A chair creaked as Mitchell leaned forward, folding his hands upon the gleaming table with a sinister smile. “You know you can make this right,” he repeated slowly, emphasizing each word with terrifying clarity. “But what makes you think I would believe that, Rick? When you’ve already proved that you’re of no more use than that empty chair?”
“Usually, it’s over a lot quicker than this.” A woman next to me gulped and took a step away. “I don’t think anyone on the floor expected him to fire the entire board.”
This time, I was unable to mask my shock.
“He fired the entire board?”
But no sooner could I process this, then the door swung open and twenty or so people rushed past. Not a sound amongst them. Every eye trained on the floor. The man who’d spoken up earlier had a greenish tint to his face. My guess was that he’d make it only as far as the elevator before throwing up.
Then, just as quickly as they’d come, they vanished through the double doors. The secretary disappeared alongside them. Leaving me standing alone in the suddenly empty hall.
A soft voice drifted in from the conference room.
“Ms. Wilder, I’m ready to begin...”
My mouth went dry, my ankles locked, and a cascade of chills went racing down my spine. It didn’t help that the second I touched the door, I heard the man retching in the elevator.
And that was how I interviewed for my position with the Hunter family.
Without further ado, I made my way into the conference room, half-surprised there wasn’t any blood on the floor. I circled around to the opposite side of the table, and came to a stop, my hands folded professionally in front of me. I would not sit unless he invited me to do so.
“Thank you for taking the time.”
I guarantee, I was just as frightened as the people who had just left—but the longer I stood there, the more those nerves channeled themselves into a strange kind of calm. A virtual shield of confidence that I carried around to this very day.
“Well, your harassment of my company was most insistent,” he replied dryly, flipping up some papers to scan through what was presumably my file.
I didn’t flinch at the accusation, but instead nodded with a calm smile. It wasn’t meant as a barb. These people admired persistence. More than that, they admired the self-importance it took to foist yourself upon other people under the arrogant assumption that you were absolutely worth their time.
Either way, apologies and doubt were signs of weakness I couldn’t afford to show in this room. Not now. Not ever. I already had enough working against me.
“Abigail Wilder,” he murmured, reading some more. “You come highly recommended, but I must admit, I haven’t heard of you.”
First trick of the trade: turn a negative into a positive with just a bit of creative spin.
“Mark of a good publicist,” I replied evenly. “I guarantee you haven’t heard of my clients either. At least...nothing that I didn’t want you to know.”
He glanced up, looking as close to amused as I think the man was capable, before returning to the papers. I breathed a silent sigh of relief. First obstacle down. I would have to get these out of the way quickly and efficiently. B
ecause my relative lack of experience wasn’t the only thing I had working against me.
I was twenty years old. Unable to order a drink at any of the bars we went to. The first thing I’d have to do after dashing back across the bridge to Brooklyn, was get myself a fake ID.
But like I said, I had one of those faces that shifted to fit the part. And from everything I’d heard about Mitchell Hunter, when it came to the ages of his women, he tended to round up.
At long last, the file came down. The glasses came off, and he looked at me instead. The resume part of the interview was over—it had told him everything he needed to know. The rest was up to me. Sink or swim. A life in Brooklyn...or the Upper East Side.
“You’ve come on an interesting day,” he murmured, pulling out a monogrammed handkerchief to clean off his glasses. “Must be wondering why you’ve applied to jump aboard what looks like a sinking ship.”
I didn’t miss a beat.
“It doesn’t look that way to me.”
“Oh no?” He gazed at me sharply from atop the throne. “What does it look like to you?”
Time to sell it, Abby. You’ve got twenty seconds.
“It looks like you’re moving in a new direction. No more dead weight. Only fresh things on the horizon.” Keeping my eyes locked warily on him the entire time, I pulled a pen and paper from my bag. “I’m sure if you tell me what those things are, I can start getting the word out.”