Page 13 of Semantics

“It’s early. I would still like to hear back from the other companies before I do anything. Cerebral was the most expensive, too, which is part of the reason.”

“So, it has nothing to do with the fact that Stella works there?” Enya asked.

“An SVP at our age? As a woman in sales, that’s…”

“You’re the CEO of a company, Vi,” Arlowe reminded.

“Our company is four people, and you all elected me to be CEO a decade ago because I was the business major. It’s not the same.”

“Maybe she knows the head of her company. Everyone starts somewhere. Do you think you would’ve been the SVP of anything at your family’s company already?”

“A multi-national company where my entire family but me is currently employed at? No. I’d be a director at best.”

“Then, you would’ve been worse off had you gone that route.”

“I’d have better benefits, at least,” she argued. “And an assistant to help me organize everything.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Arlowe replied and stole the box that Sarai had just picked back up. “A little chaos is good for the soul.”

“Isn’t yours just, like, fifty percent Red Bull and twenty percent coffee by now?” Sarai retorted, glaring at her.

“Yes. How did you know?” Arlowe stood. “I’m going to make more coffee for me, Vi, and Enya. Sarai, you’re on your own.”

Violet went to open her computer back and found herself staring at the picture of Stella Ross again, who really was beautiful, damn it.

CHAPTER 4

“She still hasn’t responded,” Stella shared as she pulled a piece of sweet-and-sour chicken out of the red-and-white take-out box.

“Amber? I thought you two were on for tonight,” Jen replied and took a drink from her massive water bottle that she carried around the office from meeting to meeting, telling everyone that she was trying to stay hydrated.

She’d been doing that for the past two months, and it made her have to run to the bathroom after every single one of those meetings, but Stella admired her dedication to drinking enough water throughout the day. Stella was convinced that her own veins were filled with coffee since birth because she’d grown up drinking it even as a kid and still drank three to four cups of the stuff a day. She had water every so often, but despite the fact that Jen had bought her a massive water bottle just like hers but in a different color, she’d yet to even wash the thing to use it.

“We are. I meant Violet.”

Stella leaned forward and tapped her mouse to refresh her inbox for the fiftieth time that day.

“Violet? Oh, Vicky.”

“You have got to stop doing that,” she said and shook her head at her friend before she went back to her Chinese food lunch.

“Why? Not like it matters. I’ll never have to talk to her, so she never needs to know that I thought her name was Vicky Roberts forever before you told me that it was Violet Russell.”

“Russell, as in Russell Textiles, Russell Investment Corp, Russel Pharma-Tech, Russell, Maxwell, Locke, and Associates, Russell–”

“Yeah, I got it. Her family collects businesses like I used to collect Pokémon,” Jen interjected.

“Please, you still do that.”

“Only when I’m bored and my phone is charged,” Jen argued.

“They have everything under one umbrella. I looked it up last night. I think they own, like, fifty-plus subsidiaries or something. They’re in just about every industry.”

“Good for them. Why are we still talking about this not Vicky Roberts?”

“Because it could be a way for Cerebral to get a foot in the door at Russell. If I can get this language company that she owns, that isn’t under that umbrella for some reason, she can get me some introductions everywhere that is under that umbrella.”

“Now, I have Rihanna stuck in my head. Can we stop talking about umbrellas?”