Chapter 8: Chapter 7

"Wow... I'd let you boss me around in that outfit," Bex said when I walked out of my room, hair newly washed and blow-dried, heels surprisingly sturdy and easy to walk on. I felt confident, beautiful, and... utterly frazzled.

I was going to have a budget meeting with Laurence Royal where I would have to fight to keep the budget that he intended to slash. I had never gone head-to-head with him before, and the idea of it made me want to crawl under a blanket, eat ice cream, and never come back out.

My fingers itched to tug at the yellow dress material, but I refrained. Allie would kill me if it were wrinkled by the time I got to work, and I couldn't show any nerves if I were going to be taken seriously. I had a job to do, and I had to do it without throwing up, or looking like I had crawled out of a basket of wrinkled laundry.

I can do this... I won't throw up... I won't die.... Hopefully.

Bex gave me an encouraging smile. "Don't look so terrified. You'll do great!"

"I'm going to agree with whatever Laurence says," I groaned, frustrated. "It's what I've always done."

Bex snorted from where she sat in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal. "As his assistant, sure. That was your job. Now..." Her smile widened and she pointed her spoon up at me. "You are literally on the same level. He has to convince YOU, because Allie has sent you to deal with him. And after three years of knowing how he ticks, you can use that to your advantage in negotiations."

She pushed an empty bowl across the table, gesturing for me to sit. "Now sit and eat the breakfast I made you. You got a big day ahead of you."

I gave her a flat stare. "You didn't make anything."

"I bought the cereal. Same thing. You are welcome."

I pored cereal into the bowl, thoughtful. I wasn't Laurence Royal's assistant anymore. But certain habits were hard to break. I was used to making his life easier. And now I was supposed to make Allie's life easier. I wanted to do a good job and prove that I could be a good COO. But even if I knew how Laurence Royal worked, what his tells were, it was hard to imagine using them to get what I wanted.

Could I play mind games with him? Could I work the negotiations to get a healthy budget for Allie?

I had watched Allie work with small budgets before. And I understood how important having the proper equipment and crew were. They helped showcase the pieces she created. And those shoots inspired purchases. But at the same time... Allie had a tendency to go overboard.

I was still trying to wrap my head around how to approach negotiations when I walked into the office, so lost in thought that I hadn't even realized there was already a second desk set up next to mine. Someone sat behind it wearing a sharp blue suit, brown eyes focused on his computer screen. He was in his mid twenties, sandy hair pushed back out of his face and sharp features.

The sight of him was like a slap in the face, my chest squeezing tight.

It took him less than a day to replace me...

I had known it was coming, but it still hurt seeing a new assistant sitting there.

This is why I needed to change things. I am as easy to erase as a new resume and interview.

Tucking away the feeling of being replaced, I continued the short walk to my desk.

The new assistant glanced up, and a bright smile lit up his face, making him look like an excited golden retriever. "Desk buddy!" he said, standing to his feet. "I'm Dashiell, but please call me Dash. The name means heavenly, which I obviously am."

The confidence in his words were strangely disarming. It was probably his open smile. His bright brown eyes. The dimples in his cheeks. I found myself laughing.

"But the name really should have been used to describe you," he said taking my hand and squeezing it warmly.

His words threw me.

Is he... is he flirting with me? Do I say something flirty back? It's part of my homework from Allie. How does one flirt?

I thought of Allie's list and mentally steeled myself. I was feeling more confident than I had since my ex-boy friend had dumped me. I could flirt back with someone who was openly flirting with me?

'I am clever,' rang through my head. Those words were the second compliment I had said to myself. Bex had helped me with it, and it was the one I decided would have to help me in my current situation.

I squeezed Dash's hand back. "I don't know Dash, you look like you were quite literally dropped down here just for us to visually enjoy."

I fought my desire to cringe when I imagined HR popping out of a nearby shrub and shouting 'Aha! Caught you! Did you really think someone would flirt with you?!? It was all a trap! And now you are fired!"

