"Sounds good, you and I will connect later," he replied.
That's his code for 'OMG I want the tea!' I thought with a mental chuckle. I looked at the number and felt my soul leave my body.
With the grimace still on my face, I turned the phone to show him the amount Robby sent over. Gordon blanched and his jaw dropped. "I don't have that kind of money readily available!"
"Apparently you did," I explained, setting the phone down again. "The payment cleared, in fact that's what flagged it as a high priority. But, we can see what we can do."
"Noooo," came Robby's voice from the phone. "I've already told Marissa in Payroll about the prospect of bonuses so everyone knows...."
My eyes went wide and I immediately ended the call with a sigh.
"I love my assistant, but sometimes I wish he came with a mute button," I said, closing my eyes and praying the ground would open up to swallow me.
Getting to his feet Gordon paced the small office. "I feel like I'm backed into a corner here," he admitted. "If I break the contract, that's a lot of money we are out and I lose face. However, I don't need your help here and I'd still be out a lot of money."
"There are... two loopholes," I said slowly. "I put them in there specifically to protect myself and the company but they might be beneficial."
Gordon paused and stared at me. "To protect you?" he asked with a snort of derision.
"Yes to protect me," I replied, letting a hint of steel creep into my voice. "Put yourself in my shoes. Typically we have an intake meeting to go over everything and get a feel for the pack. That didn't happen here. In fact the contract was pretty much signed carte blanche. I knew nothing about the pack, about you other than 'Alpha Hale' and the whole thing was rushed. I had to assume the worst and that it could be a trap."
His gaze lost some of its ice and he dropped his eyes in shame.
"So the loopholes. The first is that any contract issues and disagreements goes to a neutral third party. Standard practice."
"And the second?"
"Two weeks. I get two weeks to feel out the pack, and the issues. If I deem it as not worth our time, I'm allowed to back out. You get most of your money back, and we consider this as never having happened." Gordon slowly took his seat once more and I continued. "I will agree to make it a mutual decision. In two weeks, if we both decide that it's not going to work, I walk away. But we both have to agree."
"This way," I pressed on, encouraged by the pensive look on his face, "you save face as an alpha for not backing out of an agreement. Giselle is happy that we tried. And you are allowed to assign stupid tasks to me that you don't want to do. Have a mountain of paperwork that needs sorting, scanning and filing? Give that to me."
"You just don't want to give me back all of my money," he huffed.
"There's more to it than that," I said calmly. "You heard Robby, the majority of what was paid is going to my employees. While I can pay you back, their rewards for excellence will be severely diminished if not cancelled in total. You know how demoralizing that is."
"Alright," he sighed. His body language let me know that he knew it was a losing battle. "Let's put this to paper then and make it official."
And just like that, the two-week clock began to tick.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Author's Note:
Holy crow, we made it to 20 chapters!
Only... counts on fingers ...48 more to go until this emotional roller coaster is officially a finished ride.
If you've survived this far (congrats??), thank you! Knowing that there are readers invested in a story I created is absolutely amazing to me, and it feeds my gremlin author heart.
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