I reminded myself that Asher had brought us here to tell us good news. Not bad. Which meant, maybe my ideas hadn't failed.
There was no maybe involved, though.
I gasped—along with everyone else in the room—as he brought up the charts that showed the sales figures over the past week.
“Oh my God,” I murmured under my breath. “It worked. It totally, totally worked.”
“When was the last time any of you saw a spike in sales this extreme?” Asher asked, looking calmly around the room. “Seriously, people, when was the last time you saw anything like this?”
Nobody could answer. We were all dumbstruck, it seemed.
Asher slowly brought the lights in the room back to full force.
“Lilah, could you please stand up,” he said, looking at me.
I hesitated, and he nodded to encourage me. I pushed myself up on shaky legs and tried to hide the fact that my hands were trembling from the rush.
“Please, let’s give the savior of the Harry Winston campaign a hand!” he shouted. “She deserves it!”
The room erupted in a thunderous bout of applause. I was a little embarrassed to be in the spotlight and the experience had me fighting back tears of joy. Thankfully, I managed to keep my emotions in check.
“Well done, Lilah, well done!” Asher exclaimed. “Is there anything you'd like to say?”
“I . . . I just want to thank everyone on the team,” I managed to utter. “I can’t take all the credit for this. I honestly couldn't have done it without you guys. And without your support, Mr. Sinclair. Thank you for believing in me.”
Everyone applauded again and I sat down, a little light-headed from all the adrenalin flowing through my veins.
“That's all, ladies and gents,” Asher said as the applause died down. “You can head back to your offices now. Enjoy the rest of your Friday afternoon, and have a great weekend! I'll see you all on Monday.”
Everyone got up out of their chairs and started shuffling out of the room. I waited until they had left, leaving Asher and I alone in the room. I walked up to him, smiling from ear to ear.
“It worked. It really worked, Asher. It really worked!”
“I knew it would. I knew you could do it.”
“Thank you for having faith in me and trusting in my abilities.”
“I know talent when I see it, Lilah,” he replied. “And, you've got boatloads.”
“Thank you.”
“Would you like to celebrate later tonight with a drink?”
Had my defenses not been down in that moment of elation, I might have been able to think clearly, but all logic and reason had flown out the window the moment I saw the sales numbers.
“I'd love that,” I replied.
“Excellent,” he beamed. “I'll message you later to make arrangements.”
***
As I was applying my eyeliner, it hit me: I'd made a promise to myself to keep my distance from Asher, to keep things professional. Yet there I was, putting on makeup and acting like a nervous high schooler, trying to decide which cocktail dress and heels to wear to the jazz lounge we had agreed to go to.
“You let your guard down. In that moment of happiness, you became so overwhelmed that you were weak! You totally let your emotions get the better of you,” I scolded myself in the mirror.
The battle was getting harder and harder to fight. But, since the joy of my success had started to wear off, my logical and rational mind started to make a strong comeback.
I couldn't do it—not yet. I just couldn't.