Worst Week Ever (A Long Road to Love) (4 page)

She nodded,
worried by the anger she heard in his voice when he mentioned the password. “If
it makes you feel better, they change passwords every week, which makes it hard
for an unauthorized person to get into the system.”

His fists
clenched. “Except the password can be purchased for a cookie.”

Damn it. His
anger went to the wrong guy! She needed to lighten the mood fast. “Not just any
old cookie. They have to be my grandmother’s caramel and chocolate turtle
recipe. I don’t think Jack would sell it for less.” When Trent didn’t smile,
she sighed heavily and tried another tactic. “Please don’t threaten to fire my
source. If you do, my sole line of data will disappear along with the reports
you receive.”

Turning
sideways in his seat, he faced her. “Let me get this straight. The data exists
in the system, but the system geek refuses to provide it until he gets cookies?”

She shook her
head, frustrated Trent had the wrong guy in his bull’s-eye. “Bob has forbidden Jack
to run jobs for me, so don’t be mad at him. In fact, if you let Bob know Jack
gives me the passwords—”

“
Sells
you the password,” he snapped

Carrie gripped
his arm. “Bob will fire him, and we’ll have lost the only person in your overly
large systems group who has ever helped me out. If I lose him, you lose your
data.”

Trent huffed
and kicked the other seat. “What if I order Bob to give you the password?”

“He’ll say I
have the appropriate password for my position, which, if he did his job and
created the needed reports, would be true. And if you insist he give me a
password that allows me to restructure system data and create reports, I’m
pretty sure he’d trash our system and blame it on me.

Trent stared
up at the skylight again and growled. “This sounds like a good place to start
firing people.”

“Not Jack.”

“How about we
start with the manager who refuses to give me data that clearly exists in the
system?”

She smiled,
hoping he really meant to do it. “An excellent place to begin! But remember,
you will need to get a new system manager ready to come on board before you
fire Bob. Your system is the industry standard, so we should be able to find
one pretty easily.”

“I’d rather
fire him now. Do we have anyone in his staff we can promote? And don’t say
Jack.”

“As far as I
can tell, most of Bob’s staff are relatives and friends who should probably go
with him. Otherwise, when we fire him, he could use their access codes to crash
our system in retaliation.”

Trent’s eyes
twitched. Never a good sign.

Settling her
hand on his arm, she said, “Before we mass fire the systems department, let’s
hire the human resource expert, and let him or her line up new people.”

Trent’s brow
furrowed, warning her he didn’t like something about her plan.

“How many
people are in systems?”

“Thirty.”

“How many do
you think we need to fire?”

“Twenty-nine.”

His eyes
narrowed. “Let me guess. You want to keep your buddy Jack.”

She shrugged
as if the idea of firing Jack didn’t outrage her. “He’s the only one who works.
The rest of the staff doesn’t even bother to come in. According to Bob, he’s
saving money by letting them work from home.”

Carrie didn’t
want Trent to conclude working from home was the problem. Once they had quality
systems people, some of them might be able to work at home. God knows they
wouldn’t all fit in the server room where Jack resided.

“I know systems
people
can
work off-site. However, they should still answer their phone
and emails, and do tangible work.” She sighed in frustration. “I once asked
Jack what they do, because I’ve never seen anything. He just rolled his eyes and
cited the exact words written in each of their job descriptions.”

A faint smile
tugged at Trent’s lips. Why the smile? He should be outraged.

His smile
widened. “When did you last take a vacation?”

His change of
topic took her by surprise and worried her. She hoped he hadn’t lost interest
in replacing most of the systems department. When issues became complex, Trent
would sometimes opt to leave matters status quo. He continued to smile at her,
evidently waiting for a response. What’d he asked her? Oh, her last vacation.

“I haven’t
gotten to that yet.”

“You’ve been
here two years. Surely you’ve taken a day off?”

When did he
think this vacation happened? She’d been attached to his side, working ten
hours a day since he hired her! “Not unless you consider today a vacation.”

