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When we enter Mr Mortimer’s office, I’m surprised to see that he’s not alone. There’s a man sitting in one of the chairs, his back to us. Mr Mortimer greets us and stands, ready to introduce us to the man, probably a new potential client.
The stranger stands up, turns around, and my breath catches in my throat. It’s not a potential client, it’stheclient. Mr Alpine from Thursday’s watergate disaster. Oh god.
My knees wobble and I almost turn and bolt for the door, but a warm hand at the small of my back is comforting and grounding, and gently guides me forwards to shake hands and say a polite hello.
“Hi.” It’s literally all I can manage to say as I concentrate on drawing breath into my lungs and restarting my heart.
“Wint, great to see you again,” Lycus says jovially, clapping the client on the shoulder like they’re old frat buddies or whatever it is they have in Italy.
They know each other?
A sense of betrayal washes over me, making my skin tingle and heat as my anger rises. If Lycus already knew Mr Alpine, I never stood a chance in my pitch – pitchers of water aside. My fingers curl into fists and my heart beats double time as I try to figure out how to bring this injustice up.
But he liked your ideas. They wanted you to lead this project with Lycus and if the client was biassed they would have just chosen Lycus.
“Please, both of you, take a seat,” Mr Mortimer says. I sink into the leather seat closest to me, and Lycus takes the one beside me. Is it just my imagination or is his chair really close to mine?
“Great. Now that you’re both here,” Mr Mortimer begins and I grit my teeth. There it is again – the insinuation thatI’mthe one holding us all up. “…to tell you more about the project.”
I realise that I zoned out in my mental mini-rant and missed the bulk of what my boss was saying.
Turning to the client, I fix a politeI’m listeningsmile onto my face and vow to pay better attention to him.
“Have you guys heard of ‘Wicked Temptation’?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No. Is that a new drink brand?”
Beside me Lycus chuckles, but tries to hide it by disguising it as a cough. Mr Mortimer looks at me sympathetically, the tops of his ears turning slightly red.
“Ummm, no. It’s an event at a club in Arizona.”
“Arizona?” I frown. “The only Arizona I know is?—”
“In the States. Yes.”
“Umm, okay. What does that have to do with your brand, Mr Alpine?”
“My business partners and I co-own a chain of clubs and pop-up events and have hired you to launch the new franchise. We’re friends with the owners of Club Ecstasy, the ones who host Wicked Temptation, and we’d like to collaborate with them on raising the profile of this project’s launch.”
“I see,” Lycus says, nodding.
Idon’t see. I don’t understand. Why would they want to collaborate with a club in the States when we have literally hundreds of bars and clubs here in the city we can work with more easily?
“Club Ecstasy are renowned for their ‘Wicked Temptation’ nights, and we would like to bring something similar over to London. We’re thinking we might potentially host one for the launch party of the new franchise, or offer one as a pop up event. We have the club already and have had some great exposure, but collaborating with Ecstasy will hopefully give us broader reach.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. It makes sense, even if it doesn’t make sense. It’s ambitious and bold, and not entirely unexpected given how demanding their team has been since the first concept meeting. “So you want our help to put together the marketing package for here and the state side? Is that it?”
“Yes and no,” he replies. “Ecstasy are happy to promote our brand over there with their in-house team, so we’re not worried about that.”
“But Mr Mortimer said there were two projects you were hiring us for?”
“Yes. All of the marketing for the brand, and the launch party for the franchise.”
“A launch party is usually part of the marketing package we put together.”
“But the ‘Wicked Temptation’ style night will be separate. It’s such an important event we wanted it treated as a separate account with its own budget.”
“Okay. No problem,” I say smoothly. A bigger budget suits me just fine.
