A Signature That Bound Us

Chapter Eight

Aurelia’s POV

I knocked once and entered when I heard his voice,

Lior stood behind his desk, his jacket draped over the back of his chair. His sleeves were rolled to his forearms, and his attention was fixed on the email displayed on his computer, two printed documents lay beside his keyboard. He didn’t look up when I entered, “close the door.”

I did, “you wanted to see me, Mr. Vale?”

“Put that on the desk,” I placed the printed email in front of him, I wasn’t sure about the number of times he read it but his expression was becoming increasingly difficult to interpret. “Did anyone from Records Management contact you after sending this?”

“No sir.”

“Did you reply to the email?”

“No, I forwarded it to your office, as instructed.”

He finally looked at me, “good, at least you can follow a simple instruction.”

My fingers tightened around the folder I was holding, “you summoned me here because of the email, sir. If you need anything else, I’d appreciate it if you told me directly rather than making comments about my ability to follow instructions.”

His gaze lifted fully to mine, “do you practise being difficult, Miss Laurent, or does it come naturally?”

“Neither sir, I find it easier to cooperate when I know what I’m cooperating with.”

“Then perhaps you should learn that employees don’t always need to know everything.”

“And perhaps employers should learn that employees cannot produce accurate work when they’re deliberately kept in the dark.” The silence that followed was immediate, I knew I’d pushed him, the sensible part of me wanted to take the words back, particularly because I needed this job. My salary wasn’t a luxury I could casually sacrifice to prove a point, my family was counting on me to make this opportunity work but needing the job didn’t mean I had to pretend that every unreasonable thing my employer said was acceptable.

Lior slowly leaned back in his chair, “you seem to have mistaken my patience for an invitation to challenge me.”

“No, sir. I haven’t seen enough patience to make that mistake.”

His eyes narrowed, for one uncomfortable second, I wondered whether I’d finally gone too far. Then he picked up the printed email again, “sit down.” He turned his computer slightly toward me, a spreadsheet filled the screen, showing payment references, approval dates, department codes, and transaction amounts. “Tell me what you see.”

I leaned forward, “I see the same discrepancies I reported earlier,” I answered. “Although the approval dates are closer together than I realized.”

“How close?”

I examined the dates, “eleven days between the first and second payments and six days between the second and third.”

“And does that prove anything?”

“No, it establishes the timing. It doesn’t establish whether the payments were justified, duplicated, or connected to the same underlying service.”

“Better,” I glanced at him, was that a compliment?

Before I could decide, he continued, “finance claims these payments relate to separate stages of a service agreement. The acquisition summary describes them as three different obligations, yet the vendor’s registration details appear in all three records, and the approval trail points to the same executive.”

“Then we need the service agreement.”

“We have one,” he opened another document. I read the first page, then scrolled to the payment schedule.

I drew my brows together, “this agreement covers two payments, not three.”

“Explain.”

I pointed to the relevant section., “the first payment is described as an initial service fee. The second is a milestone payment, subject to completion of the specified work. There’s no third payment in this schedule.”

“Could there be an amendment?”

“Yes sir, or a supplementary agreement. Or another document authorizing the additional payment, we can’t conclude that the third payment was unauthorized until we establish whether any of those exist.”

“Which is why you’re here.”

I looked up, “you could have said that when you summoned me.”

“And you could have come into my office without questioning every decision I make.”

“I wasn’t aware that asking why I was summoned constituted a disciplinary offence.”

“Keep testing me, Miss Laurent, you may eventually discover how creative I can be with your job description.”

My jaw tightened, there it was again, that effortless reminder that he had power over my employment and knew precisely how to use it. I lowered my eyes to the agreement before I said something that could cost me more than my pride, “understood,

Mr. Vale. Shall we continue?”

Something flickered on his face, it disappeared before I could identify it. “Find the amendment,” he

sent a request through the internal document system while I examined the agreement’s reference numbers. The first search produced the original contract, the second returned a payment schedule. While the third produced a list of supplementary documents, most of which were available. One wasn’t, I clicked the entry. ACCESS RESTRICTED.

I turned the screen toward him, “another one sir.”

He examined it, “that’s a separate document.”

“Yes, sir but it appears to be linked to the same service agreement.” He typed a command into his computer, entered his authorization credentials, and tried again. The same message appeared, for

the first time since I entered his office, his expression changed in a way he didn’t immediately conceal. “Interesting,” I murmured.

