by DD Prince
Dad’s talking like this twenty-something chick is the sole reason for that company’s success and he gushes in a way that never happens, continuing to eye me as he does it. And that doesn’t sit well.
He announces we’re closing that Buffalo office down and bringing work for it in-house, laying off the entire team back there. Her expression drops at this news and I give my dad a look. He doesn’t pick up on the meaning of the look.
He should’ve told her this aside, rather than telling her in front of the department that she’s the sole survivor from a company she worked at. I don’t know how long she’s been there, how hard it’s gonna hit her. These things are unavoidable, but you have to finesse them when you’re keeping assets around.
Dad tells the room that she was the only functioning team member and that’s why she got transferred and promoted. He’s smiling at her. She wipes the shock off her face and gives him a hesitant smile, but everyone in the room feels her tension.
We all know that he only keeps high-performing people. If you’re a slacker, you’re gone. He keeps this philosophy at the forefront at all times, letting people know they’re expendable.
If Quinten Carmichael was programmed, it could be said it was done without sensitivity, as has been demonstrated throughout not only my working life, but also my entire life. As he asks her to recount her accomplishments in the Buffalo office, she stutters at first, thrown at the news of the demise of her former coworkers, but then as she talks about some of her accomplishments, she gets this light in her eyes and changes course. People ask questions and she freely shares information, which is stupid, because if you show all your cards, someone has a chance to study your playbook and take you out.
But, she wows the room with her knowledge about all things Google Adwords, Facebook marketing, and social media in general. She talks about her plans to help us boost our online following, to up the click-through rate for our email marketing campaigns, and talks about her plans to launch a YouTube channel where we can do a web series that shows entrepreneurs how to grow their online presence with the upsell to our high-ticket marketing mastery online course, which will tie in with a further upsell to hiring our consultancy services to help these companies grow their businesses to the next level. She’s talking about plans that could leverage our new call center in the Philippines, too.
Dad is looking at her like there’s sunshine coming out of her ears.
He keeps looking at me to… what, gage my reactions? What’s his game? Why has he put her in my apartment?
Questions are firing rapidly in my brain. Is he grooming her for my position for when I get promoted to president? Shouldn’t that be my choice? Or is he using her to make sure I know I could be replaced if I don’t drink his Kool-Aid? I’m feeling paranoid all of a sudden.
Is he trying to warn me that my job is at risk of being scooped by a little girl with curly hair and great tits along with ideas that she shouldn’t be voicing in a meeting instead of bringing them to me privately, since I’m the fucking VP? I don’t fuckin’ think so. What’s her game?
Is she another one of Audra’s moles, like Bella? Spying on me in my apartment, reporting on my activities?
I feel like I’m about to snap at the notion that he’s playing games with me.
Fuck, I’m paranoid. Why the fuck am I so paranoid? Being in San Diego is fuckin’ with me.
My father doesn’t fuck with me. My mother, I can see, but Dad? No.
I’m supposed to become president of the company next year. He’s fifty-five and wants to retire at sixty. In five years I’ll be taking over as CEO and by then my brother Austin will be CFO.
I’ve bent over backwards and done triple fucking backflips to prove I deserve my position. That I don’t just have a VP on my business card because of my last name.
Has my bitch of a mother gotten in his ear about me? Is he trying to threaten me into compliance with her fake family bullshit?
This innocent twenty-something girl from Buffalo isn’t a threat to me. Not remotely.
Yet it’s rattling me. And when I’m rattled, I go on the offense.
I start firing tough questions, some of them trick questions at Carly, trying to trip her up to show her weaknesses, make her stutter and sweat.
“Isn’t that black hat? You took that risk knowing it could get your site banned by search engines?”
“No, it was a grey area, but it worked. I knew the algorithms could change so I had a back-up plan. I …”
The little bitch is on the ball, and comes back with answers to every question, a confident look blazing in her eyes.
