Devil in a Suit

“I’ll handle that report she wrote yesterday. You can take the other intern’s,” I replied as I rummaged around in my desk drawer for Madison’s report that I marked up with blunt comments. I was just being honest with her, trying to get her to dig deeper. I supposed that I shouldn’t be surprised that she was upset, though. Her professors were probably kinder. I wasn’t paid to sugarcoat criticism, though.

“Sara,” Brittany reminded me. Her eyebrow slightly lifted as she peered at me. “Are you still upset with Madison for spilling coffee on you? I hope you know she was nervous on her first day.”

I was over the coffee thing. What stuck in my mind was the attitude that she had during the interactions that followed. Only one interaction broke down the wall that she built up. She went from a stumbling intern to a fiery businesswoman. Maybe I needed to keep lighting a fire under her. It seemed to help her grow.

“I’m over that. She might be a little upset with me, though,” I replied. The last time I saw her was when she was storming out of my office. I wasn’t sure when I would see her again. I doubted that she wanted to see my face for a while after the argument that we had. It still blew my mind that I let an intern get away with arguing with me without getting fired. Maybe I was getting too soft.

Brittany laughed softly. “Can you blame her?” she asked me.

I couldn’t help but crack a hint of a grin. Brittany had a point. Then again, she always had a point. That was why I confided in her. Now, I had a little bit more knowledge on who I was dealing with, and I felt driven enough to look at Madison’s report one more time. There was a chance that I might’ve overlooked some things.

“Would you still be all rainbows and kittens if you had hot coffee spilled all over you?” I smirked.

Brittany playfully tossed her hair behind her shoulder as she stood up. “It’s all about perspective, Mr. Ashland. It helps to try new ones from time to time,” she pointed out as she headed toward the door. “I have the interns working on some more marketing strategies today in the conference room if you want to swing by and check on them.”

I watched her go, my smile still lingering on my lips for a few seconds. Brittany was one of the first people to join my team when Ashland Consulting first started out. Like a lot of interns, she was an energetic recent college graduate with something to prove. She put her everything into my company to help get it off the ground.

A lot of the people that had been with me at the start had moved on to other opportunities. I was glad for them, but I was especially happy that Brittany stuck with me throughout the years. She was the one who I trusted the most. We didn’t know much about each other’s personal lives, but we still knew who each other was.

She could be fiercely protective, and she hated liars. She loved hazelnut coffee and hated Tuesdays more than Mondays. She was the kindest person that I knew, and I would hate the day that I had to see her go.

Brittany obviously saw something special in Madison, and I was starting to see it too. Now I had to see if I saw it in her work.

I placed Madison’s report in front of me, letting my eyes skim over it line-by-line. Once I finished, I sighed and leaned back in my seat, stewing in my thoughts. It was a good report. She thought things out, but what really made it stand out was the risks that she took. She got creative, working around the issues in ways that I wouldn’t expect. Yesterday, I called her work shallow but it was anything but. Maybe her ideas were a bit reckless, but they could be fine-tuned and implemented. She didn’t go for the easy, expected approach like my executive board. She wanted to do things differently.

As smart as she was, I was apprehensive of putting her ideas into play. I didn’t want to risk too much and drive my company further into the ground but Brandon had to be making some risky moves to get to where he was at so fast. Maybe it was time that I went out on a limb for my company again. Something had to be done differently.

Once I put Madison’s report up, my knee bounced beneath my desk as I stared at the doorway of my office. I had work to do, but I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I didn’t want her to be stuck in my mind. I had other things to focus on besides some girl, but she was there.