Chapter 2 - After-Hours Protocol
The weight of two hundred stares felt like a physical pressure pressing down on my temples.
Across the terrace, Evan looked like his soul had left his body. He was holding a canape halfway to his mouth, completely frozen, while Rachel tapped furiously on her phone, undoubtedly texting every person we had ever met in Chicago advertising.
Julian Vance was worse. He was standing by the mahogany bar, gripping his tumbler of bourbon so hard I half-expected the crystal to shatter in his palm. His smile was gone. In its place was a calculating, venomous stare directed squarely at the bridge of my nose.
“You’re staring back at Julian,” Vivian murmured, without looking over her shoulder. “Rule number one: never let the person you’re undermining see you acknowledge their existence.”
I pulled my eyes back to her. “I’m a brand strategist, Ms. Mercer. My entire job is observing human behavior and exploiting consumer vulnerability. Julian Vance looks like he’s currently planning how to make my body disappear into Lake Michigan.”
“He won’t touch you,” she said smoothly, swirling the pale liquid in her flute. “Julian is a coward who hides behind non-disclosure agreements and leveraged buyouts. The moment he thinks you have my ear, he won’t attack you. He’ll try to recruit you.”
“And you think that’s a safe position for me?”
“I think it’s the only position that matters.” She set her glass down with a quiet *clink*. “Look at me, Grant. Not at the horizon. Not at your hands. Look at me like you’re actually listening to a woman you find intriguing.”
I took a slow breath and met her eyes.
Up close, Vivian Mercer was not the untouchable ice queen the industry magazines loved to profile. There were faint shadows beneath her eyes, masked by expensive foundation, and a sharp, defensive tension in the set of her shoulders. She was brilliant, extraordinarily wealthy, and currently cornered in her own house.
“Is that better?” I asked, holding her gaze.
“Marginally,” she said, though something flickered in her expression—a momentary break in her polished armor. “You’re remarkably calm for someone whose career trajectory just took a sharp left turn off a cliff.”
“I’ve managed client crises for five years,” I replied, leaning back slightly and letting one arm rest over the back of the metal chair. “When a retail conglomerate accidentally prints a slogan that offends an entire demographic, you learn to breathe through the fire. This is just another fire. It just happens to smell like expensive perfume.”
She let out a single, quiet laugh. It wasn't the performative laugh she gave at annual shareholder meetings; it was dry, startled, and genuine.
“Good,” she said softly. “You have a spine. I was worried you’d fold like the rest of them.”
“Don't mistake professional survival for courage,” I said. “You mentioned leaks. The buyout of the Peterson Agency?”
Vivian’s eyes hardened instantly. She reached across the small cafe table, her fingers lightly brushing the cuff of my jacket. The contact was purely theatrical—designed to send shockwaves through the watching crowd—but the heat of her touch through the linen was surprisingly sharp.
“Lower your voice,” she instructed, leaning in until her breath touched my ear. To anyone watching from the bar, it looked like the CEO was whispering a private, intimate secret to a subordinate.
In reality, her words were venom.
“The Peterson buyout was confidential to four people,” she breathed. “Me, the chief financial officer, legal, and Julian. Yesterday morning, a dummy corporation registered in Delaware bought forty percent of Peterson’s outstanding debt, driving the acquisition price up by twenty-two million dollars. Someone is bleeding this company dry from the inside, Grant. They want to force a vote of no confidence at the next board meeting and sell Mercer & Row to an international holding group.”
“And you think Julian is the broker.”
“I know he is,” she said, pulling back slowly and giving me a radiant, artificial smile that completely contradicted the horror of what she was saying. “What I don’t have is the paper trail. Julian uses off-ledger communications. But next week, we launch the pitch for the Meridian Automotive account. Sixty million dollars. Julian will try to intercept the strategic deck to tip off his buyers.”
“And you want me to write the bait deck.”
“I want you to be the only person with access to it,” Vivian said. “Which means as of tomorrow morning, you are no longer reporting to the creative directors on floor 28.”
I felt the room tilt slightly. “Where am I going?”
“Floor 34,” she said, her voice dropping into that cool, executive tone that brooked no argument. “My private office suite. You will be designated as my special strategic advisor.”
“Vivian,” I said, using her first name without thinking, “if you pull me up to thirty-four after this little stunt on the rooftop, every person in that office is going to think—”
“I don’t care what they think,” she interrupted, her eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made the noise of the party fade completely. “Let them talk. Gossip is loud, Grant. It’s chaotic, it breeds jealousy, and most importantly, it creates a massive blind spot. While Julian and the board are busy obsessing over why the CEO brought a mid-level strategist into her inner circle, they won’t notice you looking through their financial filings.”
She stood up abruptly, smoothing the silk of her dress with one fluid movement.
The terrace, which had slowly been acclimating to the sight of us, instantly snapped back to attention.
Vivian looked down at me, her face unreadable once more. She reached out, took my half-empty champagne glass from the table, took a sip from the exact spot my lips had touched, and set it down.
“Tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock sharp,” she said, loud enough for Table 6 and Table 8 to hear every syllable. “Don’t be late, Grant. I hate waiting.”
She turned on her heel and walked toward the private elevator. The double doors slid open, she stepped inside, and the brass panels closed behind her, leaving a suffocating silence in her wake.
I sat there for ten seconds.
Before I could even stand up, my phone vibrated violently against my thigh.
I pulled it out.
A text from Evan: *DUDE WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL JUST HAPPENED ARE YOU DATING THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND?*
A text from an unknown number: *Smart men don't sit in chairs they haven't earned, Holloway. Watch your step.*
I looked up. Across the rooftop, Julian Vance was no longer at the bar.
May you like
His empty glass was sitting on the polished counter, a smear of dark bourbon pooling at the base.
***
