The roses in my garbage can had started to wilt and shrivel up when I arrived at work the next morning. I had hoped the cleaning crew would take them away before I returned. Apparently, an email response wasn’t enough of a rejection for Max to leave me alone. I noticed the office seemed to be in a bit of a panic when I poured my morning coffee. There was nothing on the agenda that should have caused that kind of reaction. I turned on my computer to get caught up on my emails and I saw Adam in the conference room already setting things up, so I pushed open the door and walked inside. He seemed to be even more enthusiastic than usual, moving things around on the table.
“What’s going on?” I looked around the room. “I thought we were just having a meeting at nine.”
“You haven’t read your emails. Shit, I should have sent you a text. I don’t have your phone number. I need your phone number.” His words were erratic and confusing. He walked briskly towards me and put a hand on each of my shoulders. “Max Martin is coming for the meeting—well, not our meeting exactly. He wants a presentation. He’ll be here in thirty minutes. Can you walk him through your storyboards?”
“What?” I blinked a couple of times in surprise. “Max Martin is coming here? Why?”
“I don’t know. I actually thought you might know why he was here.” Adam tilted his head. “I saw him yesterday. He came by and said he was looking for you. I assumed it was about the campaign.”
“Right.” I nodded quickly. “Yes, we’ve—traded a couple of emails.”
“Good, I’m glad you’ve been keeping him in the loop. Okay, so we need to get some pastries in here and some coffee. I’ll take care of that. You get your storyboards together.” Adam ran out of the room at a jog, wiping sweat from his brow.
Fuck.
There was no way Max was coming to see our presentation because he gave a shit about it. Even the clingy clients didn’t ask us to show them the work-in-progress until we had finished our first draft. Max had come to the office to see me and when he saw the flowers in the trash, he decided to swing his dick around and make my life miserable. There was no way to stop the car crash that was coming, so I just did my best to get everything ready. It would be impossible to ignore Max forever, especially when he was an investor in the product I had to make successful in order to keep my career moving in the direction it was headed. If I blew it the first time I got to lead a team, I would never get the chance again. I had seen shining stars crash and burn after disappointing a client.
“Are you going to be okay handling this meeting?” Mr. Hawthorne pushed the door open and peeked inside.
“Yes, I can take care of everything.” I nodded. “You won’t be here?”
“No, I’ve got a conference call I’m afraid. I trust you though. You already impressed Max Martin, so I don’t think you’ll have any trouble today.” He smiled and let the door close as he left.
If only he knew.
WE WERE ALL SEATED around the table when Max arrived. He arrived alone without any of the representatives from Energy Enhanced which confirmed he had no real interest in what we were presenting. Adam greeted him enthusiastically and I walked to the front of the room to go over my storyboard ideas. I had arranged the seats so I could sit at a rounded corner near the back while Max would be at the front. To my horror, Max whispered into the ear of the woman sitting next to my seat and she immediately moved to the front, leaving the only empty seat directly next to mine. I couldn’t focus on that and I certainly couldn’t focus on his eyes, which were practically undressing me as I looked into them.
“Good morning, Mr. Martin. I’d like to show you a couple of storyboards we’re working on. Our plan is to buy advertising spots on some of the college channels. It will hit our demographic, without the cost of a network television.” I pulled the cover off of the first storyboard.
“Ms. Grant, let me interrupt you.” Max’s voice was a low growl.
“Yes sir?” I blinked and looked at him, trying to avoid staring directly into his eyes.
“How do you plan to get the college channels to advertise an energy drink? Most of the big campuses have restrictions on advertisements. No drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and after some of the health scares, no energy drinks.” Max tapped his fingers on the table.
“Energy Enhanced has been marketed as a vitamin supplement since it was released. It’s more than just a bunch of caffeine and herbs from Guatemala nobody can pronounce. We’ve already got the University of Michigan to agree with our branding.” I clenched my jaw as I waited to see how he responded.
“Very good. Carry on.” Max nodded and it seemed like the whole room had a collective sigh of relief.
I ran through both storyboards without any more questions from Max. The first storyboard was aimed at students who were struggling with staying awake in class because they weren’t getting the proper intake of daily vitamins and the second one was aimed at those who loved the word electrolytes. Our focus groups indicated it was a strong attention-getting word because of the prominence in advertisements for several post-workout drinks. The combination of storyboards would be cleaned up a lot by those that specialized in designing commercials. The final product might not even look like what I had designed, but it was all we had to show in such a short time. After I sat down beside Max, Adam stood up to run through some charts and sales figure predictions.
“You did good.” Max looked over at me with a smile.
“Why are you here?” I kept a smile on my face even though I spoke harshly in a forced whisper. I checked my phone and put it on the table.
“I wanted to see how the roses I got you were doing.” He put his phone down on the table and picked up mine before the screen could lock.
“They’re in the trash—that’s my phone.” I struggled to maintain my fake smile as Adam started talking about market shares.
“Yes, I don’t have your number. You’re the Team Lead on a project I’m taking a personal interest in, so I should be able to get in contact with you at any time.” He started punching numbers on my phone and I saw his buzz with a text message.
Max looked up at Adam and nodded along politely to the sales predictions he was presenting. He dropped my phone next to me and I quickly picked it up. I went to my sent text messages and saw he had sent a message that said Abby’s number to what I assumed was his cell phone number. As I stared at it, I saw the three dots at the bottom of the message and could see him quickly typing out a text beside me. I considered blocking his number immediately, but before I could even touch the screen, his message appeared.
I’m going to put my hand under the table and rub your pussy until you cum.
I read the message once—and then read it again. My eyes nearly
bulged out of my head as I looked over at him and then up towards Adam. Max put his hand on my knee and I froze. If I reacted in any way, I would cause a scene. I tried to gently push his hand away under the table without revealing anything to the rest of the people seated around us, but he didn’t budge. He took my skirt in his hand and pushed it up my thighs. I wanted him to stop, but my pussy was already getting wet as I felt the warmth of his hand on my inner thigh. He let it linger there and I grabbed my cell phone. Adam didn’t seem to have any idea and he was the only one who could really see my reactions. Everyone else was focused on the presentation as I started typing. Max immediately replied, typing his message with one hand.