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  “What kind of situation?”

  “I went to Rotary this morning. While there, I was cornered by Felicity Darby-Cockpher from Murality Phosphate, about—”

  “That bitch,” Melanie muttered.

  “I’m sorry?” It was asked as a man hard of hearing from years of working around lawn equipment without adequate hearing protection, not snottily.

  “I’m sorry. Please continue.”

  “She leveled some pretty serious accusations about you.”

  Mel had picked up a pen and nervously fidgeted with it. Now, she started tapping the end of it against her desk calendar. No telling how the woman had even put together that she was Davis’ girlfriend. The creepy feeling that thought brought with it contributed to her unease.

  “Such as?”

  “She was stating that you’d been responsible for some corporate espionage against her company.”

  Melanie let out a bitter laugh. “No, she’s pissed off that I’m dating a guy she used to sleep with who works under her, and he filed a sexual harassment complaint against her.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah.” She laid the pen on her desk calendar. “My boyfriend works for Murality Phosphate. He’s their head chemist. Been there for nearly twenty years. You met him.”

  “Oh. Davis?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s an…odd duck, no offense.”

  “No worries. You’re absolutely right. He’s got a few idiosyncrasies, but I love him even more because of them. And he used to have a friends with bennies, no strings attached relationship with her. But then we met, and they weren’t involved at the time. When she went back to him a few days ago and asked him for sex, he told her sorry, no, and she didn’t like hearing no.”

  Now he looked extremely uncomfortable. “Oh.”

  “Exactly. She threatened him, so he filed an HR complaint that was taken directly to her daddy, who runs the company. He demoted her from VP to a sales manager position, so now she’s pissed off and, apparently, out to get me. Although since Davis didn’t tell her who I was, I’m wondering how she found out.” She hesitated. “Wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  Then she thought yesterday morning’s commute. She’d spent Wednesday night at the men’s house, and left from there straight to work Thursday morning. “I spent Wednesday night with…Davis. At his house.” She’d had to remember not to mention Kirby. “Some woman in a red sports car cut me off in traffic a couple of times yesterday. When I finally pulled in here, she turned around and drove past really slow as I was unlocking the side door.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah.” She sat back, deep in thought. “And I had several weird calls yesterday, patched through to me from the front but no one was there when I picked up the call. And a direct-dialed hang-up after that. On my office line. I never get those.” But yesterday had also been the start of a company-wide sale, so they’d been so busy she’d barely had time to think about the calls, much less connect the dots.

  She’d completely forgotten about the events by the time she left at the end of the day.

  “Why do you think that would be her?”

  “That can’t be a coincidence. How else would she know who I am? Crazy stalker woman going to Davis’ house and following me here? It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  He let out a sigh. “I did think it was…odd that she was approaching me about this.”

  “I mean, seriously? If she really had a case against me for something like that, wouldn’t I be in jail or at least up on charges?”

  “That’s true.”

  “Let me guess, she recommended you fire me?”

  “Well—”

  “Here’s the problem with that.” She clasped her hands together and leaned forward. “You fire me, I will be suing her for defamation of character and whatever else I can get to stick. Meaning I will get an attorney and subpoena everything and everyone. You’ll have to go to court and testify, and I’ll make sure it gets as much media coverage as possible. It will be nasty and ugly. Because I will not have my reputation dragged through the mud. I’ve been a good employee for the better part of twenty years now, the last ten of it after having saved this company for you. If that’s not good enough for you, then tell me now.”

  It was a calculated risk on her part. When she’d taken over the bookkeeping from one of Mattlin’s cousins who’d supposedly been handling it, the company had been on the verge of civil action by the Florida Department of Revenue for not correctly reporting their sales taxes, as well as in trouble with the IRS for not filing their employee taxes. Fortunately, the money had been there, but it’d been a lack of training and awareness—as well as sheer laziness—on the part of the previous bookkeeper that had gotten them into that pickle.

  At the time, as a small family business, they couldn’t afford an expensive CPA to do their bookkeeping for them. Melanie had been working for them as one of their commercial account managers, having started working for them part-time as a retail clerk and greenhouse assistant way back in high school. She’d ended up getting a two-year degree in basic business management from the community college, but she hadn’t had the money to go on to get a four-year degree in something else. While it wasn’t the most glamorous or best-paying job out there, she’d been getting by and happy with it.

  In essence, she’d saved their business with little more than a few accounting courses, a lot of research and tenacity, and countless gallons of coffee.

  And several hours of picking her father’s accountant’s brain for help.

  She’d worked tirelessly over the course of several weeks to get the records figured out, saved them tens of thousands of dollars in fines by basically begging every government wonk she could talk to on the state and federal level for leniency and telling them that they were trying to straighten it out, and had managed to turn the department around.

  In the end, she’d been given a bonus, a raise, and the new title of their office manager.

  Which meant bookkeeper, because most of what she did was accounting.

