Page 47 of Flirting with 40

“You, naturally.”

“We can hope.”

“Why does she have a hard-on for you?”

“Because she’s not as qualified to have the VP of sales position as she purported to be.”

“Then wouldn’t that make having someone like you with so much history and experience at Glam be the best choice to be her cohort?”

“You’d think that, but this is where the let’s-guess-what-Heather-is-thinking game comes in.” I sigh. “It could be she found out somehow I was offered her position and turned it down.”

“You were offered her position?” he asks with a lift of his brows. “Why would you turn it down?”

“Because face-to-face sales aren’t my thing. I like the process of studying a demographic, of packaging a product to appeal to them, and of making them see or hear our advertising and feel like I’m talking to them specifically. Sales feels too pushy to me.”

“I can understand that.”

“When you don’t know what you’re doing, the last thing you want is someone who does know seeing when you screw up. I’ve noticed her make mistakes and have called her out on a few of them. Right now, I’m ‘less than’ her in the company’s eyes—in clout, in influence—and that’s just how she wants it because then it’s her word against mine when she screws up.”

“Hence why you’re a threat.” He pauses for a beat. “Is she competent? I mean, when you get the job, how are you going to handle being her equal?”

“She could be competent if she put the work in, but I think she likes the shiny title and hefty paycheck more than the job itself. She won’t last long, and if she does, then she’ll have to make that learning curve of hers real steep.” I adjust the pillow beneath my head. “From what I hear, she’s trying to smooth talk Glam’s board of trustees into hiring the VP of marketing—ahem, her best friend—at the company she came from for the position. So, her constant cattiness is an attempt to make me look bad.”

“It makes sense. Bring over the best friend so she has one surefire person to have her back and cover her ass when she messes up.”

“Yeah, but she is forgetting that the board knows me and my track record, which means I’ll have a bit of an upper hand there in reputation. I won’t have to prove myself since I’ve already spent years doing so.”

“And she fears you’ll expose her inadequacies.”

I lift my hands. “It’s all a guess, but from the way she’s trying to push me out, I think it’s a pretty educated one.”

“So, we kill everyone with kindness and then you win, which means I also win. Easy.”

It’s my turn to prop myself up on my elbow and stare at him. “Why do you have to be so rational? Ugh.”

“Ah, but rational gets you a lot of places. I mean, all we have to do is convince the rest of your coworkers you’re valuable. That will turn the tide and get people talking positively about you. Then all we have to do is somehow make Heather see that you aren’t a threat to her in any way.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I know women are vicious. I’ve seen it in med school and in my residency. Women don’t care if you aren’t trying to take their position. They care if you’re a threat in general. The whole philosophy that chicks post on social media about fixing each other’s crowns is a ruse. They’ll fix it in public so long as they can talk shit about you in private.”

I laugh, but it’s halfhearted as I shake my head. “Agreed. One hundred percent.”

“Okay, we need to make her not feel threatened. You help her save face with the group out there, and you’ll be golden.”

“Easier said than done considering she breathes that fire at me every time I talk.”

“Well, it’s on the Blade To-Do list, so it’ll get done.” He looks over at me, and I have to fight not to reach out and brush his hair off his forehead.

“Yes, it will.”

“We just need to figure out who will be your in. Will it be Materialistic Maddie, who already let me know how much she spent at Nordstrom’s to complete her mountain wardrobe, or Oversharing Olivia, who has already told me how she plans to make reckless love to Harley Hal in the woods.”

I scoff. That sounds exactly like what those two would say to him.

“I’m not done yet,” he says and lifts his hand to stop me from talking. “Then there is Buff Becky, who is upset she’s missing her CrossFit challenge to be here. The irony is that she’s super into her health but is shacking up with Stoned Steven.”

“How in the hell did you get all of that out of one little meet and greet?”