: Part 2 – Chapter 12

Every week, I have a check-in meeting with my team to discuss the various accounts we’re running. But as of a few weeks ago when the Midnight campaign was added to our already overfilled plate, all things Hughes International have become our biggest priority.

And today’s meeting showcases that tenfold. It’s all we’ve been discussing since we stepped through the conference room door.

“How are the mock slides coming along, Jay?” I ask, directing my attention to him.

“Good.” He nods, looking down at the screen of his laptop as his fingers quickly scroll through whatever is on the screen. “I got confirmation from Ned in Content, and he anticipates rough first drafts will be ready by end of week.”

“Did you manage to get him the font changes we decided on yesterday?”

Jay frowns and fidgets with his pen. That’s a no if I’ve ever seen one, but I get it. We’re fucking swamped right now. My team alone is responsible for nearly thirty campaigns, not including Midnight, and that means burning the wick at both ends.

I can hardly fault Jay for a mistake I could have made myself just as easily.

“Get those to him by today, okay?” I request. “Otherwise, the mocks are useless. If we can’t see the vision completely, we might as well be blind.”

“And if he says that will delay us?” Jay questions. Uncertainty sits in his eyes, and I smile to break some of the tension.

“I think we need to go ahead and anticipate a delay. But push him to get it to us by early next week.”

The last thing I’m going to do is ream his ass. Now, if he doesn’t manage to get the mock slides updated at all, that’s a different story. But Jay is reliable, and I’ve never found it conducive to productivity—or, most importantly, creativity—if the members on my team have chests full of anxiety because they’re afraid of me.

Leadership is a delicate balance of encouragement and accountability. And an iron-fisted ego isn’t the way to achieve that. I have my father to thank for that knowledge. He’s a great leader because he doesn’t inspire his employees to have confidence in him. He inspires them to have confidence in themselves.

Now, Chris McKenzie is another story. He’s harsh most of the time, and if it weren’t for my father’s true understanding of leadership, I honestly don’t think Banks & McKenzie Marketing would be where it is today. They’re the definition of a good cop-bad cop dynamic.

“Will do,” Jay agrees, typing out an email as he talks. “Sorry about that, Beau. I can’t believe I forgot.”

“No worries,” I answer, clasping him on the shoulder. “We’re all ten feet under right now, Jay. Setbacks and mistakes are going to happen, and we’d rather them now than at the charge to the finish line.”

Jay nods, and I move my attention to Laura, who sits directly across from me at the conference table. “How many versions of copy do we have?”

“At least fifty so far,” she answers. “Though, most of our focus has been for the digital space, so character limit is prohibitive. Should I get something else going for print and editorial?”

“Yes. I’d like to see at least twenty long-form. I’m pretty confident we’ll get placement in Cosmo, Elle, Men’s Daily, Fitness, and Good Housekeeping from our past connections, but I want to have this in every major magazine on shelves. When Susie Somebody picks up her airplane read in Hudson News, I want Midnight to be unavoidable.”

She nods. “I’ll get with Luke this afternoon.”

I roll through the rest of my team, asking for updates from Harry, Eddie, and Madeline as I go, each member assigned to different tasks related to our Midnight campaign.

When I ask Madeline about the progress she’s made with our Public Relations team in the viability of getting specific influencers and celebrities to join our campaign, I can’t stop myself from silently wondering how her lunch with Seth McKenzie went the other day.

Did she talk a little too much about our campaign? Spill the beans on the direction we’ve chosen to go? And, if yes, will that affect our pitch, come end of December?

As much as I’ve enjoyed the messages with my Mystery Woman, I could do without the mental unrest. I don’t want to have doubts influence my decisions with my team. It’s a weak take as a commander and not at all how my father taught me to do business.

I need to be able to be confident and decisive, and looking over my shoulder for the next double agent would affect my ability to do that positively.

“Oh, Beau,” Eddie chimes in. “Alice just sent me a rough cut for the commercial.”

All right, Beau. Time to tune out the noise.

“Let’s see it.”

He turns the screen of his laptop to show everyone at the table, and with one click of his finger, the screen comes to life.

A dark night sky with moon and stars is the only thing in frame until an attractive woman with long, dark hair and smoky eye makeup steps onto the screen. “There’s no curfew at Midnight,” she whispers, a little smile on her lips.

The screen flashes to a handsome man in a suit as he fixes his cuff links and then looks directly into the camera. “There are no rules,” he says before the woman is back in the frame next to him.

