Chapter 18: Her Ten Years

The boardroom smelled of floor polish and old coffee.

Seven people in suits sat along a long walnut table, and Dexter stood at the far end of it in jeans.

I had never seen him in jeans at the office.

Marla sat down beside me with her glasses on their chain and a face that dared anyone to speak first.

The chairman cleared his throat.

"Mrs. MacKenzie..."

"Draper," I said. "It's Draper again."

"Ms. Draper." He had the grace to look uncomfortable. "Mr. MacKenzie has submitted his resignation as Chief Operating Officer, effective today."

"Why?"

"I'd like him to tell you himself."

Dexter did not look at the board.

He looked at me, and he kept his hands at his sides.

"I took the promotion at a party where you paid me back," he said. "I never should have kept it."

"You don't have to..."

"I do." His voice was steady, and that was new.

"I'm not here to be forgiven. I wrote it down so I wouldn't turn it into a speech."

He picked up a thin gray folder from the table and held it out to the chairman.

"This is Willa's ten years."

"Ten years of what?" the chairman asked.

"Her pay against what she did. She caught the payroll error in year three that would have cost us four hundred thousand dollars."

"She rebuilt the benefits system on her own time in year six."

"She covered for two managers on medical leave, and she was never paid for the extra work."

"For the last four years she has been paid thirty percent under every other manager at her level."

"I signed that salary every year."

A man at the table drew in his breath.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Gave Him Freedom, He Came Crawling Back in Tears from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.