Worst Week Ever (A Long Road to Love)

  Worst Week Ever

  By

  Liza O’Connor

  Liza O'Conner writes books that speak to my soul. Carrie is a character you will not soon forget.—Rebecca Royce, author of The Warrior series.

  Note from Author

  Long ago when colonists of the New World got their first printing press, it was evidently a piece of crap. To make the wooden blocks fit better, the operator of the printing press decided all fragile punctuation (periods and commas) would remain within the tall dialogue tags for ease of printing. And thus began the U.S. illogical punctuation rule. Convenience ruled over logic. I understand.

  What I don't understand is why, in the digital world, we cling to this archaic illogical rule instead of returning to the logical British rule that decides the location of dialogue tags by where they should logically resides.

  I'm happy to say, some U.S. e-publishers are returning to the British rule of logic in this matter, and so shall I. Here forth, logical dialogue punctuation will be willfully and purposefully used in Worst Week Ever. It's not a mistake or ignorance on my part. It's a rebellion against illogical rules of the past. I encourage all authors and publishers to overthrow silly habits of the past and allow logic to rule once again.

  All rights reserved.

  Any reproduction of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying, electronic copying, or recording is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

  All characters in this book come from the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names, titles or professions. They are not based on or inspired by any known individual and any resemblance to a person living or dead is purely coincidental.

  —The Friday Before—

  Trent Lancaster wanted last month’s sales report. That’s all. As CEO and owner of Lancaster’s Chairs, getting financial information about his company should be his inalienable right.

  First, he called head of Sales.

  “We’re doing fine, Trent. Don’t worry about it,” Hal said.

  A woman’s giggle followed the assurance, setting off Trent’s temper. “Where are you and who are you with?”

  “I’m at Brittle Bottles, trying to pitch them our premium line of chairs. Only you’ve interrupted my pitch mid-stream to discuss a mythical sales report, so if the deal falls through, it’s on your shoulders. And you’ll owe me the commission I would’ve made if you’d just let me do my job.”

  Before Trent could challenge him on several of his statements, not to mention the giggling woman, Hal hung up.

  Outraged, Trent buzzed his assistant. “Carrie, get Hal back on the phone.”

  A sharp angry voice replied from his speakerphone, “I’ve told you a billion times, my name isn’t Carrie. I’m Liza. L. I. Z. A. And I don’t know any Hal.”

  Trent gripped his head and growled. “He’s the head of Sales. Get him on the phone now!”

  “Last name?”

  “What?”

  “What. Is. His. Last. Name? The employee phone list is sorted by last name.”

  “I don’t care about the phone list. Just do your job and get Hal on the phone.” He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “Idiot girl!”

  An angry voice spoke from his box. “I’m the idiot? I may not know this Hal’s last name, but then I’m just a temp. What’s your excuse?”

  Before Trent could gather a reply, the red light on the direct line went out, indicating the girl had hung up on him. Seconds later, her angry voice came through the company intercom system.

  “Attention please. If someone named Hal has the misfortune to work here, could you please visit the asshole in the corner office? He evidently cannot remember your last name.”

  A moment later, even through his closed door, he heard the muted cheers and applause from his worthless employees in the main workroom.

  Trent stormed into the outer office, intending to yell at his mutinous employees. First, he planned to have a few words with Miss L. I. Z. A. only the little coward had run off. He entered the main room, to find his employees sitting on desks and laughing rather than working.

  Upon sight of him, their cheeriness diminished. With further glares on his part, they scurried back to their desks and at least pretended to work. Satisfied they knew who was boss, he returned to his office.

  Still lacking the sales report, he called the head of IT. “Where’s last month’s sales report.”

  “Who’s this?” the irritated male voice replied.

  “Trent Lancaster. Your boss.”

  “Oh…You want what?”

  “My Sales Report.”

  Bob replied slowly as if talking to a moron. “Have you asked Sales?”

  “Just send me the report, now!” Trent yelled and hung up the phone. He should’ve never let Carrie go. For the last two years, she’d been the buffer between him and his ungrateful, wretched employees. He’d forgotten how much he hated the whole sorry lot.

  His phone rang. He waited for the temp to answer it but, after the tenth ring, realized she must still be MIA.

  “What?” he lifted the receiver and demanded, annoyed he couldn’t even find a temp who would work.

  “It’s in your email,” a gruff male voice snapped.

  “What is?” Lancaster demanded.

  The caller huffed and hung up.

  Why did everyone keep hanging up on him? God, he missed Carrie. She filtered out these cretins and only put people through who actually wanted to talk to him.

  Curious as to what resided in his email, he opened his laptop and pressed the ‘on’ button. And waited…

  And waited.

  God, this machine was as slow and worthless as his employees.

  Nothing worked without Carrie. She’s single-handedly turned running his father’s business from an act of torture to an interesting challenge.

  As he waited for his computer to show some spark of life, he pictured the heart and soul of his business, with her charming smile and beautiful green eyes. He desperately needed her positive ‘can do’ attitude back.