“I don’t,
since all we’ve discussed is my god-awful employees.” He slammed back against
the seat and glared up at the limo’s sunroof. Finally, he turned and looked at
her. “Be honest. Is it me, or do I have the worst employees in the world?”

As far as she
could see, Trent and his employees shared the blame, but in his current
heightened state of aggravation, she needed to soften her reply. “They’re a
challenge. That’s why we need a professional to help sort it out.”

“HR. Never saw
the point.”

“Which is
probably why you have the worst employees in the world,” she muttered.

“Ha! I knew I
was right!” He smiled at her. “Except for you. You single-handedly pulled this
company from bankruptcy.”

He’d never
credited her with saving his business before. Her heart swelled with pride. “
We
pulled it from bankruptcy.”

With a heavy
sigh, he added, “I tried my hardest to keep things running, but until you came
on board, nothing worked.”

“You wasted
too much of your energy yelling at people. Going forward we’ll need a softer
style.”

His forehead
wrinkled like a shar-pei. “That sounds counter-productive.”

His response
made her want to scream. Why did he cling to his father’s management style,
even when he’d just admitted it didn’t work?
Two steps forward, one step
back.
Taking a deep breath, she tried a new approach. “Did you take any
management classes in college that discussed team building?’

“My father
taught me everything I needed to know. He declared team-building bullshit.
Every man should be out for himself and let the strongest survive.”

She’d always
suspected Trent’s father had led him down this path of poor management. “Which
is why we struggle to get anything done. Running a business is a team effort. We
need to start rewarding people for working together, not screwing up everyone
else’s performance.”

Contentment
crossed his face. She couldn’t imagine why, given the topic. Discussions of his
father and change normally annoyed him. He’d probably stopped listening and
moved on to new thought. Normally, she’d give up, but not today. He’d insisted
on coming along so he could discuss these matters. By God, he’d stay on topic.

“Why are you
smiling?”

His smile
widened as his gaze locked onto her. “Because you said ‘we,’ which makes us a
team.”

Carrie stared
at him in confusion. Why did he focus on her use of ‘we’ now? A since of joy
flooded her as she understood. The ugly gray wall of his father’s teachings
must have finally cracked a bit. Trent saw her as his team, which redefined
‘team’ as a good thing. She needed to expand the crevice while she could. “Yes,
and our
team
needs to get bigger, so you don’t have another horrible
month like this past one.”

He grasped her
right hand and covered it with both of this. “I’m completely on board with this
team stuff. And as soon as we hire this HR person and he gives me the nod, I’ll
fire as many as you like and hire team workers instead.”

“Our expert
might be a woman.”

His brow
furrowed again. “Why would you think that?”

“Because we
want to hire the best person we can afford, and given women tend to be paid
less, the best person we can afford will probably be a woman.”

“True…. I only
had to pay you half my former EA’s salary and you do twenty times the work he
did.”

The pride in
his voice pissed her off and tempted her to lecture him on pay discrimination,
but she really needed to keep this conversation positive. “Once the
improvements I made in Taiwan improve our profit margins, I hope you’ll reward
me for my efforts.”

“I intend to.”
His eyes sparkled with a worrisome amount of delight.

God, don’t let
him do something stupid like give me his Dali painting.

A moment
later, the driver cursed and slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a halt.

Carrie stared
out the window at the rows of parked cars. She looked through the back window
and watched the parking lot grow behind them. Something must have happened to
close Cross Bronx Expressway or the George Washington Bridge. God, would she
never get home?

Not
surprisingly, Trent lost his meager patience at once. “Sam, take the local
roads into the city. I’m tired of sitting in this car.”

“The local
streets aren’t particularly safe,” Sam warned.

“I sent you to
defensive driving school, for God’s sake. It’s time I get my money’s worth.”

Sam sighed
heavily. He stared at Carrie through the rearview mirror. “Please secure your
seat belt. I may have to perform evasive maneuvers that could result in injury.”

