Chapter 1 #2
“Ouch.” Parker placed his hand on his heart in mock indignation.
After drying my skirt under the hand dryer in the ladies’ restroom (and an apologetic smile to the elderly woman who walked in on me), Parker and I hopped in an Uber, which dropped us in front of the company headquarters of LuxeLife Resorts and Spas.
We stared up at the towering fortress of steel and glass for a few moments, calming our nerves.
It was where our wildest dreams or deepest nightmares were about to come true.
“Yikes.” Parker’s jaw hung open.
My mouth joined his. “Yeah. If a bunch of evil supervillains ever got together and built a corporate headquarters, it would look exactly like this.”
“You ready?”
I glimpsed my reflection in the mirrored surface. My coffee-stained skirt clung to my thighs like plastic wrap. At least the ruffles partially obscured the stain. “Of course I’m ready.” I took a deep breath. Then another one. And finally, a third. “I was born ready. You queued the deck?”
“Locked and loaded.” Parker patted his laptop bag. “We’ve got printouts of all the social metrics spreadsheets, engagement forecasts, and competitor analyses.” When he peeked in his bag, it looked like twelve acres of Oregonian forest had valiantly sacrificed themselves just for this presentation.
As we approached the front entrance, the glare from the sun punched right through the tint of my Prada sunglasses, another promotional gift I could never afford on my own.
That was another reason the LuxeLife contract was so important.
There I was, a professional influencer, supposedly showing people how the better half lives.
But the truth was, I wasn’t in the better half.
Not even the better two-thirds. Maybe the better fifteen-sixteenths?
I don’t know; fractions were never my specialty.
The point is, this was finally my chance to be something real.
The first-floor lobby of LuxeLife Resorts and Spas stretched before us like a temple. Sunlight knifed through floor-to-ceiling windows. The perfumed air hung cool and still. My heels echoed across the marble floors. The softer I tried to walk, the louder they seemed to get.
Behind the reception desk sat a woman who seemed as carefully designed as the space itself. “May I help you?” Neither her tone nor her face seemed very helpful.
“Samantha Li and Parker Wang,” I said. “We have an appointment.”
“Mr. Wiles will be with you shortly. Please have a seat.”
The design of the waiting area could have been plucked from the pages of Architecture Digest. A massive abstract painting dominated one wall, bold slashes of gold and red.
Parker and I perched on the edge of what I assumed was a couch.
Or possibly one of those curvy sex chairs, but big enough for an entire orgy.
Ten minutes passed.
“What did you say our latest engagement metrics were again?” I asked, desperate for a distraction.
“Up twelve percent this quarter. The demographics sheet shows we’re hitting their target audience dead-center.”
I nodded, squirming in my seat. Not just because I was nervous, but also because my butt was going numb. Clearly, the waiting area was not designed for any actual waiting.
Another ten minutes passed.
“And the competitor analysis?”
“A similar influencer worked with Mountain Ridge Resorts last season,” said Parker. “None of their posts even broke fifty thousand views.”
I smoothed my skirt for the hundredth time. “Maybe we should go through the proposal again,” I suggested.
“Right. Good idea.” Parker reached into his laptop bag, and, once again, his hippopotamus hand-eye coordination reared its bulbous head.
Before I knew what was happening, dozens of meticulously prepared, organized, and sorted proposal documents exploded outward, fluttering through the air and across the marble floor like a flock of startled birds.
“Parker!” My voice ricocheted through the lobby. The receptionist shot us a look. Parker and I both dropped to our knees, scrambling to collect the scattered papers.
That’s when we heard the voice.
A deep voice.
A commanding voice.
A voice that grew louder with every echoing footstep because it was coming our way.
“Absolutely unacceptable!” The voice boomed from somewhere down the hall. “This is precisely why Victoria fired half the marketing department.”
My fingers went numb as I snatched papers. Parker’s hands transformed into clumsy paddles, knocking over the stack of spreadsheets I’d just gathered.
“I don’t have time for excuses,” said the voice. I could hear the crescendoing tip-tap of expensive shoes stomping over marble. “When I schedule a meeting, I expect preparation. I expect order.”
Parker’s elbow inadvertently jabbed me in the nose.
My foot accidentally kicked him in the shin.
We turned at the same time, both lunging for the same spreadsheet that had somehow slid halfway under the sex sofa.
The cracking of skulls filled the lobby with an audible knock. The receptionist glared again.
“Sorry,” said both Parker and me at once.
“Sorry? SORRY?” The voice was just around the corner now. “LuxeLife wasn’t built on apologies. It’s built on precision. Coordination. Discipline.”
I jammed a market analysis graph upside down into a folder. Parker stuffed papers back into his laptop bag out of order and backwards.
“When you walk into a meeting with me, you’d better have your shit together,” said the voice. “Every document. Every figure. Every contingency planned for.”
I spotted my executive summary, the cornerstone of my entire presentation, lying traitorously behind a potted palm. I lunged for it just as Parker stood abruptly, his hip broadsiding my ribs, sending my balance sideways.
“I’m hanging up now. I have another social media team waiting.”
Parker and I froze in our respective contortions, him half-squatting with papers clutched to his chest, and me stretched across the floor like I was mid-stroke in the freestyle lap of a swimming competition.
In a desperate last gasp effort, I snatched the executive summary from behind the palm, Parker hauled me to my feet, and we both spun toward the entrance to the hallway, documents clutched in white-knuckled grips and our faces arranged into what we hoped portrayed calm, confident professionalism.
Marcus Wiles appeared in the archway, his scowl melting into a brilliant smile, eyes lit up with practiced warmth. “Miss Li! Mr. Wang!” said Marcus, voice dripping with sugar. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Not at all,” I managed, clutching my executive summary to my chest.
When Marcus smiled, his teeth almost blinded me.
I had met plenty of super-rich, super-successful people in my line of work.
People who had personal chefs, personal trainers, even personal closet organizers.
Marcus must have had a personal dentist who bleached his teeth every morning before he came into work.
“Shall we?” He swept his arm toward the elevator banks, much like a medieval executioner might direct condemned prisoners toward the dungeon for a full day of latte crotch burns and sitting on uncomfortable sex furniture.