CHAPTER TWELVE
BLAIRE
Another sleepless night.
The dark circles this morning were bad enough that I spent twenty extra minutes on concealer and still wasn't satisfied.
I did what I could, put my hair up properly this time, wore the slate gray blazer that makes me look like I have my life together even when I don't, and told myself once again in the mirror that I've walked into harder rooms than this.
I'm not entirely convinced this morning.
The elevator ride last night ruined me. Not just Bennet — the whole thing. The robe, the streaked makeup, the way I backed out of those doors with nothing to say to defend myself against his vitriol.
I've replayed it approximately forty times since it happened, and it doesn't improve with repetition. I looked like a woman falling apart, which I am, but that is the one thing in my professional life I cannot afford to be visible.
Get your shit together, Mrs. Monroe.
I've heard worse from clients. I have. The words themselves aren't the problem.
It's the way he said the name.
I've been trying to put my finger on it since last night, and I can't quite get there. Something in the specific shape of his contempt — directed, almost, like it knows where to land. Like he looked at me and found exactly the right place to press.
People don't usually find that so quickly.
I open my laptop. Pull up the strategy deck I've been building since four AM, when sleep gave up on me entirely.
It's good work — clean, specific, sequenced correctly.
The dating angle, the Meridian positioning, the social media cadence, the pet recommendation, which I am keeping in because the data supports it and I don't care how he feels about it.
I check my phone.
The pier photos surfaced around midnight.
Bennet Sullivan and an unknown ginger, ice cream cones, her mouth on his at the end of the pier like something out of a film.
The comments are already running warm. Three major tabs have picked it up.
The tone has shifted from what's wrong with him to how cute are they which is exactly the pivot the narrative needed.
He executed it well. She's pretty and the body language reads as genuine. Even the location was smart — public but not staged-looking, exactly what I'd have chosen if I'd been there.
I put my phone face down.
I have approximately mere minutes before he walks through that door, and I need every one of them to get my spine where it needs to be.
Because last night he looked at me like I was something he'd scraped off his shoe and this morning I have to sit across from him and do my job like that didn't happen, and I can do that, I've done harder things, I've sat across a breakfast table from Colt Monroe the morning after and made conversation and passed the orange juice, so yes, I can absolutely do this.
I can do this.
The door opens.
"Mr. Sullivan." I stand and offer my hand. "Good to see you again."
He doesn't take it. Walks past me to one of the other chairs and sits, shrugging off his jacket and rolling his sleeves back.
"I think we're past shaking hands every time we see one another, Mrs. Monroe."
I retake my seat and take a breath, deciding to hit this directly before I lose the nerve.
"Before we get into the work, Mr. Sullivan, I'd like to discuss our working relationship."
He raises an eyebrow. There's something in the gesture that tugs at something familiar I can't place, like a word on the tip of my tongue.
"Is that so?"
"You seem to have some kind of issue with me that exists outside the scope of this case," I say, keeping my voice even, "and I'd like to understand what that is so we can move past it and work together amicably."
"Amicably," he repeats.
"Yes, amicably." I fold my hands on the table. "We're going to be working closely for the next two months at a minimum. What happened in the elevator last night — "
"Let me stop you right there, Mrs. Monroe.
" He lifts a hand. "The board requested someone senior.
You brought yourself. You work in image management and crisis repair.
" He leans back in his chair, folds his arms, and looks at me with a particular flatness that I don’t care for.
"Your image was in desperate need of repair last night.
So, I stand by my statement. If you can't manage your own shit, how in the hell am I supposed to trust you with mine. "
I glare at him. At the set of his jaw, the steadiness of his gaze, the complete absence of apology anywhere on his face. He means it. Every word of it, and yet again, he knew exactly where to aim it.
He's not wrong, and that's the most infuriating part.
"You're right," I say.
Surprise flickers across his face. He wasn't expecting that.
"I looked a mess last night. You saw it and pointed it out.
