Plush Book 1: A Billionaire Romance (2 page)

“What?” I struggled to tear my eyes away from the impressive figure. “Who is he?”

Bryce started to speak but his reply was drowned out as the room burst into action as soon as the hallway in front of the conference room was vacant again. Half a dozen people jumped up from their seats and bolted for the door.

“Meeting adjourned?” I asked, an eyebrow raised.

“That’s Cooper Brighton.” He didn’t say anything else, as if no further introduction was needed.

“Who?”

Bryce looked at me with a mix of confusion and irritation. “Come on, I’ll explain on the way.”

I got out of my seat and followed behind as Bryce practically flew down the hallway. I tried my best to keep up with his pace, not an easy feat in my sky-high heels.

“Mr. Brighton is the agency’s biggest clients. He’s the CEO of Plush Inc.”

“Plush?”

He stopped in his tracks. “Seriously? Where do you shop? Plush is a very high-end cosmetic and fragrance company.”

“Well, up until about a week ago my budget was more in the Walgreen’s arena, so excuse me for not keeping up with the Kardashians.” I rolled my eyes.

“All right, all right. Well you’re in a new world now and it’s your job to know our clientele and their lifestyle. If you want to
market
the brand, you have to
understand
the brand.”

I wasn’t sure why it mattered that I knew what the marketing was for. All I planned to do was change passwords, build websites, fix computer gremlins, keep the viruses out, and so on, but I nodded anyways, resisting the urge to add a mock salute.

“Anyway, Plush is a huge company and Mr. Brighton is a very—how should I put this—ambitious man. If he is here without an existing appointment, that means someone fucked up and we’re all going to pay for whatever the mistake was.”

“Fantastic. I can’t wait to be introduced to this
Mr. Brighton.
”

Bryce laughed. “Well, that’s not going to happen for a long time—if ever. He is very particular on who handles his account.”

I exhaled and sat down on the chair opposite Bryce’s chair. He didn’t sit down. He stood and paced.

“So now what? We wait out the storm?”

“Rita will call me in to her office and let me have it once he’s gone. I’m technically not in charge of the Plush account but she will expect me to deal with this. Whatever it is. She thinks I’m the go-to guy for everything.”

I looked down at my freshly manicured nails and started to wonder how I got into this whole mess. A week ago, my biggest career crisis would have been running out of milk in the middle of the day or a fussy customer questioning the exact origins of the ingredients of our organic pastries. Watching Bryce and the rest of the office have a full-on meltdown over one stuffy dude in a power suit made me want to run back to my coffee shop and tie on my apron for good. But I remembered the pile of bills mounting on my kitchen table and decided that ulcer medication was probably a lot cheaper than bankruptcy.

A knock on the door snapped me out of my mental wanderings.

“Come in,” Bryce said.

Another new person appeared. “Rita is asking for you.”

“All right. Tell her I’ll be there shortly.”

“Um. No, not you, Mr. Sherman. Actually, you, Miss Rand.”

“Me?” My eyes flew to Bryce, wide with alarm.

“Her?” Bryce asked the assistant.

The blonde nodded.

“Why me?” I asked Bryce.

“I don’t know but you better hurry.”

“Well, naturally. What girl doesn’t race to her own funeral?” I said, rising out of my chair.

Chapter Two

The assistant–I didn’t know her name but she looked like a Brittany, the perky and perfect type—led me through another maze of cubicles and offices before ushering me towards a smaller version of the conference room Bryce and I had fled only minutes before. From outside the doorway, I could hear raised voices.

“I don’t care who made the mistake! What I need is a solution, and I need it now. If your firm can’t provide that for my company, then I have no problem taking my business elsewhere and if you even think to speak to me of contractual obligations or try to placate me with reports and numbers and spreadsheets, I will have a team of my best lawyers take up residence in your office until you see things from my point of view. Do I make myself clear?”

Rita’s voice was softer and from outside the room I couldn’t hear what she replied and then the room was silent.

“They’re waiting for you,” Brittany hissed at me.

