Leave It to Cleavage by Wendy Wax

while,” she began.
    People murmured.
    “I’ve been consulting with him regularly. In fact, he keeps sending me directives via E-mail.” She flashed them a smile and lifted “Exhibit A”—the stack of E-mails she’d sent herself using his account.
    Carly looked up from her note-taking, clearly surprised. Myrna, the head designer, and Todd Holmes, who led the manufacturing division, looked reassured, as Miranda had intended.
    Encouraged, Miranda kept her voice steady and her tone matter-of-fact, as if running a department head meeting was something she did every day. “We’ve decided that I’m going to fill in for Tom while he’s gone.”
    There was a stunned silence, which Miranda ignored. “And we’re not going to just mark time waiting for him to get back.”
    “Why is he still in China?” Myrna asked.
    “He’s adding to our supplier base,” Miranda replied.
    “Are you sure he’s not looking to go offshore?” Todd Holmes asked, referring to the trend to move manufacturing to other countries where labor was cheap.
    “As long as there is a Ballantyne, manufacturing will take place in Truro,” Miranda said.
    “Who are
you
to promise that?” Helen St. James questioned.
    The room went still again.
    “At the moment, I’m the acting president of Ballantyne.”
    “And what qualifies you to lead this company?” the woman demanded.
    The others looked shocked, but it was clear to Miranda the question needed to be addressed.
    “My name qualifies me for this position,” she said firmly. “I grew up in this business. It’s in my blood.” She paused to let that sink in. “And my MBA won’t hurt, either.”
    Everyone in the room, except for the head bookkeeper, looked satisfied.
    “We intend to take this company in new, more profitable directions,” Miranda continued. “To do that we need everyone pulling together.”
    Miranda looked at each department head in turn, but let her gaze linger on Helen St. James. “Anyone who can’t handle that idea, or working with me in Tom’s absence, should start sending out résumés.”
    Miranda waited for the other woman to look away first. The bookkeeper’s hands, with their beautiful French manicure, were clenched on the table. Those nails, coupled with her hostility and her frantic E-mails to Tom, made Helen a top contender for the woman who’d posed with her hand on Tom’s ass. But while she might have had an affair with Tom, she had seemed genuinely shocked that so many of the new receivables were fraudulent. Surely if she’d been Tom’s accomplice, she wouldn’t have stayed to take the fall.
    “Ballantyne Bras is at a crossroads,” Miranda concluded. “We can no longer afford to go head to head with the ‘big boys.’ We need to find a new niche, a new path to follow. I’d like you to make time this week to brainstorm ideas for a more profitable direction. The only stipulation is that manufacturing remain in Truro.”
    There was excited chatter as she ended the meeting. Only Helen St. James remained sullen and unenthusiastic. Knowing she had to neutralize the woman’s negativity, Miranda motioned Helen to wait while the conference room emptied out. When it was just the two of them, Miranda faced the other woman. “You were in a position to know about the bad receivables. It’s hard to believe you didn’t.”
    Fear and anger showed on the other woman’s face. Miranda looked into Helen’s eyes and tried to imagine what she and Tom had been to each other.
    “I didn’t think to question them. They were Tom’s accounts, and I . . .”
    “Seem to have trusted the wrong person.” Miranda let the statement sink in. She was tempted to add “Welcome to the club,” but resisted. She needed to proceed with caution. If she acknowledged that Helen had been personally involved with Tom, she’d feel compelled to fire her and while that would be really satisfying, it wouldn’t necessarily be in Ballantyne’s best interests.
    “But you’re in