Bottom line, Frankie was back where she belonged.
“Here’s your coffee. The latest way you like it,” Jane said.
Frankie accepted the cup. “Thank you.” Her tone came out pleasant. Weirdly pleasant.
Choice made. New Frankie wasn’t hiding behind old Frankie. This should be fun.
Jane blinked. “You’re…welcome.” She turned to Isabella and held out the phone basket. “Phones in?”
“We’re skipping that tradition.” Frankie slid into her chair at the head of the table. “I trust you won’t use them during the meeting.” She paused. “For your own safety.”
The silence was thick enough to spread on toast. Then someone whispered, “She’s been replaced by a clone.”
Fair.
“Welcome back,” Isabella said. “I’m kind of digging chill Frankie.”
Old Frankie would have iced her with a, “Save it.”
She almost said something about how kindness supposedly upped your chances of dying surrounded by friends, not cats. Instead, she went with, “Statistically speaking, spewing kindness illuminates which employees actually belong on your team. Like a blacklight for loyalty.”
She paused, then tossed in, almost like an afterthought, “And thank you.”
More silence. Suspicious silence.
Finally, Samantha muttered, “Oh God. Are we getting fired again?”
Frankie huffed out a laugh. “No one is getting fired.”
“Demoted?”
“No.”
“Pay cuts?”
“I should have bet money on that,” Jane whispered.
“No.”
“Reassigned toSiberiaFashion Weekly?”
“Just a regular pitch meeting where I thank you for your hard work, and we all act like professional adults who deserve to be at the table.”
The silence held.
Samantha narrowed her eyes. “Blink twice if an alien is controlling you.”
“At the risk of sounding repetitive, I’d like to start by again saying thank you—”
“Wake me when the kumbaya circle starts,” Anthony muttered.
Frankie ignored the interruption. “—for keeping this place running while I was busy gathering information for next year’s special guest column.” A column that they’d started two years ago when a bad-boy royal fell into their laps. Followed by Sophia’s column, which matched book boyfriends with their living, breathing, real-life twin.
“I thought you said that column was officially cancelled,” Samantha said.
Frankie lifted her chin. “I changed my mind.”
Ziggy, God love him, let out a slow whistle, the kind usually reserved for public scandals and regrettablered-carpet choices. “A woman’s prerogative and a queen’s sacred duty to keep her subjects guessing.”