She lifts her finger to her lips and smirks. “Shh… Don’t tell anyone.” The Midnight logo appears on the screen behind them and pulls forward, fading them out into the background as they embrace each other.

It’s alluring and intriguing and exudes a tangible scale of wealth—all things that sell.

“What do you think?” I ask, looking around the room while I try to gauge everyone’s reaction.

“I think I love it,” Eddie comments with a big smile.

“Me too,” Laura agrees. “But I can’t decide if we need to give the viewer a little more of an idea of what Midnight is about, or if the ambiguity is the point.”

“We’re on the same page, Laura.” I nod. “Let’s consider showing this to a few selective focus groups after we get the final cut. I’d love to get some objective feedback on it. Open feedback, of course, but let’s also lob a specific follow-up question about the ambiguity after we get their initial thoughts.”

“I’ll work on getting that set up,” Madeline offers, and I give her a thumbs-up.

“Perfect. Let’s also add a question that weighs the favorability of how exclusive it feels. Is that selling, or do we need it to feel more relatable?”

“Will do.” Madeline jots notes on her pad and nods.

I glance down at the Rolex on my wrist and see I have about forty minutes until my next meeting—a teleconference with the CEO of Dalencia Fashion. It’s not much time, but it’s going to have to be enough to grab a bite to eat and go through all of the unanswered emails my assistant Natalie has already forwarded to my inbox.

“All right, I think we can close up shop for the day.” I shut my laptop, grabbing it and my files from the table. “Thanks for all your hard work on this. Any questions before we regroup next week?”

“I think you covered everything,” Harry remarks cheekily as Eddie pretends to bow.

“Our fearless leader has it all covered,” Laura adds, and I actually laugh.

“I wish it were as glamorous as it sounds.”

“Oh, we know it’s not glamorous.” Madeline snorts. “That’s why we let you do it.”

I nod, chuckling. The five of them file out to their offices, and I follow, a running list of questions I have for Natalie swirling through my mind.

Wednesday meeting with Voltare timing? Are we still golfing with the Walman’s execs next week? Has she heard from Accounting on the budget numbers for the rest of the quarter with Wellness Pro?

It’s a fucking mess of shit, and I’d be lying if I said my brain didn’t feel like a ping-pong tournament at all times.

As I pass by Hillary Smith’s office, I offer a smile and she waves, and my mind immediately bounces in yet another direction.

ElizaBeth, my Midnight Mystery Messenger.

With the nature of my job, I spend a large part of my day outside the walls of my office, talking to staff. I jump between floors and offices and get on the phone more times than I can count. But ever since I started chatting with my Mystery Woman, every single bit of it has become dual purpose. I do my job, and I do PI work at the same time.

It’s only been a week, and we’ve only had a few conversations, but I can’t get her out of my mind.

Everyone I come into contact with is suspect—or, at the very least, a new lead in my search for her identity. This morning alone, I questioned Steve, who works at the front desk downstairs, and Cal, the night janitor, who was just trying to finish cleaning up as I arrived. I don’t really suspect that they’re the ones messaging me anymore—I’m fairly confident it’s really a woman now that we’ve been actively flirting—but anyone could have knowledge that could help find out who she is, and I need to know.

There’s just something about her. Something…irresistible.

There’d have to be, I guess, for me to keep going back over and over, despite knowing full well how stupid and fucking reckless it is.

I’m a top executive in the company, for shit’s sake, and I’m teetering on the cliff of some very inappropriate behavior with an employee whose identity I haven’t a damn clue about.

If I’m being honest with myself, I shouldn’t be doing it at all.

Hell, yesterday, I questioned Luke from Copywriting, who spent the majority of his time asking me about my fucking sister—the reason for which, I absolutely don’t want to know—and I tried to talk Ella, a twentysomething girl in Web Development, into sharing some of her personal details while we rode in the elevator together.

She either thinks I’m insane or is filing a harassment suit against me as we speak, I would assume. Though, she did smile when she was getting off the elevator, and it wasn’t shaky or scared. Hell, for all I know, she is the Mystery Woman. None of my questions were direct enough to know for sure.

I take my time walking toward my office, looking around the massive space, taking in the faces and making a mental checklist of the names of the people on my floor.

There are at least twenty women up here who are in the right age range, have been around long enough to know the details of the office that my Mystery Woman does, and would’ve had every opportunity to be in Seth’s vicinity to overhear the things she did.

Clara Lay’s office, for example, is across the hall from mine and right beside Seth’s. If anyone is within hearing distance of that bastard every day, it’s her. And I’m pretty sure she’s only a few years older than me, early thirties, and the last I heard, she just got out of a long-term relationship.