She does not lose her cool even once, despite my upping the ante with every question I fire back. And there’s challenge in her eyes. Sassiness in her tone.
It’s giving me a raging fucking hard-on, which pisses me off even more, because I’m thinking Why the fuck is this chick’s sass making me hard?
I wanna grab her by the hair and ram my tongue down her throat. I wanna throw her face-first over this table and grind my cock between her ass cheeks and then tell every person in the room to get out, tell them I’m about to fuck this bitch until she’s whimpering and pleading for me to stop making her come because she can’t take it anymore.
And I’m well-aware of just how much tension I’m filling the room with via my snarky replies and questions until my father cuts in and abruptly ends the meeting.
Dad rises and looks at his watch.
“We had this room booked until 10 and it’s 10:06. We didn’t get a chance to hit all our agenda items, but finance is waiting. Let’s stop here. Ally, Carly, welcome again. Lunch with the two of you and me and your VP, Aiden. Twelve noon at Tapsters, across the street. Sound good? And everyone, don’t forget, team building Friday night. Mandatory.”
The room is so quiet, yet brimming with tension, that you’d hear a pin drop.
I need to talk my dick down so my erection isn’t obvious as I leave this room.
“Sounds great,” Ally shakily says, smiling.
Carly nods at my father and then her eyes land on me. She’s pissed and now that she’s stopped talking about her skills, she’s doing a bad job of hiding it. She’s looking at me with challenge in her eyes. Not afraid of going head to head with me despite finding out I’m a Carmichael? I’m almost impressed.
I stare right back, dead into her eyes with challenge, and she flinches.
Good.
I physically bump into my brother outside the boardroom and he jokes about it, but I’m in no mood. I storm off.
9
CARLY
I think I might hate him. I barely know him and I’m not a hater, at all, but I might have real hate for this cocky asshole.
I somehow managed to keep my cool in there, but now that I’m walking back to my desk, my legs are shaky, and my ears are burning hot.
It wasn’t bad enough, finding out that the office I worked at was being closed in front of my new department. They had a goodbye party for me. They wished me well and had a cake for me. I was leaving on short notice and they’d even put money into a pre-loaded credit card with my goodbye card, so I could have some sightseeing money when I got here (even though I wound up using it for groceries, because Caitlin).
Yes, there were jerks there. Yes, some of them took credit for my work. But, not everyone. And they gave a crap when I left.
And I had to sit and listen to the shocking news that they’d all be losing their jobs and absorb that shock in front of everyone without showing too much emotion.
I didn’t know how to show emotion without either looking like I didn’t care or like I cared so much that I’d offend Mr. Carmichael, who was beaming with pride about me and how I differed from them.
I mean, I had long pegged the vast majority of them as lazy sloths, but this was confirmation. It didn’t feel good, though. I did not feel vindicated or anything like that. And several of the back-office people, all the admin girls, they were great. They were my work-friends f
or two years, people I spent almost a third of my life with.
When I first met Mr. Carmichael in the copy room at lunch time when the office was empty (but for me) and helped him photocopy something when the machine was acting screwy, then got to chatting where he asked me questions about my job that led to the boardroom chat that was actually a job interview, an interview I didn’t know I was in, but yet I’d aced…I had no idea I was going to be the only one with a job from that whole company.
When the news came of Carmichael acquiring us, our bosses told us we had nothing to worry about. Either they lied, or they were lied to. And I hated finding that news out in a room of my new peers, because they’d probably think I was cutthroat.
Ally asked me if I was a backstabbing bitch-faced cunt. Would she think I’d lied when I said I wasn’t?
And to make it worse…with Aiden the asshole jerk strutting in there late, exuding all this alpha male authority, and every man looks at him with respect while every woman in the place looks at him like he’s a god or something and he pays absolutely no attention to anyone until he starts trying to make me look bad in front of the whole room? I have had it with this guy. He’s an alphahole. An alpha male asshole who wants to pound his chest and make everyone fall in line out of fear of him.