You weren't wrong to say it. What you were wrong about was how you said it, in a way that had nothing to do with professional concern and everything to do with making sure I felt it.
" I hold his gaze. "You're allowed to have doubts about my competence, Mr. Sullivan.
What you're not allowed to do is use this engagement as a vehicle for whatever personal issues you've decided to have with me. "
"Personal issue." He scoffs, arms unfolding.
"That's what I said."
"I don't have a personal issue with you, Mrs. Monroe.
I don't know you well enough, nor do I care to enough, to have a personal issue with you.
What I have is a nine-figure acquisition, a board breathing down my neck, and the consultant who was hired to calm this storm was walking around looking disheveled and, quite frankly drunk.
" He tilts his head slightly. "Forgive me if that doesn't inspire confidence. "
Tension lingers between us, neither of us knowing what to say.
"I had a difficult night,” is what I finally decide on.
"So did I. The difference is you won't see evidence of mine. Now, is there anything else you needed to get off your chest today, Mrs. Monroe, or can we get to the part where you do the job I'm paying you to do?"
Ugh! This fucking fucker!
My heart thunders in my chest, and the blood in my ears roars so loudly I almost didn’t hear the knock on the conference room door before it slides open without waiting for a response.
Rosalie walks in with two board members behind her, and the way all three of them move into the room tells me something has already happened and they've been discussing it in the hallway.
"Sorry to interrupt." Her eyes move from Bennet to me and back. "May we join you for a few minutes?"
The tension in here is apparently visible from the doorway because all three of them are doing the bounce — him, me, him again — before anyone says anything further.
"What's this about?" Bennet asks.
"The press is running a story." Rosalie gestures toward the screen. "One of our sources gave us a heads up about thirty minutes ago. May I?" She's already reaching for the cable.
"Please," I say before Bennet can answer.
He looks at me briefly but says nothing.
The screen changes, and we all shift to face it. Frank leans forward with his hands on the table and starts talking before anyone else can.
"The Los Angeles Journal is running a piece that frames the Monroe Communications engagement as a publicity stunt.
The angle is that the board retained outside help specifically to manufacture investor confidence ahead of Meridian closing.
" He exhales through his nose. "They're positioning it as damage control theater. "
I'm already reading. The byline is someone I know — a reporter with a specific appetite for corporate narrative pieces who has good sources and almost no mercy. The language is precise and well-informed in a way that suggests this didn't come from speculation.
Someone talked.
The piece is thorough. It mentions Monroe Communications by name, references the board's concerns about Bennet's public image, and frames the entire engagement as a calculated performance designed to reassure skittish investors rather than any genuine behavioral change on Bennet Sullivan's part.
There are quotes — multiple unnamed sources that paint the relationship between Bennet and his board as fractured and the PR hire as a last-ditch attempt to hold a deal together.
Then it gets personal.
Three paragraphs detailing Bennet's public history with the particular relish of a writer who knows they have room to run. The fountain. Two prior incidents I'd flagged in my research. A quote from someone described only as a former associate that is, to put it plainly, devastating.
The room is quiet while everyone reads.
I finish reading and sit back to think.
"How long before it is published?" I ask.
"It's live within the hour," Rosalie says.
I nod once. "Okay." I pull my laptop toward me and start typing. "Who knows about the Meridian time-line specifically — the six-week window? Because this piece has the closing date. That's not public information, is it?"
The board members exchange a look.
"No, and it's a short list," Frank says carefully.
"Then we start there." I keep typing. "The story itself we can't kill — it's already live and pulling it would make it worse. What we can do is get ahead of the narrative before it compounds."
"May I suggest something?" Rosalie asks.
Bennet has been reading the piece with an expression I can't fully see from this angle, but his jaw is doing the broody thing, and his hands are flat on the table.
He looks at Rosalie. "What."
"Position yourselves as the couple. She's not here as a PR consultant; she's here because you’ve had a long-distance relationship, getting closer as friends and taking it to the next level.
Be photographed together. It's the same angle, and it kills two narratives with the same carefully curated story. "