Chapter 28

The next morning, Dorothea slung her bag over her shoulder and drove her new car to the office. As Nash stepped out of his own car, he noticed Dorothea pulling into a parking spot. A BMW X3. Decent, but nothing fancy.

Nash instantly felt even less impressed by her. He remembered the time Elise brought a girl to the company. Now, that girl was a real princess. Everything about her screamed rich, right down to her shoes. Compared to her, Dorothea didn’t even come close.

Dorothea had no idea what Nash was thinking. As a department director, she was assigned her own secretary. She smiled at Lara. “Lara, could you send out a notice for me? We’ll have a department meeting at two this afternoon p>

She paused, then added, “By the way, do we have a work group chat? If so, could you add me in p>

Lara looked a little surprised. “Of course, no problem at all. You’re being really polite p>

Technically, these tasks should have been handled by Nash. But he clearly saw Dorothea as competition and wasn’t about to help her out.

Behind the scenes, though, Nash had already started a private group chat without Dorothea.

[Nash: Don’t worry about the meeting this afternoon. If you need to go out, just go. If you want to take it easy, relax p>

[Someone: Nash, is that really okay? Dorothea’s our boss now p>

[Nash: Trust me, if anything happens, I’ll take the blame. She’s only in her twenties. Do you really buy her as a director? She’s just here because of her connections p>

Lara found out about this secret group from a friend and got a heads-up. She spent the whole lunch break debating what to do, then finally knocked on Dorothea’s door at half past one.

“Dorothea, a lot of people have called in sick or taken leave. The meeting might be kind of empty today p>

Dorothea looked up and met Lara’s eyes. “That’s alright. The meeting goes on, no matter how many show up. Just make sure the people who do attend share the updates with everyone else p>

Lara hesitated. “What if hardly anyone comes p>

Dorothea set her mouse aside and raised an eyebrow. “Is someone telling people not to attend p>

Aside from Nash, there really wasn’t anyone else who could pull that off.

“Don’t stress. We’ll hold the meeting as planned. I can handle it p>

At two o’clock on the dot, Dorothea opened the conference room door. Just as she expected, there were only a few people inside. Nash wasn’t there, either.

Dorothea kept her tone calm. “Lara, please take note of everyone who’s absent today and find out their reasons Weltalso update the. department policy—no more than a third of the team can be on leave at the same time p>

She turned to Lara. “Was it Nash who signed off on all those leaves?” Lara nodded, a little nervous. “Yes, Dorothea p>

“Alright. This month, Nash will have his performance bonus docked for failing to manage properly. Put it in writing and send a copy to every department. And dont forget to post it the group chat as well

With that, Dorothea started the meeting. The employees who were there listened to

her, glancing at their phones as messages exploded in their chat.

Was Dorothea really only twenty-five? She’d laid down the law on her very first day.

Right after the meeting, Nash saw the announcement pop up in the chat.

“Dorothea, what gives you the right to dock my bonus? Do you even know how much that is p>

Dorothea raised an eyebrow. “There

are twenty-two people in our

department: Today, eleven took leave and three were out on field work. That left just seven of us for the meeting. I sent the notice this morning. Nash, do you really think your approvals were reasonable p>

She added, “I’m the director now. According to the company handbook, department heads have the authority to decide their team’s performance bonuses p>