‘Running a little late for you, Jackson. What happened?’ her colleague Rob sneered at her from across the floor. ‘Decided to get some beauty sleep before the big meeting?’
Don’t rise to it. You don’t have the time.
Olivia offered a pathetic half-laugh and threw her bags down.
‘Ooh, too serious to even have a little joke, are we? Someone’s nervous about the presentation! Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,’ he added rather bitterly. ‘You always are.’
Rob had been at the company for fifteen years and hadn’t taken kindly to Olivia’s rapid rise through the ranks. He was older than she was and at least three levels below. Olivia had tried to empathize with him – until she had discovered, when tasked with doing his review last year, that he was paid nearly double her salary.
‘Classic corporate bullshit,’ her friend Kate had shouted when Olivia had revealed her findings. ‘I don’t know why you stay working for such complete and utter tosspots.’
‘Because it’s—’
‘Part of your plan – I know, Iknow,’ Kate had cried.
Olivia and Kate had been best friends since secondary school, and yet it would be hard to find two more opposite people. For all of Kate’s carefree, restless creativity, Olivia was focused, prepared and detailed. Olivia’s career path had been mapped out since she was sixteen years old, whereas Kate seemed to treat her jobs as carelessly as her boyfriends, never able to keep one for more than two years before getting bored and moving on. Currently she was trying her hand at landscape gardening, but it didn’t seem to be going that well.
‘Shit!’ Olivia cursed, bringing herself back to the present moment and grabbing a pack of Post-it notes.Text Kate back ASAP, she scrawled, underlining the words three times and sticking the note to the top of her computer screen. In her defence, she had been busy; but then again, she spent her entire life being busy.
‘Hope you’re ready, Jackson’ – Rob’s snarky voice cut through her thoughts – ‘because here comes the big man!’
Olivia snapped her head up to see her boss emerge, stomach first, from the corridor.
‘Liv!’ Phil’s voice boomed, echoing around the office. ‘There you are! I was surprised you weren’t here at dawn preparing! I thought, it’s not like our Liv to be later than me.’ He chuckled, his belly wobbling threateningly at her. ‘Are we all ready to go?’
Olivia swallowed down the knot of emotions that had gathered in her throat. She wasn’t sure what was worse: her boss’s insistence on calling her Liv, or the nerves that were running their icy fingers against the inside of her stomach.
‘I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.’ She grinned falsely.
‘Good. Because you know how important this is, don’t you?’ Phil bumbled, tucking his white and surprisingly unstained shirt into his trousers. For a man deemed competent enough to manage a team of twenty people and a multi-million-pound budget, Phil seemed totally useless at keeping his clothes clean. Every day, as sure as the sun would rise in the sky, a stain would appear on Phil’s shirt. ‘If we get their approval, we sign the biggest client in the past three years.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Olivia nodded, feeling a small wave of nausea crash over her.
‘And that means big bonuses – for you, and more importantly, for me.’ A grotesque Cheshire cat grin appeared on his face. Olivia’s queasiness intensified tenfold. ‘Got your laptop?’
‘Yes.’ She held the cumbersome silver computer aloft.
‘Fantastic.’ Phil’s piggy eyes flickered up to the large clock on the wall. ‘Shall we head up? It’s always good to be a little early, isn’t it.’
‘Sure. Let’s go,’ she agreed, standing up and adjusting her rather snug-fitting suit. There were many things Olivia enjoyed about her job, but wearing a suit was not one of them. The first thing she would do when she ran her own business was banish formal dress entirely.
‘Fantastic.’ Phil began to walk briskly ahead. ‘Oh, and Lisa,’ he barked at his assistant. ‘Don’t put any meetings in over lunch today. I’m going to have to brief the team after this and I don’t want any clashes. You know what happened the last time you rescheduled my day – you got it totally wrong and the whole thing ended up a complete disaster.’
The second thing Olivia would do, as her own boss, was never speak to anyone the way Phil did. Unless it was to Phil himself, of course.
‘And make sure I have a coffee waiting for me when I come out. I’m going to need something before the next meeting. Yesterday I was late because I had to get my own from downstairs.’
Olivia tried to offer Lisa a consolatory smile as they passed, but the assistant’s eyes were firmly fixed on the screen in front of her, a mild look of panic dawning on her face.
‘Good luck, guys!’ Rob called brightly, giving them an awkwardly exaggerated thumbs up as they approached the exit to the lifts.
‘Thanks,’ Olivia replied, trying to ignore the beating of her heart that seemed to be growing louder and more violent with every step they took.
‘After you.’ Phil stopped abruptly, holding open the door and ushering Olivia through. Three lifts stood to attention on each side. Flustered-looking people were hurrying this way and that, jabbing the call buttons as though their lives depended on it.
‘Thirty-second floor for us today, Liv. All the way to the top.’
Her insides squirmed, but she smiled sweetly and hit the button.
