well-oiled machine. He was aware of what I was doing, and it’s not like he didn’t try to make things hard for me.”
It’s obvious that she’s hiding something. “So why did he never fire you? From everything I know about Braxton, he wasn’t the kind of man to keep on an employee if he didn’t like them. Because of you, the policies have changed multiple times, policies that benefit the female staff. Why was he so willing to go along with it?”
“Because he didn’t have a choice,” she admits. “I wasn’t hired by Braxton Thompson. It was the board of directors who wanted me here. Braxton didn’t get a say. Employee morale was down. The company was having trouble holding onto employees. Profits were falling as a result. They had two options. A crisis CEO or a new HR head. I was the cheaper option.”
My eyebrows knit together. This is something I wasn’t informed about. Now it makes sense why Braxton was so openly hostile towards Natalie and why she had such sway over the decisions regarding employees within the firm. The HR Department bows down before the CEO of a company, but Natalie did no such thing because she was not bound to the CEO. She was answerable to the board of directors.
“While I’m restructuring this company,” I tell her, “those filesthat you have will come in handy. In fact, I would prefer that you assist me in this capacity. If we work together, we can make this as painless as possible.”
I can see the reluctance in her eyes. “I can just send you the additional files.”
“You can. But I’m sure that you know a lot more than what is written down on those files. It’s up to you, Natalie. Either I drag this out at my own pace and fire individuals whom I consider incompetent, or you work with me and we can keep those whom you think can be redeemed.”
Her body is stiff as she looks at me. “Why does this feel like blackmail?”
I give her a half-smile, showing her my injured hand. “Do I look like I’m in a position to blackmail you?”
“Your hand is injured, Ethan, not your brain,” she retorts, but I don’t miss the flash of guilt in her eyes.
“So that’s a no then?” I deliberately move my hand, furrowing my brow as I do.
The guilt in her eyes seems to grow, and finally she lets out a defeated sound. “Fine. Fine, I’ll do it.”
“Good.” I lower my hand into my lap. “And judging from the voices outside, I think that’s Dr. Hans. Why don’t you go and create a job description for the recently vacated position? I’ll get my hand looked at.”
She nods, jerkily.
Jake is already opening the door for the doctor to enter, and he smiles at Natalie as she passes him by. “Leaving so soon?”
Natalie gives him a brief uninterested look before walking past him.
I see my brother’s ego crash and burn, and I grin to myself. As he approaches me, followed closely by an older man in a white coat, I nod in greeting. “Dr. Hans.”
The man sets down his case, peering at me from over his glasses. “You don’t look like you’re dying.”