  His laptop still refused to come alive. He buzzed his temp. “I need a tech guy.”

  The lack of a reply didn’t necessarily mean L.I.Z.A. hadn’t heard him. His employees were infamous for giving him the silent treatment. To determine if he had an attitude or absence problem, he stepped into the outer office only to find an unoccupied desk that used to hold Carrie.

  Losing patience, he decided to try the non-working temp’s technique. While it hadn’t worked on Hal, maybe it would on a tech guy. He walked to an archaic microphone and pushed the ‘All Bulletin’ button. “This is Trent Lancaster. I need a tech guy up here now. That means right now.”

  A fat old woman, wearing hideous cat-woman glasses, glared at him from her desk directly on the other side of the glass wall. God, how could Carrie bear to stare at the hag all day? Just a single glance caused a chill to run down his spine. He retreated to his office. “Please God, don’t make her my tech guy.”

  Without knocking, the horrid woman stormed into his office. “My chair is crippling me.”

  He had no clue how to even respond to such a stupid statement, so he decided to ignore her, in hopes she’d leave of her own volition.

  His computer still refused to do its job, so he pushed the on button again. And again. Nothing.

  Perhaps he should just throw the damn thing out the window and be done wi—

  The sound of a clearing throat caught his attention.

  Apparently Miss Schnell hadn’t taken the hint—or had chosen t
o ignore it—and continued to loom belligerently in front of his desk. He tried another tactic. “I’m rather busy right now.”

  She snorted.

  Her blatant disrespect was the last straw. “If you and your chair don’t get along, I fail to see how it’s my problem. I am the CEO of Lancasters, not a god damn chair therapist.”

  A young man, who looked a bit like Scooby-doo’s pal, entered his office. “You need tech support?”

  “Yes.” He shoved his laptop across his desk. “Piece of crap refuses to turn on.”

  Scooby grabbed the laptop and made several ‘hmmm’s before laughing. “Found the problem.” He held up a plug, then pushed it into the wall socket.

  “It’s a laptop. Since when do laptops require tethering to a socket?”

  “Since the battery drained,” the young man said, and then flinched as if expecting to be hit.

  Trent vaguely remembered Carrie telling him something about leaving his laptop plugged in when at the office. The kid might be right. He’d never had to worry about stupid stuff like battery recharging for the last two years. Carrie always made sure his laptop worked.

  As Scooby headed to the door, Trent’s screen remained black. “Hold on! It’s still dead.”

  The young man hurried to the laptop and pushed the ‘on’ button, and to Trent’s surprise, it came alive.

  The kid attempted to leave again, but now Miss Schnell stood in the doorframe.

  “I can’t help you, Mrs. Schnell,” Trent growled.

  “It’s Miss, and as my employer, you’d better help me, or I’m going to sue for disability.”

  God Almighty! Did his employees memorize the disability statutes? “How can I solve this?”

  “I want a better chair…like the one your temp has. I’ve worked here for thirty years. But does that count for anything? Not at all! You buy these pretty girls the best of everything, but me? I’m sitting on crap that was crap when I arrived here thirty years ago.”

  Trent just wanted to read his sales report. Why wouldn’t these people get the hell out of his office? “Take this up with Carrie, when she returns.”

  “I’ll be crippled by then.”

  “I don’t know how to solve your problem,” Trent stated in exasperation.

  “The hell you don’t. You have a chair right there that no one’s using. You could solve this problem if you wanted to. You just don’t care about my back, but you will when I sue you—“

  “If you want the god awful purple chair, take it. Just leave so I can get back to work.”

  With a self-satisfied smirk, the old hag returned to the outer office and wheeled the ugly purple chair away.

  Once she no longer blocked the door, Scooby-Doo-Boy scampered out. Trent would’ve liked it better had the fellow closed the door behind him, but at least Trent had his office to himself. God, he hated his employees.

  Except for Carrie. She actually made his life better. Or had before he’d let her run off. Every day since had been pure misery. If he’d known how horrible life would be without her, he would’ve refused to let her go. He wished he had. He really couldn’t last much longer without her.

  He stared at the symbols at the bottom of the screen, trying to find one that would give him his emails. Spotting the big blue ‘e’ he clicked on it. A ‘Bad Dress’ picture article of a starlet popped up. He cursed and almost closed out, but then spotted the word email.

  However, when he selected the link instead of getting his emails, a blue box appeared asking for his password.

  Frustrated, he wrote, None of your business

  The machine responded with an annoying message.

  Please verify your password.

  Nothing about this seemed right, certainly not that badly dressed woman. Convinced this was not his company email account, he searched again. By systematically opening every symbol on the bottom of his screen, he finally found another email account…that also wanted a password.

  He wrote, I am in hell.

  It answered, INVALID PASSWORD.

  Then he tried, I need Carrie.

  INVALID PASSWORD

  Life is not worth living.

