Page 14 of Manhattan Bossholes

All I could hear around me were sniffs and sighs of pleasure. Evermore was going to be a hit.

“Eileen is going to walk us through the proposed direction for the final leg of the campaign,” Vincent said as she joined him at the front of the room. I did my best not to grimace.

My role at Summit fell in Eileen’s department, and from the moment I’d been introduced to her, she’d made it obvious she wanted nothing to do with me. Maybe it was because Vincent had hired me without getting her input, or because my heels weren’t from this season’s Prada collection. In any case, she’d made me feel unwelcome from minute one. I hoped I could kill her with kindness, and if that didn’t work, I’d just try to fade into the background and do my job. After all, I was on a mission that didn’t hinge on whether or not she liked me. The faster I completed it, the better it would be for all parties involved.

“We’ve had phenomenal feedback from our prior two campaigns, so clearly this one will follow suit with a black-and-white image of a model shot in profile, with a backlit spray of perfume hitting her neck.” She pulled another large photograph from behind one of the others. It was a mock-up of the same basic shot, with the only difference being the bottle.

I grumbled to myself. The campaign had started five years ago with the launch of Then, and the images were beautiful, sure, but they felt boring now. If Evermore was the ultimate fragrance of the trio, the campaign should be bigger and better as well—not just the same old same old.

“Do we love or what?” Eileen purred.

Immediately, nods rippled across the room, followed by a chorus of eager affirmations.

“Absolutely!”

“Brilliant as always, Eileen!”

“It’s perfection!”

It was too much. Overly enthusiastic, rehearsed. A room full of people, each one chasing Eileen’s approval like little kids clamoring for a gold star from their kindergarten teacher. The smiles were a little too wide, the nods a little too fast. Even Vincent had a small, approving smirk on his face, though he didn’t add anything to the heap of flattery piling up around her.

I wasn’t buying it.

I looked down at my feet, hoping to go unnoticed. Did they really believe it, or were they just terrified of Eileen? Or, maybe, they were terrified of Vincent.

“Piper?” Vincent’s voice cut through my inner monologue like the devil’s whisper in Sunday’s mass. “You’re awfully quiet.”

I straightened up, suddenly aware that every eye in the room had turned toward me.

“I—” The word caught in my throat. I hadn’t expected to be singled out—not on my first week—and I sure as hell wasn’t prepared to give my opinion in front of everyone, particularly Eileen. Her sharp gaze landed on me, expectant. She was enjoying this, I could tell. Waiting for me to bow down like the rest of them.

Vincent raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

I swallowed hard. “I’m just thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” His voice was low, cutting. The challenge was clear: I wasn’t going to escape this without saying something definitive.

The tension in the room ratcheted up another notch. I glanced around, hoping for some sort of out, but all I got were blank stares and raised eyebrows. Everyone was waiting.

And Vincent wasn’t letting this go.

Neither was Eileen. “Any issues with the campaign, Piper?” Eileen asked me, her voice dipping lower. Meaner. “Don’t tell me you don’t love it.”

My throat tightened. It wasn’t a question, not really. It was a dare.

Oh, what the hell.

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “Not really,” I said.

“I’m sorry, you have a problem with the campaign, Piper?” Vincent demanded.

“Yes, do tell,” Eileen added, her voice dripping with displeasure.

The heat of a dozen glares burned through me. No turning back now. “I, uh, I just think that since Evermore has been five years in the making, we should do something different. The campaign for the whole trio of fragrances has been super influential so far, which is great, but it’s also a major drawback because our images aren’t fresh anymore. They haven’t…evolved.”

No one had thrown me out of the room at the end of a pitchfork yet, so I pressed on.

“We’ve seen Then and Now, and yes, they were elegant, iconic even. But Evermore…it’s different. This isn’t just another chapter; it’s the final. It has to be bolder. Something that sticks, that makes people rethink everything they thought they knew about the brand. We need to make people stop and feel something new.”