Page 22 of Protecting Love

Paris wanted to hear the name before she went upfront.

She had a million and one things to do, but at three on a Friday, she wasn’t able to find the energy to start them and was working on small things to get off her list.

“Rick Majors. I’d like to speak to her if she’s here. You haven’t said.”

There was no reason to put Molly on the spot.

She didn’t know the name, but maybe it was someone looking for their services. Could be anyone in the building just coming to their office. It’d happened before.

She pushed herself out of the chair and walked down the hall. “Hi, I’m Paris Westerly. How can I help you?”

Rick’s expression hardened instantly. “You can start by explaining yourself.”

Her smile vanished. She kept her posture relaxed. Neutral. Not defensive... yet. “Excuse me?”

“I just lost my job,” Rick snarled. “An hour ago, a bunch of us were told it’s our last day. No warning. No information. Nothing other than they were restructuring based on the consultant’s recommendations.”

Her jaw tightened despite herself. She already knew which company it was. She’d only worked one restructuring since they opened, but she asked anyway. He confirmed it with a clipped nod.

“First, I’m sorry that you lost your job. As a consultant, I’m hired to go in and give my opinion on how to improve the operations of an organization.” She didn’t feel as if she had to justify anything, but she was trying to be sympathetic. “I give recommendations. Several of them. It’s not my decision what they implement, if any.”

“Yeah, well, they canned a hundred people today.”

“Again, I’m sorry.”

She didn’t add that she’d also recommended severance packages. Or gradual rollouts. Or basic human decency. Clearly, those pages had gone straight into the trash.

“No, you’re not,” Rick snapped, planting himself in front of Molly’s desk. Paris saw her assistant tense, unsure whether to move or freeze. “This is just numbers to you. Jobs on paper. You don’t give a shit that I’ve been there three years. That I just got promoted. We were blindsided.”

That wasn’t on her. She also told the five people in that room to be transparent with what was being looked at, but again, not her call.

And she wasn’t sure she believed the employees didn’t know what was going on. There were too many people involved and rumors spread.

Her guess was the employees might have just been lied to.

She’d had two calls last week with Debra and not once had she been told what was happening and when. It was more about how stressed Debra was and asking for suggestions on how to handle staff coming to her concerned.

Again, not what she was hired to do and wasn’t about to offer much.

Maybe she could try to reason with him and defuse this.

“I’m not sure there is anything I can do to help you, Rick. And I’m sorry for that. I really am. Companies retain our services when they are already in a bad way. I gave options to your employers. Those options included support for employees in a number of ways, but I’m not the one making those final decisions. You coming here and telling me this is the first I’m hearing what was decided.”

“That’s it?” he shouted. “You ruin our lives and walk away?” His voice cracked. “I’ve got a pregnant wife at home.” He swiped his hand across Molly’s desk, sending papers and frames to the floor, and causing her assistant to jump out of her chair and stand, moving close to Paris. “But what do you care? You got your money. That’s all that matters to you.”

Well, she tried. And now she was more frightened than anything.

“I need to ask you to leave.”

“Because you think asking nice, everyone will just jump to your bidding? You have no idea what you did to us. That was a good job. We were paid well. There is no way I can make that anywhere else doing what I was with no education.”

Which was part of the company’s problem. They hired unqualified people and paid them more to keep them as bodies rather than efficient employees.

Did she say that in her report? Absolutely not.

Not having training and education when hired didn’t mean someone was a poor employee.

It was her walking around and seeing people not working.