Working Stiff:Casimir (Runaway Billionaires #1)(60)

At Valerie's door, Cash stopped and looked back, waiting, with his fist raised to knock.

"I'm here," Rox said, a little breathless from walking so fast.

He bent down and whispered to her, "If this goes badly, switch sides. Don't get fired."

"I'm not going to hang you out to dry."

"Almost certainly, I'm going to need to take this to the state ethics board. I may need you in here to get documents for me."

"I don't like that at all, Casimir." Hey, she got it right that time. "I  don't want to work someplace where this kind of thing is going on."

He knocked on the door. "If she threatens to fire me, I'm telling you to  switch sides. Indeed, don't say anything until we see how this is going  to play out."

From inside the office, a woman's voice called, "Come in."                       
       
           



       

Casimir opened the door.

Inside the office, both Valerie and Josie stood around Val's desk,  waiting for them to come in. Rox could see that both senior partners  were wearing their resting bitch faces as if they were going into court  for a tough hearing.

Uh oh.

Val said, "Come in. We need to talk to both of you."

Evidently, it was already too late for Rox to switch sides, anyway. She trudged in after Cash and took a chair.

Casimir remained standing and slapped the pages from the DiCaprio contract on Val's desk. "What is the meaning of this?"

Val glanced down at the pages but didn't pick them up to read them. "It  doesn't matter what those are. You have been interrogating the  paralegals and admins about what you call the ‘irregularities' in the  contracts that the agents submit to us. This is in violation of law firm  policy."

"What you are doing is in ‘violation' of every ethical standard. If this  does not stop immediately, I will have to report this to the state  ethics board. All previous contracts must also be amended to make them  ethical."

She wanted to stand up and cheer. You go get them, Cash.

No.

Wait.

Casimir.

You go get them, Casimir.

Yeah, that was it.

Val said, "Ms. Silverman and I are in agreement. We are terminating your partnership with this law firm, Cash."

He leaned over the desk at them. "You're only pushing me out to cover up what you're doing."

Val's voice rose. "We will buy you out at the previously agreed-upon  price. Effective immediately, you are no longer employed at this firm  and need to leave the premises immediately."

"This is unethical. It's illegal. I will make sure that they disbar you."

"They won't take my license. They may disbar you."

"You have been swindling clients."

"Who do you think they will believe, a junior partner who has only been  here for a few years, or me, a senior partner who has worked in this  industry for decades? I know most of the people on the state ethics  board. I went to law school with three of them and have slept with two  of the others. Plus, we have ample evidence that you and Ms. Neil here  have been swindling clients at the behest of the studios for years."

"Me?" Rox grabbed the arms of the chair. "I don't even have the  authority to make changes in the documents. I can make notes but not  changes."

When Val looked at her, the attorney's brown eyes were cold and dark.  "You have been checking out the documents for Cash to modify. You've  been using Wren's identification codes to smuggle the documents out so  that we wouldn't know that it was you. You may have also been using  Cash's login to change them yourself."

"I don't even know-" But of course, Rox did know Wren's login codes and  Cash's, too. She had helped Wren log into the document control system so  many times because she was hopeless at it. Rox did stuff for Cash in  his documents all the time, too.

Damn.

Val was still staring at her. "And when you drop them in the cloud, suddenly the words change to our clients' detriment."

"That's not right," she said. "We haven't touched DiCaprio's contract  since the meeting with his attorneys. They sent over the new draft last  night. But the wording was changed at six o'clock this morning. It had  to have been done by someone who was in the office, and we didn't get  here until after ten."

"I think you did it," Val said. "I think you came in and logged in as  Wren this morning. She never gets here before nine, so it must have been  you. I think you two changed all the contracts."

Casimir said, "We did not have access or editing authority on your  contracts after you came back from your leave of absence, but your  contracts were the ones with the clauses that swindled our clients."

"And yet," Josie chimed in, "we think you did it, and I'll bet that as  soon as we fire you, we will stop discovering these problem clauses."

Rox didn't like the way that she had said that at all. Yeah, they would  stop discovering the problems, all right. "We didn't do it."

Val said, "And we think you did, and we both are in agreement that you  need to leave the premises now. Do not stop at your desks. Do not speak  to anyone. Security should be waiting for you outside my door to escort  you out of the building."

Indignation drove Rox to her feet. "Are you kidding me? You're having the security guards throw us out of the building?"

"Immediately," Josie said. The angry set of her jaw infuriated Rox.                       
       
           



       

"I want my rubber plant," Rox said. "I grew that plant from a little  six-inch wilting sapling that Melanie couldn't keep alive. I want my  plant."

Cash glanced back at her, his green eyes squinting with disbelief, but he didn't say anything.

Val threw her hands in the air. "Fine. You can go get your plant, but that's all."

"It's a big plant," Casimir said, "and it's in a heavy pot. She can't carry it. I need to carry it for her."

"Fine. Go with her and get her damn plant, but the security guys are  going with you. Don't give us a reason to add assault charges to  anything that we have to tell the ethics board."

Casimir stepped to the side, and Rox walked out of Val's office ahead of  him. Two security guys were waiting outside of Val's door, and they  both trailed Rox and Casimir to her office.

Rox walked straight in her own office door, and when Casimir stopped in  the doorway and held his arms up to lean on the doorjamb, she swiped a  thumb drive-sized thing that was sitting on her desk and palmed it,  holding it against her leg so that no one could see she had anything  there.

Her huge rubber plant was still standing against the window right where  she had left it, its leaves spread against the glass, blocking the view  of the security guy who tried to look around it.

"Hey!" the guy said. "You aren't taking anything right?"

"Nope," Rox called back to him and grabbed her favorite mug. "Nothing important, anyway."

The cup read Work Wife. Casimir had given it to her a few months before with a nice little bouquet stuck in it.

Yeah, she did want to take the mug with her.

Casimir set his briefcase on the carpet by the pot, and he stooped and grabbed the plant's heavy clay container.

"Wait," she said. "Are you sure you should be lifting that?"

"I'm fine," he said. "I can carry this. I've carried-" he glanced at the two security guys, "-heavier things than this."

"I don't want you to hurt yourself. You know what? The plant isn't worth  it. We'll just leave it here for whomever gets the office."

The security guy on the left crossed his arms and sighed. "We need to escort you two out of the building."

"Come on," she said, picking up her heavy purse and slinging it across her back again. "Let's get out of here."

As they crossed the lobby, Melanie ran up to them, holding a manila  envelope. "Cash! Rox!" She shoved the envelope into Rox's hands.

Rox looked at the envelope, but nothing was written on it. "What's this?"

"The settlement offer from the apartment property management company."  Melanie glanced behind herself like she expected assassins to jump out  and grab her. "I've got things to do." She scuttled away.

Rox pulled the documents out and scanned them.

The number written in the first paragraph had a lot of zeroes in it.

A lot of them.

A key slithered out of the envelope and plunked on the carpet at her feet.

She said, "Holy cow! I just wanted my stuff and my deposit back."

Casimir snagged the key from the floor near her feet and took her elbow  to guide her away. "We should go. The security gentlemen are getting  nervous."

Indeed, they were fidgeting with their walkie-talkies, as if the  static-crackling communication devices would coerce Rox. "This is enough  money to buy a house."