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Chapter one
Eyes up here, creep!
Thefamiliarfeelingofwatchful eyes gazing at her warmed Kate’s skin. It was just as she liked it: all of the attention on her. A little thrill went down her spine, sending sparks flying through her back and shoulders.
There was no better feeling in the world, especially when all the eyes on her were male. Kate made it no secret that she loved teasing men. Toying with their emotions, playing them off one another, taunting them like they were in a schoolyard. It pleased her to no end.
Kate wasn’t the kind of woman to take shit from anyone—especially not a man. She’d endured enough of their bull for one lifetime and she wasn’t about to lie on her back and take more.
She rolled her shoulders in their sockets as she looked down at the laptop placed on the table in front of her. It was plugged in and ready to go. The projector next to the laptop beamed onto the wall behind, the bright blue light blinding. The speech she’d prepared was placed on the table in front of her, the text printed big enough for her to see from where she stood.
All she had to do was start speaking. But something stopped her from opening her mouth. Whispers were emanating from the far end of the room. Kate’s dark blue eyes flicked over to the sight of their mouths moving, their ugly smug smiles curving up in the corners, making their cheeks wrinkle.
It was the ultimate sign of disrespect. Every single person in this room demanded silence when they made their presentations. So why wasn’t she given the same?
Kate glanced around at all the faces sitting around the large, oval table. All of the men sat there, waiting with expectant looks on their faces. She knew, without a doubt, that none of them cared enough to hear her opinion. They were courteous enough to sit silently and pretend they were listening, however.
All of them aside from those jerks at the end. They were still whispering away like school children, breaking out into gentle fits of laughter. Kate wasn’t going to start speaking until they stopped, she’d decided. They would have never behaved this way to a male colleague. Why should she accept any less?
“Is there a problem?” A voice called out from two seats away from her.
Kate looked at him. It was Walter Harpe, the Vice President of Production. Technically, he was her boss. His hair was all gray and white, almost translucent in the right light, and his face was covered in deep-set wrinkles and age spots. He was old, older than she could have guessed, and yet he was still working.
“If I could have everyone’s attention,” Kate said bluntly.
Walter looked behind him, at the two men whispering, before turning back around in his seat. “You have it.”
He was wrong. The two men hadn’t stopped talking. Kate stared at them, feeling the anger rising in her stomach, causing it to bubble and sizzle. Both of the men had dark brown hair and equally dark eyes. Their cheeks were plump and cleanly shaven. They looked average for middle-aged men.
The suits on their bodies were expensive, but both their cuts were atrocious. Clearly, the suits had been made years ago, when the men had been a little lighter around the waist. Their rotund, fatty stomachs poked out of the bottom of their jackets, their shirts barely able to stay tucked into their pants.
“I’m not going to start without everyone’s undivided attention,” Kate stated.
She wasn’t going to let them talk over her for the entire meeting. Weeks of her time had been spent on this presentation. Having two men talking over her wasn’t in the cards, not for Kate.
Begrudgingly, the men ended their conversation with mutters ofwe’ll finish this later. Their bodies turned to face her, their smug smiles vanished from their lips.
“Thank you,” Kate said sharply.
She leaned down to her laptop and put the presentation on full screen. The projector lit up in a brighter shade of blue, taking up the whole wall behind her.
“As you all know, those in the TV department have been working alongside the designers to come up with a brand new, sleek design for our Metadynamic and Twentyfour-K ranges,” Kate started. “Our main goal was to find a way to bring down the price of our range to compete with what is currently on the market.”
Kate leaned down and pressed a button on her laptop, switching to the next slide. Behind her were now pictures of dozens of different models from different manufacturers, all labeled with price, design pros and cons, and reviews from top technology influencers.
It was clear to most in the room that Kate had done the research. A lot of the men leaned forward in their seats to read the smaller pieces of text, nodding as they absorbed everything she was showing them.
“As you can see, our products are over-priced compared to what else is on the market,” she said. “So, to improve sales and our brand, we’re trying to bring our costs down without using inferior components or substandard design.”
A lot of the men in front of her had no idea about TVs. They were the big boys from corporate. They allocated the funds and approved projects, but they didn’t know the details, and they often didn’t care for them. All they needed to know was if they were going to make money—and Kate had made sure to use that knowledge to her advantage.
“So far, a lot of the Twentyfour-K TVs on the market are clunky with unintuitive features,” Kate continued. “We’re aiming to streamline the design and bring the price down so average consumers can have the technology in their homes.”
She leaned forward once more, pressed the button on her laptop, and moved to the next slide. As she stood up, her eyes flicked to the end of the table where she saw movement. The two men had come together, their heads almost touching as they spoke quietly to one another.
Kate’s blood ran cold in her body as she straightened up, staring at them without blinking. She watched their lips moving as they whispered. There was no way she was going to continue. Having to tell two, fully grown men to shut up was absolutely ridiculous.
Instead of saying something straight away, Kate decided to keep it petty and clear her throat loudly. She felt her vocal cords slap together as she made the noise, staring the men down.