I feel like I just survived a trial by fire.
I’m reeling.
All I know at this moment is that I’m going to rock my job and prove myself. If it kills me.
I also know I have to do it without letting him walk on me.
Somehow, I’m going to succeed here without being a doormat, without becoming a backstabbing bitch-faced cunt to anyone that doesn’t deserve it.
However…
If someone crosses me, they’ll have to be prepared to face the consequences. Carly 2.0 is going to be transformed like Linda Hamilton from Terminator to Terminator 2. A warrior. Let’s just hope I don’t wind up incarcerated in a mental hospital in the process.
We get back to our cubes and Ally has a look on her face like she’s worried about me. She’s not saying much. She watches Aiden storm back to his office and Mr. Carmichael gives me a big smile as he heads to wherever his office is.
Aiden changes his mind and does a smooth about-face, then storms in the direction Mr. Carmichael went. A beat later, I hear shouting and then a door slam.
Heads are popping up like a busy prairie dog community all over the place and I pop up, too. I catch, from the corner of my eye, both Carmichael men in another glass office and the younger one is shouting at the older one, pointing his finger at him.
Yikes. I duck back down.
“You okay?” Ally pops up to face me from our shared half-wall
I nod, not able to hide feeling a bit shaken.
“That sucks about your old office.”
I blow out a breath.
“You had no idea?” she asks.
“None,” I tell her.
“Shit,” she mutters.
One of the IT people pokes his head into her cube, so she turns away from me to greet him.
The noise quiets and the normal office hum sounds return, so I decide to go through my employee binder and finish my cup of coffee.
I can’t help occasional glances over my shoulder with that perfect view of his desk. Of him. After a while, the hairs on the back of my neck rise and I suspect someone is watching me.
It’s confirmed when I look over my shoulder and my eyes meet his. He sits there, leaned forward on his elbows, glaring at me, looking like he smelled something foul.
I shoot him a dirty look, (because what the heck did I do?) and then look back to my screen in front of me as I finish browsing the company’s web analytics report.
What have I done to tick him off? I didn’t ask to be in his apartment. His father was the one that hired me.
All I know is that I can’t show weakness with this guy. Like a typical alpha, they prey on the weak. It’s like showing red to a bull, like blood in the water to a hungry shark.
***
Not long later, Alice has come back and directed me and Ally to another smaller boardroom where she sets up a video for us to watch. The new hire orientation. And in it, there’s a profile done for every management and leadership team member. I decide I’m going to like George unreservedly. They go over his background and he talks about his passion for customer relationship management and technology with excitement in his eyes.
After several more managers being interviewed, they cycle through the VPs, I see a gorgeous alphahole smirking at me from the screen.
“Aiden Carmichael is the eldest son of our founder and CEO, Quinten Carmichael…”
The narrator shows several slides with photo collections of Aiden being sporty and competitive, recounting all the many trophies. In school he was a jock and an academic, as well as captain of the debate team, the chess club, and the fucker was also homecoming king. How did he accomplish all that? Why would anyone take all that on? He didn’t have an awkward stage, either. The man was absolute male perfection in every single slide. In every single photo, he’s looking increasingly broodier and hotter. And I hate him for it.
He finally gives his mini interview where he talks about what he’s most passionate about and he says,
“Winning. If you really wanna be in the one percent, you need a primary focus and that focus? Win. In work and in life, I surround myself with success. Do the same so that you’re never dragged down by incompetence or laziness.”
I roll my eyes and harrumph before I catch myself. Ally’s eyes move from the screen to me and under her breath, she says, “Such a hottie, but what an arrogant bastard, right? And he totally ran you through the mill in that boardroom like he was gunning for you. What the heck, right?”
I scoff and wave my hand like it’s no biggie.