His head turned, “what did you say?”

“I said it’s interesting that the document remains restricted even when you attempt to access it.”

“I heard you the first time.”

“Then why ask again sir?”

His stare could have frozen boiling water, I immediately regretted the question. It wasn’t

because I thought it was wrong, but because I had a remarkable talent for delivering reasonable observations in ways that irritated the most powerful man in the room. “Do you have anything useful to contribute?” he asked.

“Yes sir,” I said quickly, “the supplementary document has a reference number. We can trace when it was created, which department submitted it, and who changed its access status. That might establish whether it belongs to the acquisition or was attached to it later.”

He studied me for a moment, “write that down.” I opened my notebook, “not in your personal notebook, use the company system.”

I paused, “of course sir.”

“And stop looking at me as though I’ve personally offended you.”

“I’ll try to recover from the experience, sir.”

“Aurelia,” it was the first time he’d used my first name that afternoon. I looked up, his voice had lowered, and for a moment the sharpness had left his face. “You’re good at noticing details, don’t ruin that by allowing your temper to interfere with your work.”

The remark caught me off guard, I had expected another insult, another reminder that I was replaceable. Instead, he had acknowledged something I had worked hard to develop. “I’m not trying to interfere with my work,” I said. “I’m trying to do it properly.”

“Then concentrate on that,” he returned to his computer, and the brief moment passed. “Order lunch,” he said.

I blinked, “excuse me?”

He didn’t look up, “you heard me. It’s nearly four, and we haven’t finished reviewing these records. Call my assistant and have something brought up.”

I stared at him, “you want me to order lunch?”

“Would you prefer that I draw you a diagram?”

“No, Mr. Vale. I was simply confirming whether you meant to ask me to order lunch or whether you wanted me to leave so you could continue working alone.”

He stopped typing, he turned his chair toward me.

“Do you have a problem with the request?”

“No sir, I have a problem with the way you speak to people, but I understand that isn’t what we’re discussing.”

His mouth tightened, “order something you can eat quickly, we have work to finish.”

I picked up the office telephone and called his assistant. She asked whether we wanted something usual and I turned toward him.

“What would you like sir?”

“Anything.”

“That isn’t particularly helpful.”

“Miss Laurent, I pay people to solve problems, not create them.”

“And I’m trying to solve this one by asking what you want to eat.”

“Whatever you order will be fine,” I relayed the request, ordered a simple lunch for both of us, and returned to the records. For the next twenty minutes, we worked with barely a word between us.

It was an unsettling experience, Lior was difficult, impatient, and infuriatingly particular about everything. Yet when he concentrated on a problem, he did so completely. He moved between documents with impressive speed, connecting approval dates to internal correspondence and matching transaction references against the acquisition schedule. I found myself doing the same, we discovered that the three payments had been processed by different departments, although the approval trail pointed to the same executive. The first had originated in Finance. The second had been submitted through Operations. The third had been classified under an acquisition-related administrative code.

“That is unusual,” I said.

“Unusual isn’t the same as improper.”

“I know sir, I’m not making an accusation.”

“Your face suggests otherwise.”

“My face is trying to understand why three departments processed payments under different categories for the same vendor without an obvious reference to a single service agreement.”

“Then teach your face some patience.”

I looked at him, “does that advice apply to you as well?”

He held my gaze, “no.” I let out a small, disbelieving breath, at least he was honest about his hypocrisy. We were interrupted by a knock and his assistant entered with our lunch, she placed the containers on the small table near the windows, along with cutlery and bottled water, then left.

Lior glanced at the food, “eat.”

“I’m not particularly hungry.”

“That wasn’t a question.”

I put my pen down, “Mr. Vale, I understand that you prefer to give orders. However, I’m perfectly capable of deciding when I need to eat.”

“And I’m perfectly capable of deciding how long this review will take, if you faint over a spreadsheet, I will have to explain why I allowed an employee to work herself into the floor. I have no intention of adding that to my afternoon.”

I stared at him, caught between irritation and reluctant amusement. “Is concern always this unpleasant when it comes from you?”

His expression hardened so quickly that I wondered whether I had imagined the first part of his remark, “don’t mistake a practical decision for concern.”

“There it is.”

“What?”

“The coldness, I was wondering how long it would take to return.”

His eyes narrowed, “you’re becoming far too comfortable in my office.”

“Then perhaps you should stop giving me reasons to speak.”