“Actually, it’s not Mr. Glass.”
The voice was familiar and I felt my jaw tense hearing it. My fingers clenched around each other on the top of my desk and I debated telling her to go away, but I knew that that wasn’t going to fly. I relaxed the tension in my shoulders and leaned back in the chair.
“Come in,” I said.
The door opened and Snow looked around it at me. She looked just about as thrilled to see me sitting there as I did to see her, which was uplifting in a way. If it was going to make me miserable to have to be in her presence every minute that I was at the office, it was comforting to know that I was making her just as unhappy with my presence as well.
“Hi,” she said.
She pressed the door closed behind her, but only took half a step away from it. I couldn’t decide if it was that she was feeling intimidated and didn’t want to be too far from the door so that she could escape as soon as she wanted to, or if it was that she felt the same forcefield of negativity between us that I did, keeping her from getting any closer. I would prefer if it was the former.
“Hello.”
I could have said more, but I wanted to watch her squirm. She stared at me for a few moments as if she was expecting something else and then she took a step toward me.
“Look, I just wanted to come in here and say congratulations on your marriage and no hard feelings. I hope that we can put everything behind us and focus on finding success for the company in working together.”
“Working together?” I asked with a hint of mirthless laugh in the words. “Surely you’re kidding.”
What I could only imagine was Snow trying to look beseeching melted from her face and she tilted her head to look at me with a more quizzical expression that I knew others found adorable, but that I only thought was simpering and obnoxious.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You don’t seriously think that we’re going to be working together, do you? Like some happy little team? Like friends? You can’t really think that.”
“Well, I just thought that since you’re here…”
“I’m here for one reason and one reason only, and that is so that I can climb myself to the top where I have always belonged. You’ve been interfering with my success for as long as I can remember, and I’m not going to allow you to do it any longer, Snow.”
“You’re not going to allow me?” she asked, a sneer dissolving all of the sweetness that had been on her face. “Who do you think you are to allow me to do anything? I worked harder than any person you have ever met to get to where I am. All you did was sleep your way to a seat in this office. That doesn’t make you good at your job and doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful. If anything, it means that you are going to drag this company down in the same way you have dragged down every other agency and project that you have ever been linked to.” She put one hand on her hip and cocked it at me, looking me up and down in a scrutinizing way that filled me with fury. “Of course, you managed to use all of your…assets…to get you out of all of those situations, too, didn’t you? Or did you think that no one knew about that?”
I slammed my hands down on the desk in front of me and was starting to push myself up into a standing position when there was another knock on the door.
“What?” I snapped.
The door opened and Mr. Glass stepped in, one thin hand gripping a stack of folders.
“I retrieved those files that you wanted, Mrs. Royal.”
“Those are my files,” Snow gasped, staring at the files in Mr. Glass’s hands. “Who gave you permission to go into my office?”
“I did,” I said, not able to keep all of the smugness out of my voice. “As far as I’m concerned, every office in this building is mine. You don’t get to decide who goes anywhere, especially when it pertains to accounts that I need to review.”
“I already submitted my progress reports on this account,” Snow argued. “You don’t need my files.”
“Of course, I do,” I said. “This is my company now. Royal and Company is under my guidance now, and that means that I will do absolutely anything that I want to to make sure that I know what’s going on here and make the changes that will need to be made to ensure this company continues to thrive.”
“You mean so that you can ensure that you get to take all of the credit and look like you know what you are doing.”
“I don’t have anything else to say to you,” I said. “You can go now.”
“What am I supposed to do? You just took all of my work.”
“Figure it out. If you are really as valuable as everyone seems to think that you are, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
I settled back in my chair again, looking down at the files in my hands in a demonstration of dismissing Snow. She hesitated for a few moments and then let out an angry sigh before stomping out of the room. I hadn’t been paying attention to the words in the file until she was gone, but almost as soon as I heard the sound of the door slamming, the name of the account sank into my thoughts. I felt the anger inside me growing and heat spread across my cheeks.
“The Diamond Mine?” I asked through gritted teeth. “She is building this campaign?”
Mr. Glass nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “The client told us that Miss Whitman came highly recommended and they were extremely impressed by her initial brief. They asked that she helm their entire campaign and expanded the scope to include print media and unique boutique marketing designed specifically for them as well.”
I felt my body shaking, the anger inside me at a point now that I wasn’t able to control it. Mr. Glass had already heard the angry exchange between me and Snow and I didn’t care if he knew just how infuriated I was about finding out that Snow had landed the account that I had been courting for months. An extremely exclusive nightclub, The Diamond Mine promised to be an exceptionally lucrative account that would only become more valuable the more popular the club became. This client really only needed to advertise to the most elite of clientele due to the restrictions of the club, and what Mr. Glass was describing went well beyond that. What Snow had proposed, and was now planning on delivering to them, straddled the line between true advertising and PR, something that was more than what other advertising agencies would have ever offered, but that was exactly what had handed this highly sought-after account right into her waiting hands.
“She’s the best,” Mr. Glass said. “It is my professional opinion that you would be best served aligning with her and continuing to encourage her to expand and pursue further clients for the agency.”
I looked up at the man with fire in my eyes. He had to be fucking kidding. He wanted me to become yet another of Snow’s many admirers and admit that she was better than me? Absolutely not. That was never going to happen. There was only room for one of us in the industry and that meant that Snow was simply going to have to go.
Chapter Four
Hunter