But nothing happened. No one came to yell at me, or make me feel bad for saying something flirtatious. The entire interaction made me realize how tense things had become at work. Dash was like a beacon of sunshine.

Did I flirt badly? Is that how one flirts? Did I do it wrong?

His grin widened, seeming utterly pleased by the compliment. "I appreciate a woman who isn't put off by my natural inclination for a little friendly banter. You'll make a wonderful work wife," he determined before letting go of my hand, and leaning back on the edge of his desk comfortably.

"Cute," I said, dropping my bag behind my desk. "I bet you say that to every girl you share a workspace with after knowing them for ten seconds. I don't know if I'm ready to fake marry you. I'll take it under advisement though."

He laughed, the sound easy. It made me smile. Dash was going to make for a great desk partner. A ray of sunshine in an office of intense grumps. I just hoped Allie didn't scare him off.

"So, you must be the famous Lily Autumns. Assistant turned COO." He took in all of me with a look of open curiosity. "Impressive."

"Still in training," I said, picking up several stacks of paper on my desk and beginning to file them in my drawer. "But thank you."

Dash watched me sit down, taking in my outfit. "1940's flair. Nice choice. I'll have to wear a Jazz hat so we match next time."

I shot him a look as I turned on my computer. "That's the 1920's."

"Top hats?"

I fought a smile as I began to scroll through my email. "They became popular in the 1800's."

"Baseball cap?"

My finger's hovered over the keyboard, stuttering to a stop. "Wow... This is getting embarrassing. You do know where you work, right? You kinda need to know this stuff."

"But if I did know these things... then I would have less of a reason to keep talking to you."

I raised a brow, fighting a blush. Okay... I need to get flirting lessons from this guy. What do people even say when someone speaks to them like that?!?

"We literally work two feet from each other. You'll figure something out," I said in what I hoped was a casual tone.

I stood up, hitting the print button on my computer and grabbing the information, or rather 'Allie's List of Demands'. Then I steeled myself for my meeting with Laurence Royal, and walked towards his office, nerves bubbling up inside.

"Newsboy flat cap," I said, glancing back at Dash. "It's much closer to the correct time period. "Or a bowler hat."

Dash smiled back at me. "I'll prep the uniform."

...

I found Laurence Royal in his office wearing his usual focused expression. Dark eyes scanning numbers, fingers brushing along the pages, hands itching to knot through his hair.

Knocking on his glass door, I leaned inside before being invited in, and spoke before he even had a chance to look up at me. My best chance at staying focused was to act before he could.

"I scheduled the conference room for our budget meeting." Then I turned and walked out before he had a chance to focus on me. Fighting every instinct to wait for him, I walked towards the elevators, offered Dash a smile as I passed, and was inside, the elevators doors closing before Laurence Royal could make it past the assistants desks.

I could hear Dash fighting a laugh through the closed doors, making my heart lurch with guilt as the elevator dropped. I hadn't wanted to ditch him, but if I was going to gain any respect, I had to surprise him. Not be mean like Allie, but showcase that I was all business. Unpredictable. Someone who he couldn't walk all over.

I was in the conference room, staring down at a table covered in numbers— Allie's battle demands, when Laurence Royal walked in. He had an identical copy of figures, and was most likely going to burn them in a rage. Allie's requests were frankly ridiculous. This was the LARGEST budget she had ever asked for, and she was expecting me to make it happen.

OH MY GOSH. She's leaving me in a room with an angry CFO and expecting me to walk all over him. She's going to kill me when I don't get her what she wants.

I was a bundle of nerves as Laurence Royal walked into the room. His eyes were on the large stack of papers in his hands. "We don't need to talk in here. I highly doubt the sound proofing is necessary. You don't strike me as..." he trailed off as he looked up at me, pausing for a step.

He seemed... stunned. I tried to place the expression that momentarily crossed his face but it was gone a moment later as he moved back into motion.

"...difficult," he finished, looking back down at the files.