He’s obviously not a perfectionist. What perfectionist lives like a slob? Surround myself with success? And what? Old pizza boxes, beer cans, and fast food garbage? Fucking banana thief.
Another Carmichael works for the firm. Austin Carmichael. And he’s a cutie, too. Almost as hot as Aiden. I’d seen him try to joke with Aiden as we left the boardroom, but he only muttered something jerky and kept going.
Austin is VP of Finance and his demeanor is markedly different from Aiden’s. His part of the video is short and sweet as he talks about how being a bean counter doesn’t have to be boring, and how his team has fun while making sure we and the IRS all get paid. He’s really good-looking and seems humble. Ally gushes about how gorgeous he is. She’s right.
We finish watching the rest of the video and then Alice comes in and tells us we’ve got an hour and a half until lunch with the two Carmichaels, so we go back to our own cubicles to get situated. I finish setting up my computer the way I like it, so I can keep my finger on the pulse of all the company’s social media accounts, website analytics, and content marketing channels. I finish reading through the employee onboarding binder and sign all the forms I’m supposed to sign, and take them out of the binder, then get up to drop them in a mail station next to Aiden’s office.
I see him doing something on his computer, wearing a pair of glasses, his suit blazer off, and his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and holy shit, how is he hotter?
Between the glasses and the corded forearms, I stumble over my own feet and nearly wipe out. I regain composure and see he’s still staring at his screen, but one side of his mouth is up in half a smirk. He definitely noticed me ogle him and nearly fall. My face burns hot as I try to play it off like it’s nothing.
What is wrong with me? This guy is an alphahole jerk lasagna thief who tried to embarrass me, no humiliate me, in front of my new coworkers and I trip at the sight of his forearms and a pair of glasses? Humiliate might be a strong word. Discredit me?
Whatever. I don’t like him.
And I have another question. Why do eyeglasses on a hot guy make him even hotter? Even if he’s a jerk! It’s not fair. My eyeglasses make me look like
a nerd. They don’t make me look hot. At all. Hence my wearing contact lenses most of the time.
I go back to my new desk and start clicking into my company email and find a series of emails from George that have been forwarded to me by Stacy, the marketing intern I met in the boardroom. She’s not much younger than me and seems like a go-getter. She told me she’d gotten a briefing from George before he went on leave and was forwarding a bunch of stuff to me on campaigns that were ongoing.
All she went over with me, I knew I’d be hitting the ground at full speed ahead. Good: throw myself into work and focus on winning. On being a one percenter like Aiden talked about.
Aiden. Fucking fucking Aiden.
I’ve already been strategizing for my approach to make sure I wow them with my skills, and that plan goes into effect immediately. Even more so after the way Aiden put me in front of a firing squad of questions that morning, too.
I am glad that at least Mr. Carmichael seems to like me. Right now, that might be all I’ve got. That and Ally, who I’ve known for two hours who acts like we’ve been friends for a decade.
***
I do a backwards swan dive onto my bed and stare at the ceiling. A long day. I am exhausted. Still jetlagged and just… pooped.
Mr. Carmichael took Ally and I to lunch, telling us Aiden had something come up. I was relieved to not have to sit with him for an hour.
Mr. Carmichael told me my new look was fantastic. I didn’t think I looked bad back in Buffalo, but I guess my makeover did more for me than I’d imagined. Good to know it was worth every last dime in my savings account to have Layla make me over.
I did that the day before I found out Caitlin racked up my credit card, leaving myself flat broke.
He also apologized if he’d shocked me over the news of my office. He then said that when I started talking to him in the boardroom that day, it was very apparent I had potential. This job was originally going to go to Kevin, my former boss, until our conversation clued him into the fact that I was the one responsible for the social media success that had gotten our company on Carmichael acquisitions radar. I wasn’t surprised Kevin tried to take credit. And now I knew why his signature wasn’t on my goodbye card. And why he wasn’t there for my goodbye cake. He was pissed that he got passed over.