I clearly read the threat underneath the professional courtesy. Martin isn’t backing down just because one email went well. He’s still planning to use this crisis as leverage to restructure the board, dilute my control, position the company for sale to his private equity partners.
I need a strategy.
A defense.
I need...
I glance at Bree again.
She’s gotten up from her desk, walking toward the break room with her empty coffee mug.
That pencil skirt. That blazer. The confidence in her stride that she didn’t have on her first day...
She’s been here less than two weeks and she’s already helped avert a crisis. And I’ve given her nothing in return except cold professionalism and micromanaged instructions.
She deserves better.
But I don’t know how to give it to her without crossing lines I’ve spent the last two weeks reinforcing.
My phone buzzes again. Dashiell, my CFO, needs me to review the Q4 forecast adjustments.
I pull up the spreadsheet and try to focus.
But I keep thinking about that sticky note.
This version won’t make them angrier.
She saw what I couldn’t see. Fixed what I couldn’t fix. Did something not even my dedicated PR person could do. Though in fairness, I basically ignored all the suggestions Paloma gave me.
But I accepted Bree’s. Because her suggestions were better.
But were they really? Or is that just my cock talking?
Either way, Bree did what she did without asking for credit or anything in return.
What am I going to do with her?
8
Bree
It’s 11 PM on Monday night and I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten what daylight looks like.
The crisis hasn’t stopped. If anything, it’s gotten worse. More donor calls. More media inquiries. More board members with opinions they feel compelled to share via lengthy emails that Nico forwards to me with single-word instructions like “Handle” or “Respond.”
I’m handling. I’m responding. I’m also surviving on four hours of sleep per night and the kind of caffeine intake that would make my doctor weep.
The overhead lights always seem to hum slightly louder at this hour, as if they’re exhausted and ready to call it quits, too. The rest of the office is empty at this hour, as usual. Just me, my desk lamp, and Nico beside me in his glass-walled kingdom.
Well, I assume he’s in there. The smart glass has been set to opaque for the past hour, which usually means he’s on a call or reviewing something that requires intense concentration or just brooding inpeace. I’ve learned not to interrupt when the walls go opaque unless the building is actively on fire.
I’m staring at the donor response matrix I’ve been updating for the past three hours, when my stomach growls for the hundredth time. The granola bar I had at six is a distant memory.
I need actual food.
I grab my insulated lunch bag from under my desk. Thank god for Sunday meal prep. This week’s batch: pad thai with chicken.
I should’ve eaten this hours ago. Normal people eat dinner at normal dinner times. But at 6 PM, Nico needed three different versions of the same donor letter reformatted, and by the time I finished that it was 7:30, and then Paloma (working from home) needed me to pull contact information for the entire donor database, and somewhere around 9 PM I looked at my lunch bag and thought just one more thing and then I’ll eat.
