Modern - Chapter 8

Sunday with Emmy was wonderful. I enjoyed going to her church and eating dinner with her. She made food at her place and invited me over. I was hoping to return the favor soon, once I finally got my kitchen fully stocked.

I had made a few grocery store runs, but I guess you never realize how much you use in the kitchen until you have nothing, because I kept making food and finding myself short a few seasonings or other basics. Once I could make a full meal for myself without having to find some kind of weird substitute or enduring a less-than-flavorful dinner, I'd invite Emmy to join me.

Monday morning rolled around and I dragged myself out of bed. Emmy and I had plans to meet up for dinner again, and that was the only thing I had to look forward to.

Today was the day that the real work would begin. I needed to start going over the accounts for the Texas office and seeing if I could find any discrepancies that might point me in the direction of where our money leak was. It was apparent that someone was taking or misusing company funds. On top of that, the board in New York was fairly certain that someone was leaking information to a rival company. I needed to determine who was responsible for both, whether it was just one person or multiple.

In New York, going over the plan, it had seemed relatively simple. Just take a look around the office, look into accounts and such, and figure out what wasn't adding up. If needed, use my charming personality to ingratiate myself with the employees and get someone to snitch.

Now that I was here and had spent a day in the office, I knew it would be difficult. The employees were wary of me. There was a lot of information to dig through looking for what would probably be a fairly well-concealed clue. But it had to be done, so I showed up to the office early and got busy going over the account books I had grabbed before heading home Friday.

There was only one upper-level employee I hadn't met Friday, and I was hoping to see him today. His administrative assistant had been out of the office Friday so he hadn't been accepting new appointments.

Hopefully she was in today, because I really needed to talk with her and get on his calendar. He was the CEO of the Texas office and everyone else I had talked to had deferred to him when I had asked important questions.

I waited in my office until 8, then messaged the assistant, Amelia Watsen, using the in-office chat. She quickly replied and told me that she would add me to Mr. Crawford's schedule for that afternoon.

I spent lunch in the break room, hoping to get to know some of my coworkers. My plan worked. I struck up a conversation with a few other men around my age. Gavin from accounting, Dave from HR, and Bryon and Kevin from the sales team were all good friends who quickly welcomed me into their group.

By the time we finished eating, I had made plans to join them after work for a drink. It would make me a little late to Emmy's, but I was sure she would understand.

Gavin's office was near mine, so we walked together after lunch. I casually mentioned my meeting with Mr. Crawford, hoping to gauge Gavin's opinion of the CEO. After a morning of carefully combing through accounts and running into a lot more "Ask Mr. Crawford" when I had questions, I was starting to think that there was no way whatever was happening here was going forth without his knowledge and potential participation.

"Oh, does that mean you talked to his assistant?" was Gavin's first question.

"I just used the online office chat."

"Oh, bummer. Well, I bet you'll still see her when you show up for the meeting. Amelia is a hottie! All the men in the office have trailed after her at some point."

"She likes to play the field then?"

"Nah man, she turns everyone down flat! I've never seen her say yes to anyone before, even though we've certainly all tried to hit it off with her. I'd warn you not to try, but honestly, I'm always curious to see how she reacts to new meat."

"I'm not really looking for a work relationship," I answered, thinking about Emmy and our very promising budding relationship.

"Well, save that until you see her."

"Is she pretty close to Mr. Crawford?"

"I mean, she handles basically all the hard stuff for him. He just has to show up and sign a bunch of stuff, I reckon. So yeah, she probably knows him better than anyone. Well, she and Mr. Owens, the CFO. Mr. Owens and Mr. Crawford are golf buddies and all that. It's why I know as much about Amelia as I do. She helps out Mr. Owens pretty regularly as well."

"So she works in the finance department sometimes?"

"Yeah. And occasionally in marketing. I'm telling you, she's not just physically hot, but also sharp as a tack! That's what draws all the men to her, honestly. I know people give us business bros a hard time for getting pulled in by a pretty face, but we all really prefer a woman who can hold an intelligent conversation."

I was impressed by his open attitude. By the time I reached my office, I had a lot to think about. I immediately emailed HR and set up a meeting with the head. I would need to talk to him about Amelia Watsen. She was starting to look like my most promising suspect.

I spent another hour browsing account books and looking through old team communications, then got up and headed to the CEO's office. There was a small reception area in front of his office. I noted the sign on the desk: Amelia Watsen. Her head was bent over her desk, so I cleared my throat. She looked up and met my eyes with a welcoming smile.

I had been anxious to see the woman who had apparently set all the male hearts in the office fluttering. I had certainly expected to be impressed. What I really didn't expect was. . . "Emmy?"