Maybe I could just go over and say hello?

A hand on my bicep squeezes, and I startle, and Bethany’s always red-painted lips curl into a smile. “Aren’t you going to say hi?” she greets, intrinsically thrilled to have gotten me with the element of surprise. She spends so much time here, I’m starting to wonder if we’re cutting her a check.

“Hi,” I say, any other words I might have had for her in the past lost somewhere between her open legs and Seth’s dick. It’s a sloppy, messy, dirty place, and I’ve got absolutely no desire to wade in there for the sake of fucking small talk.

She squeezes my bicep again. “I feel like it’s been forever since we talked, Beau.”

“Probably because it has,” I answer, looking over her shoulder and into Seth’s office to see why she’s wasting her time with me instead of powwowing with her fiancé.

Fiancé. What a joke.

Not even two months after we broke up, she and Seth were engaged. She’s never admitted the reality that she had an affair with him behind my back while we were still together, but she doesn’t have to. The proof is in the pussy—Seth’s, I mean, not hers. There’s no way he would have pulled a Desperate Housewives on me if she weren’t putting out well before the announcement of their future plans.

“I hate that it’s like this between us, you know?” she says, and her mouth turns down at the corners. “We used to be so close, Beau.”

Yeah. We did. But then you fucked my best friend, so…

A very small part of me wants to say those words to her, but the larger part of me, the part that’s more than over this woman, chooses to be the bigger man here. Seth might be a fucking lying prick, but I refuse to stoop to his level of bullshit. I also refuse to waste my time on her.

“This is just how it has to be, Beth,” I answer, shrugging her hold off my arm with the motion of my shoulders and taking a step back.

“I disagree,” she refutes. “I think there’s too much history between us to just act like complete strangers whenever we’re around each other.”

“The history between us is very much what keeps us apart.”

“Come on,” she replies, her eyes narrowed. “You don’t miss being friends?”

“No,” I say simply, satisfaction buoying my chest when her ears turn red. She may not be mine anymore, but we were together so long, she couldn’t hide that kind of tell if she tried. My casual refusal is killing her.

She wants control over me in both mind and emotion, and I refuse to give it to her.

“Why not?”

“Because friends treat each other with respect.”

“Beau, I’m showing respect right now. I’m showing you that we can be friends,” she whispers, a wave of emotion making her face crumple. I don’t know if it’s bullshit or real, but I’ll never be the best judge of that—I thought our relationship was real for a long time, when, obviously, it wasn’t. I don’t say anything. Not because I can’t, but because I don’t want to. I put this shit behind me six months ago, and all I’m interested in doing is moving forward.

She glances between me and Seth’s office, and when he starts to stand up from his chair and head toward her, her entire demeanor changes. Puppy-dog eyes and pouty lips morph into a straight back, her head held high, and her very best smile plastered across her face.

She’s putting on a show, that’s for sure. I just can’t decide if it’s for him or for me.

“Hi, honey,” she says, welcoming him with a chummy smile and far-too-graphic kiss. Internally, I sigh. I should have walked away and left her here minutes ago.

“Hey, baby.” Seth pulls her in for a hug, making a pathetic show of squeezing her ass as he does. “Little reunion?” he questions, holding eye contact with me.

“Just saying hi,” Bethany says, but I don’t say anything at all.

Instead, I just smile at him. Just smile like a man without a single fucking care in the world.

I may be over the betrayal, but I’ll take every opportunity to make this asshole doubt and wonder until I’m buried in my grave. You don’t go behind your best friend’s back and steal his girl without consequences. And if he is going behind my back and trying to steal my Midnight campaign, fuck him for that too.

As far as I’m concerned, Seth McKenzie can blow a fucking goat, and from the way he acts, he feels the same way about me too. It’s Bethany who’s the tougher nut to crack, and the more I think about her attitude, the more my Spidey-senses start tingling.

I’m showing you we can be friends, Beau. Her words repeat in my mind, and they most certainly don’t sit well in my gut.

I swear to fuck, I’ll break something if I find out Bethany is the Mystery Woman and started all this just to screw with me.

“You ready to go to lunch?” Bethany asks him, trying to move his attention back to her, and turning him away.

I smile at Seth again, my exterior iron-clad while my mind races with Midnight messages as I try to remember them all. But I no longer have the urge to chat with Clara Lay—or anyone else in the office, for that matter.

I’m on edge now. My mood ruined. And I won’t feel better until I know who Mystery Woman is.