A slight shiver crept down my spine as Brittany gave me a borderline sympathetic look before turning on her stiletto heels and prancing away. I waited until she was out of sight before turning to meet the sharp gaze of Rita. I felt the presence of Mr. Brighton but couldn’t risk eye contact. From what I could see and hear, he was on the warpath. I knew I couldn’t get caught up in the middle of that, although I had the sinking feeling it was too late, and I didn’t know why.

“Miss Rand, thank you for joining us. Please sit.” Rita sat down and straightened her blazer. Mr. Brighton sat down alongside her but did my best to keep him in my peripheral vision.

I tried not to audibly gulp as I pulled out a chair and sat across the table. “Did I do something wrong?” I asked.

Rita looked surprised by my question but quickly recovered and released a fake-sounding laugh. She shot a look over at Mr. Brighton and before I could stop myself, I followed her glance and found myself staring directly into the darkest brown eyes I had ever seen. I let my eyes wander over the rest of his features, probably for longer than socially acceptable, but for the life of me, I couldn’t look away. My stomach felt like it just got hit by a shot of whiskey. A smooth heat. His skin was a dark, deep tan that definitely didn’t come from a bottle. His hair was dark espresso brown and just slightly tousled, like he had recently showered and it wasn’t quite dry yet. Even with the suit, it was clear that he was athletic. My mind wandered away and was suddenly filled with images of him—shirtless, running, muscles flexed and glistening with the sheen of sweat.

“Miss Rand?”

I inhaled too fast and sputtered on my attempt to respond. “Yes, ma’am?”

Without a word, Rita pushed a glass of water across the table. My cheeks were burning up and knew I was blushing. My fair skin and freckles could turn practically crimson and thinking about what a sight I must have only made it worse.

“Thank you. I’m sorry,” I said, after I caught my breath. “Please continue.”

I kept my eyes on Rita, not daring to look back over at Mr. Brighton.

“As I was saying,” she started. “Mr. Brighton is one of our top clients. He has been with our firm for a number of years. In that time, he has worked with our brightest and best designers, but now he finds himself looking for a fresh set of eyes to help with his next project. I realize you’re new here, but Mr. Sherman thinks very highly of you and told me that you’re a tiger on website design, so I’d like to get your input. I know it’s not advertising, per say, but we can discuss the new advertising campaign with Mr. Brighton and come up with a plan.”

“Uhhh. Of course. What, uhm… seems to be the—”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mr. Brighton interrupted. His voice was not raised but the anger was palpable, nonetheless.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Brighton?” Rita’s voice was dangerously sharp.

“Miss…Rand, was it?”

I nodded and tried my best not to gulp again.

“Tell me something, Miss. Rand. In your experience, would you ever let trash like
this
…?” He shoved a pile of glossy proof pages across the table at me. “Would you let that see the light of day?”

I took my time examining the pages, as I desperately searched my brain for the next thing to say. The pages were filled with bright, glossy looking images of an array of perfume bottles. They all looked fine to me. Not really my taste—something about the exposure of the pictures seemed off but they certainly weren’t the worst I’d ever seen. I wouldn’t have called them trash. But I knew better than to argue with a client. Two years of customer service experience in a coffee shop had taught me that if the customer says something is trash, it’s trash. I assumed that was even more so with multi-million dollar accounts than vanilla lattes.

When I dared to look up, his eyes instantly locked on mine. His eyebrow was cocked like he was daring me to contradict him. I ran with a pretty rough crowd and had been to some very sketchy bars, but never in my life had I felt this intimidated before. I had the sense that no matter what I said, it wouldn’t matter.

“Sir, I don’t think my opinion counts. I’m actually not an ad designer, I’m an IT person. This is only my second day here. I used to work in a coffee shop.” I smiled, hoping to cut some tension.

He let out a curt laugh. “Of course you did! Rita, really? A
barista
?” He scoffed. “All right. Well, then, as a consumer, just make your best
guess
.” He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and waited.

Something inside me snapped at his rebuff. I straightened in my chair and grabbed all the pictures. I might not be an ad designer, but I know what works and what doesn’t and I’d even taken some photography classes in high school. So I decided to play ball and began thrusting the pictures back across the table at him. “Well, for starters, the exposure is all wrong. They look fuzzy in print which isn’t going to translate well, especially online. It’ll pixilate. The set-up on this one is all wrong, confusing to the eye. Naturally, a consumer’s eye is going to travel from left to right, so you want your product’s aligned in a way that will complement that pattern, with your most prominent and eye-catching image.” I paused to consider the last page.