Trent huffed.
“Not if you plan to keep your—”

Carrie touched
his arm. “We should practice our positive management responses on your home
staff so it becomes second nature to you when the new people come to work.”

He sighed. “I
intended to say Sam wouldn’t wish to lose his self-esteem. He ranked first in
his class if I recall.”

Sam grew an
inch taller. “True, but I’ll need to focus on evade-and-escape techniques, not
drive-smoothly-so-the-passengers-can-sip-their-wine.”

“I’m sure you
can do both.”

“I can, sir. Just
not at the same time.”

Deciding a
need to interrupt this discussion, she reached over Trent, located his seat
belt and buckled him in. “Well done. A good manager should know details about
his employees’ lives.”

Instead of
complaining about her securing him in a seatbelt as if he were a child, he smiled.
“Thank you.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

Butterflies
fluttered in her stomach. Why had he done that? She couldn’t make sense of his
actions. Perhaps he’d been touched to discover one of his employees didn’t want
him dead. Embarrassed, she gently pulled her hand to the safety of her lap.

Trent’s focus
turned to Sam. “Why aren’t we moving?”

“Because I
require an exit, sir. I’ll take the first one I can.”

Trent eyed the
side of the road. “Just drive on the side of the road.”

“No, sir.”

“If you get a
ticket, I’ll pay for it.”

“Sir, the side
of this road is littered with stripped cars, and once you pull over, no one
will let you back in this lane. We’ll just have to wait until we crawl to the
next exit.”

Trent breathed
a heavy sigh of annoyance and unlocked his and then Carrie’s seat belts. “Well,
tell us when you’ve found one.”

He turned his
body so he faced her, his eyes intense, his brow furrowed in concentration. “So
tell me about your childhood.”

Trent’s sudden
interest in her childhood baffled and alarmed her. “What? Why?”

“You said a
good manager should know his staff.”

She
appreciated his desire to change, but wished he’d practice on someone else.
Unfortunately, he had only two people to interrogate at the moment. Sam had
enough stress on his hands, driving in this parking lot of aggressive East
coast drivers. That left only her…damn it.

“Since I’m the
quiet twin who rarely spoke or did anything of interest, I’ve nothing to tell.”

“Twin? There’s
another of you around? Does she need a job?”

Carrie didn’t
want her sister anywhere near her job…or her personal life—if she ever got one.
“I wouldn’t know. After we graduated from high school we went to colleges on
opposite sides of the country.”

“Why?” His
interest seemed so genuine, that instead of feeding him a line of bull, she
spoke from her heart. “Because I hated living in her shadow. From birth, my
parents demoted me to the ‘other twin’. I wanted my own identity and space.”

The moment he
smiled, she regretted telling him the truth. She turned and stared out the
window at the skeleton of a car sitting on the side of the road. How did it
even get there? It had no wheels. Forget tires
—
it
didn’t even have wheel drums.

He captured
her hand. “I know what you mean.”

She turned and
stared at him.
How could he possibly understand?
“You don’t have a
twin.”

“No, but I had
an older brother. He represented everything my parents wanted. They saw me as
an accident.”

Instead of
pulling her hand away, which she’d intended to do, she squeezed his fingers to
provide him comfort. Maybe he did understand how she felt.

“Every smile
and compliment went to him. I only got noticed when I broke something.”

She remembered
once thinking negative attention would be better than none at all, but she lacked
the courage to purposely get into trouble. However, God had over-blessed Trent with
courage. “I’m surprised your house remains standing.”

Trent chuckled
then his eyes saddened. “I never harmed the house, but I had no problem
destroying a valuable antique or two to get my share of attention.” He paused
as his black gaze focused on another car skeleton they crawled past. “Then my
older brother drowned in the pool. And before you ask, I didn’t do it.”

Anger and
resentment rang loud and clear in his voice. She reached over and gripped his
hand. “I would never ask such a thing.”

His jaw tensed
in residual pain. “My parents did. They stormed into my room, glaring at me
with accusing, angry eyes. ‘Did you do this?’ They didn’t relent until I
coughed up my alibi.”