I swallowed, looking at the table, feeling suddenly warm. "We need the table space. It's a lot of..."

"Demands?" he said with a dark laugh.

"Requests," I countered.

"These are not requests. These are ridiculous. Every time I walk into this room to have a budget meeting, the list is longer, the demands are more outlandish, and now she won't bother to show up herself, which just shows how little she cares about my opinion on the job she hired me to do."

He pinched his nose, looking drained. "I'm assuming she sent you in to get all of it approved?" he asked with a raised brow.

"Yes."

He sighed, dropping the files on the table with finality. "An impossible ask."

A spark of frustration stirred in me. "You don't think I can do it."

"It's literally my job to stop things like this from happening, Ms. Autumns." He took a step around the table, and I suddenly lost the barrier that I had put between us. "You can't ignore me the way she does."

My body warmed. He was right, I wasn't good at ignoring him. Up until now it had been an impossible task.

"CEO may outrank CFO, but you don't outrank me."

Laurence Royal's eyes became unreadable. He hadn't denied it my accusation. He truly didn't believe I could hold my own in a budget meeting with him. He thought he could strong arm me into doing things his way.

My mouth went dry, my shyness seeming to fizzle out. I wasn't normally competitive. But when someone stood in my way after I had decided to tackle something, the old itch to fight, to win, surged back to life.

I am a fighter, rang through me. Words I had been saying to myself all day, seemed to hum like a battle cry. A truth about myself that I had discovered that morning.

I am clever, joined it, a harmony I clung to, bubbling up inside like a emotional sword begging to be swung.

"It's my job to make sure you don't slash the budget more than necessary," I said, holding my ground.

"None of this is necessary."

"... None of it?" I asked, my voice dangerously quiet, suddenly understanding Allie, and absolutely hating that she knew I would once I was in the room with Laurence Royal.

Did he not believe in the job he had been hired to do? To keep the company financially healthy so we could make people feel beautiful? He doesn't believe in the job, and he doesn't believe in my ability to do mine.

He was just... angry and tired and seemed to have lost all motivation to do a job for a company that had once been his to run.

What's happened to you?

"So what do you suggest we do?" I asked, face growing hot as I took a step towards him, chin raised in defiance, hand gesturing toward the numbers on the table. "Throw all the clothes on the ground, and take pictures with disposable cameras?" I pretended to smack my head like I just remembered something. "Oh wait! We can't do that! We'd have to get the film developed and that would cost a whooooool dollar!"

Laurence Royal looked at me, as if truly seeing me for the first time. "That... No. It's at least fifteen dollars to get each disposable camera developed and it costs extra for prints."

I kept pushing. "Oh, I'm sorry. Is that too high of a budget? Should I just have all the employees take selfies with the clothes or would that cause HR complaints because they would be doing something outside of their job description?"

A muscle in his jaw tensed. "Are these your actual slashed budget ideas?" He narrowed his eyes, assessing me, trying to read me.

"Because although they are inventive, they are not a long term solution." He took another step, putting us toe to toe, bodies far closer in proximity than I was prepared for. Making it hard to think, to breathe.

I crossed my arms, trying to give myself some space. "It's called sarcasm. You can't just walk in here and declare that the entire shoot is pointless. It's not constructive."

His eyes darkened. "And neither is this sad excuse of a budget. She's playing a game I refuse to play."

I scanned the table and plucked up a set of graphs, waving it in front of Laurence Royal's face.

"THESE right here are the projected sales for this next set of clothes. A set of projections based on YOUR numbers Laurence. So either you are a liar, and you actually think this shoot will help sales, but you don't think I am worth negotiating with, or you don't believe in any of this and you've just stopped pretending you care. So which is it? Are you a liar who doesn't want to work with the new COO, or have you just given up, burned out?"

He looked at the graphs before his dark eyes moved back to my face. "I haven't burned out."

I sucked in a breath, but did my best to keep my face from showing that his words stung. "So you are a liar who refuses to work with me?" I challenged.

