I've replayed it approximately forty times since it happened, and it doesn't improve with repetition. I looked like a woman falling apart, which I am, but that is the one thing in my professional life I cannot afford to be visible.
Get your shit together, Mrs. Monroe.
I've heard worse from clients. I have. The words themselves aren't the problem.
It's the way he said the name.
I've been trying to put my finger on it since last night, and I can't quite get there. Something in the specific shape of hiscontempt — directed, almost, like it knows where to land. Like he looked at me and found exactly the right place to press.
People don't usually find that so quickly.
I open my laptop. Pull up the strategy deck I've been building since four AM, when sleep gave up on me entirely. It's good work — clean, specific, sequenced correctly. The dating angle, the Meridian positioning, the social media cadence, the pet recommendation, which I am keeping in because the data supports it and I don't care how he feels about it.
I check my phone.
The pier photos surfaced around midnight. Bennet Sullivan and an unknown ginger, ice cream cones, her mouth on his at the end of the pier like something out of a film. The comments are already running warm. Three major tabs have picked it up. The tone has shifted fromwhat's wrong with himtohow cute are theywhich is exactly the pivot the narrative needed.
He executed it well. She's pretty and the body language reads as genuine. Even the location was smart — public but not staged-looking, exactly what I'd have chosen if I'd been there.
I put my phone face down.
I have approximately mere minutes before he walks through that door, and I need every one of them to get my spine where it needs to be. Because last night he looked at me like I was something he'd scraped off his shoe and this morning I have to sit across from him and do my job like that didn't happen, and I can do that, I've done harder things, I've sat across a breakfast table from Colt Monroe the morning after and made conversation and passed the orange juice, so yes, I can absolutely do this.
I can do this.
The door opens.
"Mr. Sullivan." I stand and offer my hand. "Good to see you again."
He doesn't take it. Walks past me to one of the other chairs and sits, shrugging off his jacket and rolling his sleeves back.
"I think we're past shaking hands every time we see one another, Mrs. Monroe."
I retake my seat and take a breath, deciding to hit this directly before I lose the nerve.
"Before we get into the work, Mr. Sullivan, I'd like to discuss our working relationship."
He raises an eyebrow. There's something in the gesture that tugs at something familiar I can't place, like a word on the tip of my tongue.
"Is that so?"
"You seem to have some kind of issue with me that exists outside the scope of this case," I say, keeping my voice even, "and I'd like to understand what that is so we can move past it and work together amicably."
"Amicably," he repeats.
"Yes, amicably." I fold my hands on the table. "We're going to be working closely for the next two months at a minimum. What happened in the elevator last night — "
"Let me stop you right there, Mrs. Monroe." He lifts a hand. "The board requested someone senior. You brought yourself. You work in image management and crisis repair." He leans back in his chair, folds his arms, and looks at me with a particular flatness that I don’t care for. "Your image was in desperate need of repair last night. So, I stand by my statement. If you can't manage your own shit, how in the hell am I supposed to trust you with mine."
I glare at him. At the set of his jaw, the steadiness of his gaze, the complete absence of apology anywhere on his face. He means it. Every word of it, and yet again, he knew exactly where to aim it.
He's not wrong, and that's the most infuriating part.
"You're right," I say.
Surprise flickers across his face. He wasn't expecting that.
"I looked a mess last night. You saw it and pointed it out. You weren't wrong to say it. What you were wrong about washowyou said it, in a way that had nothing to do with professional concern and everything to do with making sure I felt it." I hold his gaze. "You're allowed to have doubts about my competence, Mr. Sullivan. What you're not allowed to do is use this engagement as a vehicle for whatever personal issues you've decided to have with me."