  INVALID PASSWORD

  Without Carrie

  He stopped typing as the truth hit home.

  His happiness and his business depended upon the near proximity of his beautiful four-foot-six Executive Assistant.

  If she were here, she’d hand him a copy of the sales report then in a pleasant, cheery voice mention the key things he needed to see in the data.

  He stepped away from his uncooperative laptop before he really did toss it. Why didn’t he get the tech’s name so he could call him on the phone. God, he felt like a fool communicating by the ancient intercom system his father had used, but he had no other way to get the kid back to help him.

  Storming into the outer office, he spoke into the microphone. “Tech guy, come back. You didn’t finish your job.”

  As he returned to his office, guilt chewed at his conscience. The kid had done his job, and Trent had actually appreciated him leaving at once. Much better than staying to bitch about a chair. However, he didn’t want the whole office to know just how crappy his day progressed. He’d be damned if he’d give them the satisfaction.

  Scooby-doo arrived, out of breath. “I saw the system locked you out. I’ve cleared it and given you a temporary password.” He handed Trent a sticky note with gibberish written on it. Hlc8ws09

  “Are you nuts? I can’t remember that! I am a busy executive, or would be if I could read my emails.”

  Scooby-doo knelt in front of Trent’s laptop and typed a bit then turned the laptop toward Trent. “Type in whatever password you want. Then retype it in the block below.”

  Trent wrote Carrie twice and hit enter. Angry red letters declared his password rejected.

  “You screwed something up. It won’t take my password.”

  Scooby chewed his bottom lip. “What did you type?”

  Why would he share his password with Scooby-doo? “I’m not telling you.”

  “Did it have numbers in it?”

  “No.”

  “Well that’s why it rejected your password. It must have at least one number.”

  “I own this company. I should not have to cater to a computer. The computer should cater to me.”

  Scooby chewed his bottom lip some more.

  Losing patience, Trent yelled, “Fix it!”

  “Okay… but if I do, every hacker in the world, even the crappy ones, will be able to hack our system. Or, you could just change a letter, let’s say turn I into a one, and leave your system safe from five-year-old hackers.”

  Trent did not want five-year-olds in his system. He typed in his new password and this time the system accepted it and gave him his email… Thousands of them, written over the last month that Carrie had been gone. Several marked ‘urgent.’

  One titled FINAL NOTICE.

  “Crap!” Scooby-doo said and made that one disappear.

  “Hold on, if a bill hasn’t been paid, I need to know about it.”

  “It’s a Trojan horse. If you had opened it, twenty viruses would’ve downloaded onto your computer. One of which steals all your email addresses so it can send the virus to everyone on your mailing list. Which means all the stupid people in our company who clicked on it the first seven times would do it again, and then my nightmare will never end.”

  Trent didn’t understand the first half of his explanation, but he, better than anyone, understood nightmares that never end.

  “Had a tough day too, huh?”

  “More like a month. Any idea when Carrie’s coming back?”

  Trent tensed. “Carrie? Why do you care?”

  “Because nothing works in this place without her.”

  “That’s the truth,” Trent muttered and refocused on the endless emails. “I told Bob Ott to send me a sales report. Can you find it?”

  Scooby-doo shook his head.

  “You can’t find it?
Or you’re not even going to try?”

  “Our system doesn’t generate any sales reports.” He then clicked on an email. “Oh…he sent you the only report the system generates.”

  “What is it?”

  Scooby cringed. “A one liner.”

  Trent took over his laptop. A fancy banner declaring NET INCOME and then the number $(353,000) centered on the page. This looked nothing like the financial reports Carrie provided him.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “I didn’t make the report. But the story I heard is that you told Bob you were only interested in one thing, the bottom line.”

  Trent opened his mouth to deny that, but before Carrie helped him understand how to read financial statements, he did quote his father a great deal. The man had been a big ‘bottom line’ fan.

  He frowned as he noticed the brackets around the number. “Why do you have brackets around the number?”

  The fellow chewed his lip again. “That means it’s a negative number.”

  “We’re in the red?”

  Scooby nodded and stood up. “I’ll let you get to work on that.”

  Before Trent could question him further, the kid fled from the room.

  He considered calling him back but saw another way to address the matter. Carrie. The most recent email came from Carrie. He opened it, intending to demand she come home at once and discover why brackets surrounded his number. Before Carrie, he’d been bleeding money every month, but for the last year and a half, they’d become profitable. Thus, this setback gave him a legitimate reason to call her home.

  Without reading her email, he hit reply and typed…well hunted and pecked. He’d never learned how to type.

  carriecomhomenowwearelosingmoeney.

  Just before he sent it off, the odd subject line caught his attention.

  RE: Typhoon Arriving-Ending Trip Early

  Hope springing eternal, he returned to her email and read.

  A Typhoon will hit Taiwan soon, so I am cutting the trip short. If not, I could be here several more weeks. All objectives achieved. She then gave the details of her flight.