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“Her?” Bryce asked the assistant.
The blonde nodded.
“Why me?” I asked Bryce.
“I don’t know but you better hurry.”
“Well, naturally. What girl doesn’t race to her own funeral?” I said, rising out of my chair.
Chapter Two
The assistant–I didn’t know her name but she looked like a Brittany, the perky and perfect type—led me through another maze of cubicles and offices before ushering me towards a smaller version of the conference room Bryce and I had fled only minutes before. From outside the doorway, I could hear raised voices.
“I don’t care who made the mistake! What I need is a solution, and I need it now. If your firm can’t provide that for my company, then I have no problem taking my business elsewhere and if you even think to speak to me of contractual obligations or try to placate me with reports and numbers and spreadsheets, I will have a team of my best lawyers take up residence in your office until you see things from my point of view. Do I make myself clear?”
Rita’s voice was softer and from outside the room I couldn’t hear what she replied and then the room was silent.
“They’re waiting for you,” Brittany hissed at me.
A slight shiver crept down my spine as Brittany gave me a borderline sympathetic look before turning on her stiletto heels and prancing away. I waited until she was out of sight before turning to meet the sharp gaze of Rita. I felt the presence of Mr. Brighton but couldn’t risk eye contact. From what I could see and hear, he was on the warpath. I knew I couldn’t get caught up in the middle of that, although I had the sinking feeling it was too late, and I didn’t know why.
“Miss Rand, thank you for joining us. Please sit.” Rita sat down and straightened her blazer. Mr. Brighton sat down alongside her but did my best to keep him in my peripheral vision.
I tried not to audibly gulp as I pulled out a chair and sat across the table. “Did I do something wrong?” I asked.
Rita looked surprised by my question but quickly recovered and released a fake-sounding laugh. She shot a look over at Mr. Brighton and before I could stop myself, I followed her glance and found myself staring directly into the darkest brown eyes I had ever seen. I let my eyes wander over the rest of his features, probably for longer than socially acceptable, but for the life of me, I couldn’t look away. My stomach felt like it just got hit by a shot of whiskey. A smooth heat. His skin was a dark, deep tan that definitely didn’t come from a bottle. His hair was dark espresso brown and just slightly tousled, like he had recently showered and it wasn’t quite dry yet. Even with the suit, it was clear that he was athletic. My mind wandered away and was suddenly filled with images of him—shirtless, running, muscles flexed and glistening with the sheen of sweat.
“Miss Rand?”
I inhaled too fast and sputtered on my attempt to respond. “Yes, ma’am?”
Without a word, Rita pushed a glass of water across the table. My cheeks were burning up and knew I was blushing. My fair skin and freckles could turn practically crimson and thinking about what a sight I must have only made it worse.
“Thank you. I’m sorry,” I said, after I caught my breath. “Please continue.”
I kept my eyes on Rita, not daring to look back over at Mr. Brighton.
“As I was saying,” she started. “Mr. Brighton is one of our top clients. He has been with our firm for a number of years. In that time, he has worked with our brightest and best designers, but now he finds himself looking for a fresh set of eyes to help with his next project. I realize you’re new here, but Mr. Sherman thinks very highly of you and told me that you’re a tiger on website design, so I’d like to get your input. I know it’s not advertising, per say, but we can discuss the new advertising campaign with Mr. Brighton and come up with a plan.”
“Uhhh. Of course. What, uhm… seems to be the—”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mr. Brighton interrupted. His voice was not raised but the anger was palpable, nonetheless.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Brighton?” Rita’s voice was dangerously sharp.
“Miss…Rand, was it?”
I nodded and tried my best not to gulp again.
“Tell me something, Miss. Rand. In your experience, would you ever let trash like this…?” He shoved a pile of glossy proof pages across the table at me. “Would you let that see the light of day?”
I took my time examining the pages, as I desperately searched my brain for the next thing to say. The pages were filled with bright, glossy looking images of an array of perfume bottles. They all looked fine to me. Not really my taste—something about the exposure of the pictures seemed off but they certainly weren’t the worst I’d ever seen. I wouldn’t have called them trash. But I knew better than to argue with a client. Two years of customer service experience in a coffee shop had taught me that if the customer says something is trash, it’s trash. I assumed that was even more so with multi-million dollar accounts than vanilla lattes.
When I dared to look up, his eyes instantly locked on mine. His eyebrow was cocked like he was daring me to contradict him. I ran with a pretty rough crowd and had been to some very sketchy bars, but never in my life had I felt this intimidated before. I had the sense that no matter what I said, it wouldn’t matter.
“Sir, I don’t think my opinion counts. I’m actually not an ad designer, I’m an IT person. This is only my second day here. I used to work in a coffee shop.” I smiled, hoping to cut some tension.
He let out a curt laugh. “Of course you d
