I held my head high as I wove through cubicles to Chris’s office at the front of the building. I gave a light knock on the open door. Chris waved me forward. “Come in. And close the door, would you?”

My palms dampened as I shut the door. It was rare that we required privacy for meetings. Usually, doors were wide-open, and voices never hushed. I eased into one of the two chairs opposite Chris. “What did you want to talk about?”

An expression of concern filled his face, but it was as fake as the stomach pains a kid moaned about the morning of a big test he hadn’t studied for. “It seems like you’ve been struggling lately.”

My shoulder blades drew together as my spine stiffened. “I have some personal things going on, but I don’t believe I’ve let that impact my work.” In fact, I’d made up every hour I missed.

The expression of concern melted into one a bit sterner. “Unfortunately, I can’t agree with that assessment. You’ve missed more days of work than ever in your history at the company—”

“You mean I’ve taken the personal days allotted to me instead of letting them go to waste?” I wasn’t going to let Chris get away with twisting and turning my actions into something they weren’t. I’d allowed my mother to manipulate the truth yesterday, there was nothing I could do about that. But we weren’t in a courtroom today.

Redness seeped into Chris’s cheeks. “It’s highly unusual for all of your personal days to be used within a week or two.”

“But it is allowed, correct? I read through our company policy, and it didn’t say anything about the days needing to be spread out.”

“It might not be in the company handbook, but it is frowned upon.”

Meaning Chris frowned upon it. Because he was always looking for some way to cut me down or prove that I wasn’t as good of an employee as the higher-ups thought I was. “I have made sure to log some work hours at home. Everything that needed to get done has been completed.”

Chris straightened in his chair, a gleam in his eyes. “Then why have several of your clients asked to be reassigned to a new accountant?”

The blood drained from my head. I could feel it slipping from my face, down to my toes. “Who?” It was the only word I could think to utter. In all of my years at Cornerstone, not a single client had asked to be reassigned. In fact, I’d always had a waiting list of people wanting to get on my docket.

“The Cove, the marina, and Island Sports all requested a switch.”