MARRYING MY BOSS

Episode2

CHAPTER 2- PRETENSE

JAMIE’S POV

Jamie stared after Kimberly as she left; he quickly sat in his chair and sagged into it.

Of course, he knew her. How could he forget his Derrick's wife's best friend?

He and Kimberly met at their wedding celebration as the best friends to the couple, and they didn't agree at all.

Well, until certain things happened that led to...

He sighed and wiped his face.

Did her hips grow wider?

Jamie physically shook his head to get rid of the unwanted thoughts; he quickly picked up his phone when it rang, without checking the caller's ID.

"Jamie Anderson Harris! You ungrateful son that ignores his mother's calls and texts and abandons her for a long, long time? Your hands must have slipped for you to take my call this morning."

Mother!

He sighs. "Mum, you know that is overexaggerated. I have been very busy, and I will find time to visit you."

"Do you remember promising me exactly that three months ago? Just because I said I wanted to see your wife and grandchildren? I still do." His mother was really desperate for it.

"Mum, I don't have time such now." Jamie replied.

His mother burst into tears. "What am I going to do when I see all my friends carry their grandkids around and boast about their children's spouses? Is it my fault that I could only give birth to you?"

"Mum!" Jamie was shocked; his mother had never done that before.

"Really, you can gaslight me into doing what I don't want to. That's unfair."

"Me? I'm gaslighting you? This causes me pain! At my age, I don't have a grandkid to chase after. Is that fair, Jamie?"

"Mum, I will come see you, okay. I have a lot of work to do."

"Jamie, take over your father's company! You will hire people that will do most of your work for you, then you will have more time for this."

"I will talk to you later, Mum. Love you." He hung up and dumped his phone on his desk.

He sighed and massaged his head. Talking to his mother could be very stressful.

His phone rang again. He glanced at it; this time it was Derrick.

He ignored it and proceeded with his work, When it was finally 10 a.m., Jamie pulled up the CCTV in the conference room to see how Kimberly was doing.

He enhanced the sound.

She stood in front of the talkative crowd and smiled politely. "Good morning, everyone. Unfortunately, Mr. Harris won't be able to join us as he is swamped with work."

Mutters broke out as everyone began to share their opinions about the new rude CEO.

Kimberly frowned. She said over the crowd. "However, I have a message from him that you won't want to miss."

"Do you not think that is rude too, Kimberly? How can he not come to the first meeting with the employees of the company?" That was a comment from the Head of Account department.

"It's not in my place, Mr. Pius, to tell him if he is rude or not; I already told you he has a lot of work to do."

"Is he handsome?" Another bold question from a female in the marketing department. Jamie shook his head and turned back to his work.

At least, he thought Kimberly would be able to get the message to them effectively.

As he began to check through the accounts in front of him, all that stared at was a poorly covered, unbalanced track.

The company's money had obviously been stolen severally, and he was going to find out where every dime went.

****

Jamie could feel his sight getting blurry from staring excessively at the computer; he gently massaged his head.

He looked around for his glasses and slipped them on, then he called for Kimberly in her office; within two seconds, she knocked and walked in.

"Sir..., Mr. Harris, you called." Kimberly said.

"I did." He waved her towards his desk; she walked towards him.

"Sit." He said, then handed over a wad of A4 papers, "Check this out for me and I want you to keep the duplicates with you."

"Yes, Sir." Kimberly replied absently as she looked at the numbers on the papers.

She had a 'why is he asking me this?' look on her face.

"I don't understand..." She began

Jamie wasn't going to let that slide.

"What don't you understand, Miss Orton? A kindergarten child can understand it. You can't tell me you don't understand or you can't do something without trying it out first."

Kimberly looked embarrassed by his comment.

"It won't happen again."

"By the way, you did well in today's meeting with the employees. Good job."

She made a surprise expression. "How did you see that?"

"I checked. This is a tech company, of course I know my way around technology."

"Oh, I didn't mean it the way you interpreted it, I mean, were you spying on us?"

That was blunt, even from Kimberly.

"Surely you don't think I will just trust you with such a meeting and let you watch after yourself? I like to be sure about things before I go with it."

"Of course, sir."

She began to go through the files in her hand; she had pulled up the calculator on her phone and gone through them.

Her eyebrow in a certain arc, the usual arc before she said. "Sir, I think there's a mistake here. The numbers are just not adding up. Like the person didn't know what this was about."

"Ah, just what I thought. I knew you would give me the perfect opinion."

"It's my work, sir." Kimberly replied.

"I don't know what is going on. But I think there's some conspiracy theory linking every mishap in this company together." Jamie said

Kimberly looked confused.

"So what are we going to do?" Kimberly asked.

Jamie didn't know why he loved the way she said, 'We'

"We will wait and prepare for battle."

Perhaps he has one ally already. Time to get other allies.