LAUREL'S POV:
"Come in" I answer the person knocking at my office door and Mr handsome walks in.
I feel weak and nauseous immediately I see him, I suddenly feel uneasy and careful with how I act with him here. God he's looking more alluring than before with a blue sweatshirt that latched on to his chest revealing his broad shoulders and muscular arms. And black skinny jeans that showed his firm sexy legs and big dick?, the jean around his groin swelled in a way that suggested it.
For the first time, I notice how defined and brawny he looks, does he work out? I think to myself as I observe him from head to toe, not realizing that I'm staring. I notice his palms are sweaty and he's looking at me more than he should, is he checking me out too? I think to myself. We lock eyes again and I melt just as I see them, "Whoa" I find myself saying beneath my breath but he hears me.
Blushing as if he knows I'm admiring him, he says "Are you okay ma'am?" Off course I'm not okay.
"Yes, I am" I tell him, clearing my throat and avoiding eye contact as my heart rate stabilizes.
"Are you comfortable in your new office?" I ask him. Wait, why am I concerned about this guy?
"Yes, the view is out of this world" he replies.
"The view?" I ask him confused.
"Yes" he replies smiling mischievously. But the only thing he can see from there is my office and my window. Wait, does he mean me? Gosh he's a flirt, I think to myself.
"Well I'm glad you like it" I tell him. "There's a meeting with the company's board of directors in 5 minutes, I want you to attend the meeting, you can pick out how things are done from there. The boardroom is on the fourth floor, just stand at the back and don't say anything, I'll see you there".
"Yes ma'am" he says and leaves my office.
I reach the boardroom and everyone's already seated but they stand up immediately they see me.
"Welcome Miss Wright" they greet me as I take my seat at the front executive chair.
"Please have your seats. As you know, my brother the CEO is abroad taking care of our overseas branches so I'll be handling his duties until he's back". I tell them firmly. I sight Femi standing at the back looking at me.
"Now for the agenda for today's meeting; Lack of automation and the online scandal going on now concerning one of our top restaurant branch here in LA. You've all already been briefed but I'll just summarize it in case one of you did not have the time to go over it".
"We'll start with the scandal. Apparently one of our customers saw a cockroach in his food and made a scene in the restaurant. The manager confronted the chef and the employee that served him about it but they said they were certain that the food was clean when it was served and the restaurant was always very clean too, they insisted there was no way the cockroach got into his food unless the man put it in himself to get a free meal. The manager checked the CCTV footage but there was nothing, the camera did not cover where the customer sat so the manager tried to calm him, he apologized and replaced his meal with a feast for free".
"They thought it was past them until the next day when they saw a long anonymous complaint about the incident on our official site and all our social media pages. People were already reacting aggressively to it, tarnishing our good name, there are also other posts of people claiming that they had the same experience with us, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the work of one of our rivals. Anyways, our customers have reduced since then, not only in that restaurant branch but in other branches as well and our stock price has plummeted as you know already, hence the reason for this meeting".
"We should sue the customer" one of the board members says.
"Yeah, we compensated him for it but he still went to tarnish our name. It won't be that hard to locate him, we should sue him or make him take back his words" another board member completes.
"Doesn't sound like a bad idea but suing him would only escalate the issue, we don't want the whole world knowing about it even if we are in the right" I tell them.
"I recommend we confront him and make him retract his words, he will write an apology post on our official site and social media pages and will be banned from our restaurants" I say to them.
"How do you plan on making him retract his words?, What if he's adamant?" another board member asks.
"Leave that to me, I'll handle it" I reply.
"After he posts the apology, we will send a post to our platforms addressing the issue, apologizing to our customers for the inconvenience caused and telling them we'd do better at serving them, we can also offer freebies to attract customers. For the other complaints, we will have a team monitoring our pages and blocking offensive comments. And lastly, the employees that worked in the branch where the incident happened will be fired and replaced; if what the customer said is true, we don't want it repeating itself".
"What?! You can't do that" Femi interrupts. "You want to fire tens of employees for something that probably isn't their fault?" his eyebrows rise as he looks at me with contempt.
"And what if it is their fault? We are a top company that prides ourselves in excellent service, we can't let something like that happen again" I respond.
"But still, you're taking away people's source of livelihood because of something you're not sure of, is that how you treat your employees?" he asks angrily.
"Stop it!" I yell at him. What the fuck is he doing? Why is he lecturing me in front of the board of directors? Is he fucking crazy or does he not care about his job? I ask myself as he barge out of the boardroom after giving me a long angry look with a clenched jaw and wrist. The board of directors whisper amongst themselves, surprised by his outburst.
"Ahem... can we continue the meeting?" I inquire and everyone compose themselves.
"I believe we're done with the first agenda for today, on to the next one"...
30 MINUTES LATER:
"You can find him right?" I ask the person I'm on the phone with.
"Immediately you find him, threaten him and make sure he agrees to retract his statements and posts. Let me know when it's done" I tell him as I end the call.
Knock knock. "Come in" I tell the person knocking at my office door and Femi walks in.
"I heard you asked for me" he says with a frown, obviously still upset.
"Yes, I did. What happened in there? What were you trying to pull?" I ask him sternly.
"I asked you to attend the meeting to see how things work, not to undermine my authority. Who do you think you are to question me like that in front of the shareholders?" I yelled.
"I guess I was out of line but do you really have to fire those employees? And what was that about finding and threatening the customer?, are you going to beat him up?" he asks with a curious look.
"Were you eavesdropping?" I ask him raising an eyebrow.
"I happened to hear it on my way in".
"Well yes, we have to fire them but they'll be well compensated and they'll find other jobs, like I said, we can't have same thing happen again. As for the customer they won't hurt him, he'll be threatened in the sense that he'd have to choose between a lawsuit, paying a huge amount of money and taking back what he said". Why am I explaining myself to him?
He lets out a sigh of relief "Oh okay, that's better".
I walk closer to him, with a straight face "Don't you ever do something like that again" I say slowly, counting the words as I say them.
He moves closer to me just so there's an inch between us "And if I do?" he says sexily under his breath but loud enough so I can hear him, looking at me, unblinking. My heart starts racing again.
"I'll fire you" I say as I quickly move away from him.
"You can go now".
"Okay ma'am.... And I'm sorry for how I acted today, I'll try to be more understanding" he says with a smile and leaves the office.
***
Author's note
Hello readers!
Do you think Laurel handled the situation with the company properly?
Do you think Femi overreacted?
What would you have done to resolve the scandal?
Don't forget to share your thoughts!