  She’d promptly forced them to invest in a new, integrated computer system that not only made her job easier but allowed them to more accurately track inventory and sales. No more manual register batching out every night.

  In the past ten years since that had happened, they’d expanded the chain to five stores in three counties with an average net corporate profit of a million dollars, something nearly unheard of for their business.

  He let out a deep sigh. “I’m sorry, Melanie. Of course we trust you. She was very…disturbing to talk to. By the time we finished our conversation, she had me convinced you were a seasoned criminal.”

  “Yeah, she’s apparently very tricky like that. Her father told Davis she got fired from her previous job before he hired her to work for Murality.”

  “She didn’t tell me that.”

  “Of course she’s not going to tell you that. It’s embarrassing to her. She’s a total narcissist. She was raised rich and spoiled, because her daddy had to claw his way to the top. Unfortunately, that meant she never learned a work ethic. He’s probably bailed her out of every bad patch she’s ever had in life and she’s used to people not telling her no. Davis told her no and pushed back, and now she’s out to try to ruin him.”

  “She also told me some unsettling personal things about you.”

  Here’s where it might get sticky. The Mattlins were extremely devout Christians. Not that Melanie cared, but it might prove the final tipping point.

  And it lent even more credence to her theory that the woman had spied on them at the men’s house. How else would she know Melanie had been with both men?

  It also meant that maybe there was proof. The men had a fenced in backyard, and last night they’d played in the living room with the blinds to the back sliders wide open.

  It would have been easy for someone to sneak pictures of them without their knowledge.

  Going out on a
limb, Mel decided to get it over with. “Not that it’s anyone’s business but ours, but I’m in a relationship with both Davis and his brother, Kirby. They both know about it, they’re both okay with it, and this is the only discussion I’ll have with you, here and now, on this topic.”

  He went pink in the face and refused to look her in the eyes. “She mentioned that.”

  Mel decided to take a leap in logic. “Did she say how she came about this knowledge?”

  He turned even redder. “She showed me a picture of them with you. It looked like you were…tied up.”

  That sealed it. They’d played with rope in the living room Wednesday night for the first time in a while.

  “She didn’t mention she’s apparently a peeping Tom, either. We’re all consenting adults. What I do, privately and legally, in my personal life should have absolutely zero bearing on what I do as your employee. It’s not like I’m going to be parading the two of them around here and having sex on a checkout counter. I’d already talked to them, and they’d agreed that, around here, we’d pretend that I was dating Davis and that Kirby and I were just friends.”

  “We are a family business.”

  “I get that. Nothing I ever do around here will ever give anyone an inkling of my personal situation. I haven’t even discussed it with any other employees. Admit it. If she hadn’t told you that this morning, you never would have known, would you?”

  He slowly shook his head. “My wife will be very upset if she finds out about this. Felicity knows my wife through Rotary.”

  “Well, I can’t help you there, sir. I remember Kelly coming to me in tears and hugging me and thanking me for saving y’all’s asses from the FDoR and the IRS. But you’re the one who’s got to live with her. She’s going to like it a lot less if I’m forced to file a lawsuit and she has to testify that she fired me only because of a lie someone told her, and discriminating against me about my non-traditional relationship.”

  She didn’t envy the guy. Kelly could be a massive ballbuster, and it’d been her father’s money that had got them started in the first place. Until now, Mel’d had a good relationship with the woman, even though they didn’t socialize outside of work.

  “All right. I’m sorry this happened, but I can’t fire you for this. I won’t fire you for this.”

  “I’d hope not. I’d hope I mean more to you and this company than the lies of a vengeful woman who didn’t get her way.” Anger threatened to seep into her tone and she forced it back.

  What she wanted to do was get hold of Felicity’s bleach-blonde extensions and yank every last one of them out, along with her real hair. She’d looked up the woman on Facebook after Davis told her what happened.

  Mel wasn’t impressed. Felicity was nearly fifty and doing her damnedest via chemistry and plastic surgery not to show it.

  She blinked. “That’s how she figured out my name.”

  “What?”

  “Facebook.” She stared at him. “My Facebook profile states I work here. She’s probably seen me being active liking stuff and making comments on Davis and Kirby’s Facebook profiles, even though none of us have each other listed as in a relationship yet. She followed me here from their house, and then looked at their profiles and friends lists and figured it out. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  The men’s friends lists were viewable to the public. Mel’s wasn’t, and she always set her posts to friends-only, but her occupation was publicly visible on her profile. It likely took Felicity less than an hour to connect the dots if she had more than two brain cells to rub together.

  Note to self, make the guys lock their profiles down.

  Mattlin made no move to stand. “Murality is a very large company, and we are a direct wholesale purchaser of fertilizer products from them.”

  Now the truth was starting to dawn on Mel. “Did she threaten to cut us off? Because I’ll tell Davis, and he can talk to Mr. Darby personally about that. Hell, I’ll go to Mr. Darby myself and talk to him.”

