Chad was about to find out how much he owed.
???
The air in the executive suite tasted like lobster and humiliation. April sat at her desk, perfectly positioned between the glass-walled executive offices like a receptionist in a very expensive terrarium, and opened Excel. Some people opened wine, April opened spreadsheets. The grid appeared. Clean lines. Empty cells. A world of possibilities.
Her fingers started moving. Column headers, conditional formatting, the muscle memory of organizing chaos into patterns that made sense. Behind her, Arthur's voice rumbled through Chad's glass office wall: "September 14th. Coffee. Eight dollars. Business justification?"
She added a row. Then another. The rhythm was familiar. Comforting.
She pulled the project data and began building. Gantt chart. Dependency map. Column for "Days waiting," conditional formatting yellow at two days, red at three.
Wait.
She stopped, stared at what she'd built without thinking. A chart. Days waiting. Status columns. This wasn't self-soothing anymore.
"It was coffee, Arthur." Chad's voice cracked through the glass.
"Itemized receipt."
Her fingers moved faster. Pivot tables. VLOOKUP. Format painter.
Chad swallowed, "I don't—I don't have that—"
Arthur's pen clicked, the sound somehow worse than yelling. "Form 7B. Missing documentation."
April added dependency arrows. Made Chad look like exactly what he was: a single point of failure.
"Can we do this later?" Chad's voice pitched up. "I'm getting all these—"
"No."
Chad's computer pinged.
Then pinged again.
Then pinged again, louder, like a digital scream for help.
April kept her eyes on her spreadsheet. In corporate life, you did not make eye contact with a disaster unless you were prepared to take ownership of it.
Her laptop chimed. April glanced at it reflexively.
NEW INVITE from Public Relations
Event:Blackwood Engagement Press Release
Time:8:30 AM Wednesday (Tomorrow)
Required Attendees:April Fueller, Killian Blackwood
She probably should have considered the practical implications of fake-marrying a man as rich and famous as Killian Blackwood before she started wearing his grandmother’s diamond ring.
Killian was in that board meeting that went until five. She couldn't exactly interrupt with "hey, your PR department just scheduled us to lie to the media tomorrow morning," so April opened her Calendar and created her own meeting instead.
NEW INVITE from April Fueller
Event:URGENT: Press Release Tomorrow???
Time:5:30 PM Tuesday (Today)