“This one,” I said. I pointed to a purple bottle that looked something like a genie lamp before pushing the final page at him. “Well, this one just looks like something from a campaign for feminine products. Like a douche…perhaps.” I paused and relished in the horrified look on Rita’s face. If you fed me to the wolves, I’d bite right back.

“Does that answer your question, Mr. Brighton?”

He clenched his jaw but his lips curved up and gave the faintest hint of a smile.

“So, Rita, tell me. How is it that a barista who has only been on your work force for two days sees all the flaws? And your design team, which you have assured me is only made up of the best and brightest in the industry, who not only created this garbage in the first place, can’t see it when I explain it to them endlessly, in great detail, over numerous phone calls, emails, and these ever-so-pleasant meetings?”

“I will relay your concerns, Mr. Brighton. I assure you, this will all be taken care of by tomorrow,” Rita answered. Her voice was thin.

“No. That’s not good enough this time. I want her.”

What the…?
Before I could even open my mouth to object, Rita answered. “Mr. Brighton, Allison isn’t even a part of our design team. She is part of our IT department. She works with Bryce.”

“IT department? Then why the fuck is she even in this meeting? What are you trying to pull?”

Rita sighed. “I had hoped that she would be able to see the ads with fresh eyes, as you had requested, and that she might be able to provide feedback to lay to rest some of your more pressing concerns.”

Her eyes turned on me as she spoke, looking as though she wanted to reach across the table and throttle me.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t…uhm…realize that,” I said, turning my eyes away from her intense stare.

“Well, it doesn’t matter what department she works in. I want her on my account from now on.”

“I—I can’t. I mean—I haven’t even finished my paperwork and I still have a mountain of training—” I tried to rationalize to them both. Everything was moving a little too fast for my liking.

“We can worry about that later, Allison.” Rita’s eyes flashed at me, daring me to say one more word. She turned back to Mr. Brighton and offered a fake smile. “She’s all yours.”

The finality of the words shivered through me as I caught the smile of satisfaction on Mr. Brighton’s face.

“Excellent. We will do great things together.”

Chapter Three

I had barely had two seconds to sink into my chair back at my desk before my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“What the hell happened in there?” It was Bryce.

“Let’s go to lunch. I’ll explain it all once I have a margarita in my hand.”

“Deal. Meet you downstairs in ten.” With that, he hung up.

I grabbed my clutch that held my debit card, driver’s license, keys and a solitary lip gloss and headed for the elevators before any more problems could crop up.

Please don’t let him be in the elevator
, I mentally pleaded as I halfway jogged to catch the last one as the doors were shutting. I let out a huge sigh of relief when I stepped inside and it was empty. One floor down, it stopped, and two women stepped inside, not even bothering to smile or stop their conversation as they boarded.

“–but I mean did you
see
him?” the first woman said.

“No! I’m so jealous. It seems like all the fun happens as soon as I step away from the desk. Why was he even here? Normally we all get bombarded with warning memos before one of his visits,” the second paused to pout.

“Oh, who knows? He always has a stick up his ass about something.”

“Well, I would love to get my hands on that ass and help him remove it.”

They both broke into a fit of giggles. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to the lights at the top, counting down the floors.

“All I know is he came tearing through reception and demanded to see Ms. Blair immediately. I should have let him know that if he needs some help…unwinding…I would be more than willing.”

They cackled together again, seemingly oblivious to the nauseated woman pressed into the back corner. The fact that any woman would spend their time fawning over that man seemed ridiculous to me. Sure, he was hot, but he was also arrogant, controlling, overbearing, unreasonable, spoiled, and just plain rude. And those are just the traits I had picked up on within the first few minutes of meeting him. I could only imagine what treasures awaited now that I was to be his personal designer for the rest of my stint at Spotlight.
How had that even happened?
I asked myself. I wasn’t even a designer. I threw out a little critique based on some high school photographer course, and suddenly I’m the best they have? What kind of company was this?