A Seal Upon Your Heart by Pepper Pace

training her replacement.”
     
    Tim sat back in his chair. “Well…”
     
    “And they both know it.” Aaron got up to leave and Tim was preparing to tell him to wait when he finished his thought on his own. “And one is making life a living hell for the other.”
     
    He could only sit there stunned at those words. Well…he should have anticipated that, shouldn’t he have? He’d screwed this up royally. Corrine would have thumped him on his head and said, ‘What were you thinking?’
     
    He walked Aaron to the door and looked at Jen and Jane. They were quiet as they worked and he realized that the quiet was filled with tension. Well why the hell hadn’t he noticed that before? He glanced at his watch. He had to deal with this right now.
     
    “Jane. May I see you in my office?”
     
    “Sure, Tim.” She grabbed a small pad and ink pen. Then she followed him into his office with her shoes making soft squeaking sounds. She tried to walk quietly, but that just didn’t help. She moved to sit down and Tim stopped her.
     
    “You don’t have to sit down.” He had shut the door and was staring at her with a look of displeasure. She tried to think if she’d done something wrong. When Tim was angry his body seemed to take up the entire room and he reminded her of a bull; like you didn’t want to turn your back on him because he was one moment from charging.
     
    “Jane, I just have one question for you. Has Jen been making it tough for you here?”
     
    Jane’s mouth parted in surprise. It was a yes or no question but she felt that there was more to the answer than just yes. She finally closed her mouth while she thought about her response.
     
    “Yes.” She finally said.
     
    Tim seemed even unhappier. “Well I’m sorry for that. But…why didn’t you come to me?”
     
    “I…didn’t know that I could.”
     
    His eyes dropped to the carpet. “You can go. Tell Jen to come in.” She gave him a worried look and he cracked his knuckles, a serene look crossed his face but there was something very cold in his eyes. “It’s okay.”
     
    She left his office and sat down in her seat, the one without the typewriter because Jen had hogged it up all day even though there were plenty of things that she needed to type. It meant that Jen hadn’t done any of the other work—leaving it for Jane.
     
    She gave the other girl a sideways look. “Tim would like to see you in his office.” Jen gave her a curious look.
     
    “About?”
     
    “Could you log out of the computer please, so that I can use it?”
     
    Jen did with a mean sigh. She stood and rapped on the office door. Jane sat down at the computer and noticed that her account was locked. She frowned. The last time she’d signed on she hadn’t had any problems. She read the message closely.
     
    THERE HAS BEEN TOO MANY FAILED ATTEMPTS TO LOG IN. PLEASE CONTACT YOUR ADMINISTRATOR.
     
    The muscles in Jane’s jaw tightened. Jen had been trying to log into her account. Thank God she’d changed all of her passwords after Jen had been acting so ugly. She picked up the phone to call the administrator and was verifying information when two security guards came up.
     
    Jane looked at her computer and thought, what did she do with my accounts?! She looked warily at the two guards, but they weren’t there for her. After a brief nod they knocked on Tim’s door and entered without waiting.
     
    Everyone on the floor was craning to see what was happening. What Jane didn’t realize is that generally when a temp was let go they were contacted directly by the temp agency who gave them instructions not to return. It was very uncommon for an executive to handle something like that.
     
    Jane hadn’t done anything wrong but she wished that she wasn’t here right now. She especially didn’t want to see Jen being escorted out. Still, she was curious about what was going on in the office.
     
    Tim was sitting at his desk when Jen had walked in.
     
    “Sit down,