  “That’s exactly what she threatened to do. If she does that, it’d be impossible for us to be competitive against the big-box stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s. Murality gives us a slight discount advantage since we’re a locally-owned chain. Otherwise, we couldn’t stay competitive in our pricing. And we sell more of their fertilizer products than the other brands.”

  Mel already knew all of that, because she did the books. As it was, she’d worked hard to get them niche product lines for the lawn and garden that helped set them apart from the big chain stores, as well as holding hands-on workshops for adults and kids about different popular topics, like urban homesteading. Their summer and weekend programs for kids especially were unique and had developed quite a following.

  “What else did she threaten?” If it was more than just her personal situation, and lies about her, Melanie could easily deal with that. Likely with the help of an attorney, but it was something tangible she could fight back against without theology or personal feelings coming into play.

  “She pretty much implied that she’d do whatever it took to ruin our company if I continued to employ you, and offered to give us a bigger discount than we currently have if I fired you.”

  She pulled up Mattlin’s schedule on the office calendar. “You don’t have any appointments today that aren’t on here, do you?”

  “No, why?”

  “Hold on.” She grabbed her personal cell and texted Davis that she needed to talk to him, that it was an emergency, and waited a few seconds before calling him.

  He answered immediately. “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s the name of that attorney there at Murality you talked to when Felicity pulled her BS a couple of days ago?”

  “Gil Newport?”

  “Yeah, him. Is he in today?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Do you have his direct office line?”

  “I can look it up. What’s going on?”

  She didn’t want him to take control of this. This was a battle she was looking forward to fighting. “I’ll tell you later. Can I please have the direct office line for Gil Newport?”

  Davis looked it up for her and she jotted it down on a sticky note.

  Ben Mattlin still looked upset and shaken, but he didn’t say anything as she finished her conversation with Davis and ended the call. Switching to her office landline phone, she dialed Gil Newport’s number and tried to quiet her trembling nerves as she waited for him to answer.

  When he did, she immediately launched head-first into who she was and why she was calling. When she ended her rant five minutes later, she finished with, “I haven’t told Davis any of this yet, because I wanted to fill you in first. So what do we do now? Or do I need to go straight to my own lawyer about this?”

  At first, she worried the connection had cut off, because silence met her question. Then she heard a muttered word she couldn’t be quite sure wasn’t a swear before he replied.

  “Mr. Darby’s here today. Can you get here in the next hour for us to talk? I’d like to discuss this in person, with you and Mr. Mattlin and Mr. Darby. And Davis. I promise you, our company will not take any actions against your company.”

  She gave Ben Mattlin a thumbs-up and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Mr. Newport. We’ll leave here in five minutes and be there as soon as we can.”

  He gave her the exact address so she could plug it into her phone’s GPS app and she gave him both her office and cell number before ending the call.

  Sitting back in her chair, she arched an eyebrow at her boss. “Well? He assured me they will not take any actions against Mattlin Meadows, and want to handle this now.”

  He nodded. “If we can get this settled now, today, it would greatly relieve me. And if my wife tries to argue with me, I’ll have everything handled already and the information I need to calm her down. I don’t want to lose you as an employee. You saved us. But I’ve been married to her for nearly forty years and she’s the mot
her of my children. I love her.”

  “I get it. Hopefully, it won’t come to you having to make that choice.” Mel saved what she’d been doing on her computer and locked the terminal before grabbing her cell and purse. “Now let’s go kick some ass, sir.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  They took Mattlin’s car. Whether Davis liked it or not, Mel would ride back with him, and either he or Kirby could drop her off to get her car.

  She’d need the alone time with Davis to discuss this once they were done meeting with Darby. The time to process it.

  To ask what the fucking hell about it. Yes, Davis had told her he had a casual relationship with the woman, and had volunteered about needing to bring HR into it the other day, but this insane level of fuckery indicated the woman was more than simply casual-crazy.

  This approached boiled-bunny territory. While Mel hoped it hadn’t been a miscommunication on Davis’ part, she needed to talk with him, alone, and in detail.

  And he couldn’t escape her in the car.

  On the way there, she called Kirby. Normally, she’d text him in case he was in a meeting or in the field, but this was important and he needed a heads-up.

  He answered. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “You ain’t gonna believe this stuff.” She told him, completely cognizant of the fact that her boss was sitting right next to her.

  When she finished, Kirby softly swore. “That fucking bitch. I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He hesitated. “If something happens and you lose your job, you’ll move in with us. We’ll take care of you.”

  “That’s not the point. This is bigger than me. She’s screwing around with people’s lives and livelihoods, not to mention being a crazy stalker. We employ a couple hundred people. If she thinks her money and her daddy’s name is going to save her this time, I’ve got news for her. I’m not rolling over, and I know Davis won’t once he finds out about this.”

  “Please don’t be angry with Davis.”