Laurence Royal continued to look at me, eyes unreadable. "Why are those the only two options?"

"Because I've worked with you for three years. I've watched you handle a hostile takeover of your business, get accused for attempted murder and then have to put your own brother in jail. Burn out is perfectly—"

"I'm fine," he replied, fingers reaching up to tug through his hair before he stopped himself. "What I don't appreciate," he said, voice dropping low, his face leaning down slightly so he could look me right in the eyes. "Is someone dragging me into this room, showing me a budget that could single handedly bankrupt us and then claim that because I don't take the budget seriously, I am a liar or I want to sabotage this place."

Shame snaked through me. I had walked into a loaded set of history between Allie Winters and Laurence Royal, and had begun to throw punches without a clear look at the battle plans.

The room fell deathly silent. A near audible sound that stretched taut, seeming to pull at the strings of my confidence.

Is the budget an elaborate prank? Does Allie actually expect me to get her all these things? Is this some test that will force me to break Laurence Royal in order to pass?

"You used to fight. To care," I said softly, looking up at him. "What happened?"

A spark of emotion entered his eyes, but was quickly swallowed into ash as he stared back at me, assessing. "I don't think this job is pointless," he replied.

My heart stuttered and I had to take a step back, forcing myself to stay on task. "Then what game are you playing? Because if we are going to work together you need to give a rat's butt about this job—"

A slight twitch at the corner of Laurence Royal's lips appeared. "Rat's butt?"

"—and work with me on this. I know I don't have the same level of experience, but I am not leaving this office until you take this conversation seriously."

He closed his eyes for a beat, forcing himself to calm down with what seemed to be physical effort. "I can't have a budget meeting in here. Every conversation I've ever had in this room has turned toxic and messy."

The heated arguments between Laurence Royal and Allie Winters were famous among the employees at Royal Winters. Every single one had left Allie looking smug, and Laurence looking on the verge of setting the building on fire.

I hadn't realized that the conference room had become a place that triggered a fight reaction in him. It was no wonder he had refused to talk. To work. He seemed barely capable of stringing two sentences together that weren't full of implied insults.

"Then what do you suggest?" I asked. It's not like we couldn't have budget meetings. It was his job, and now mine. "Would a different room make things less..." I trailed off, unsure of how to finish the question.

Laurence Royal opened his eyes, an idea seeming to form. "Yes. I know just the place."

...

I had fully expected Laurence Royal to move our meeting to his office. But instead, we had climbed into his car and rode in complete silence to a set of buildings I had never seen before. Two tall skyscrapers sat on either side of a rundown. warehouse.

Oh please, oh please let this meeting take place in one of the tall shiny buildings and not the broken down warehouse with a rusty door.

The situation didn't grow any better when Laurence Royal climbed out of the car, opened the door for me— which was sweet— and then lead us directly to said rusty warehouse door.

Okay. The twist here is that Allie is secretly the nice one and Laurence Royal is secretly a murderer who is so pretty, that stupid girls follow him to warehouses where he then murders them and then uses them as a warning so Allie will leave him alone or else her fate will be the same.

No. I won't be the stupid girl. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE.

Laurence Royal knocked on the door to the warehouse before he turned and looked back at me, a hint of an amused smile crossing his mouth. "You coming?"

Yep... I'm the stupid girl that follows him into the warehouse.

---

Thank you for reading chapter seven! I hope you are enjoying the story! Or are at least curious to see where it goes! Add this story to your reading list to know when the next chapter drops!

UPDATE DAYS - A NEW CHAPTER EVERY FRIDAY!

What did Laurence think of Lily's new outfit?

What do you think of Laurence's new assistant, Dash?

What is inside the warehouse?

Will Lily be okay?

Is Allie's budget a prank or does she expect Lily to get her everything for their next shoot?

Will the rest of the budget meeting go better?

What will happen next?

CHAPTER QUESTION - Have you ever had a disagreement with someone over how to accomplish a project for work or school? How did you come up with a solution?