His Lady Love

chapter 4

"What on Earth is all this racket about?" Darius asked, as he looked from one woman to the next.
"You seem to be at the heart of another tug of war between two women." As always, Janis pulled no punches as she summed up the matter in one sentence.
After a tense silence, Melanie took it upon herself to explain the situation further.

"It's all just a misunderstanding. As I tried to explain to this nincompoop, she must be lost or have the wrong information. She seems to think that she is your new assistant. Crazy, right?" She chuckled as she swept her hair over her right shoulder and crossed her arms over her chest in a way that was meant to be sexy.
"She's right, I did ask her to be my assistant. I'd appreciate it if you could clear your desk and hand your security cards back to Janis on your way out." Darius said. He really did try to keep his feelings of happiness over Melanie's imminent departure to himself, but he could feel a small smile creeping onto his face.

He was about usher Abby into his office, when Janis stopped him in his tracks.
"Um, Darius, there is something you should know. Um- well actually- the crazy thing is" Janis wrung her hands and shifted from foot to foot.
"Janis, unless its a matter of life and death, what ever you need to tell me can wait until after Miss Shorts has left." Darius had never seem Janis like this before. Nervous, slightly twitchy and almost- guilty?

Her next words felt like having a bucket of icy cold fish guts poured over ones' head in the middle of Time Square.
"You can't fire her- at least not for the next three months..." It took a moment before Janis's quietly uttered sentence infiltrated his mind, but even then, he couldn't, no, refused to accept that he was true.
"What did you do?" He asked her.
"Well, I know how hard you can be to please. You've already fired six girls in the last 2 months and I wanted you to give Melanie a chance. So, I had the guys in HR add a clause that says you can't fire her until her three months of probation are over." Janis somehow managed to get through her speech without once looking up at him.
Melanie clearly had been aware of the clause because her sour face brightened with each word uttered by Janis, until a face-splitting smile was on her face.

Darius pivoted slowly to face Miss Janis. His wood-like posture would have been comical had the situation at hand not been so serious.
He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it, as though he thought better of whatever he was about to say.

He looked at all three women intently, clearly thinking about what the best possible solution could be. After a moment, he turned to Abby and Melanie.
"Miss Shorts and Miss Lovett, you are both dismissed for the day. I want yo see both of you here at 8am tomorrow morning."
Both women turned to leave, clearly not having expected that to be sent home at 8:30 in the morning.

"Mrs Freedman, get me a copy of Miss Shorts contract and meet me in my office in 5 minutes." He was irate. He didn't even look towards Janis to how see reacted to him not calling her by her first name, as he had for the pa 7 years.