Page 270 of Manhattan Bossholes

I winced.

“Shut up! Really?”

“How?” Bonnie demanded.

“It was a real dog-eat-dog culture there, you know? When it came time for the annual review each year, if you hadn’t produced any high sellers, you’d be fired. And Fisher…turns out he didn’t perform well under that kind of pressure. None of his designs were panning out. Meanwhile, my designs were doing great. And we lived together, so he had access to my laptop, my sketchpads, everything.”

“He didn’t,” Bonnie said, eyes wide.

“He did,” I confirmed.

“Wait, how the hell did him stealing one of your designs mean that you got fired?” Shay asked.

I shrugged. “He was the one who had an in with management. When I told them what he’d done, they chose to believe him over me.”

“Even though he’d done nothing but make garbage all year while your designs were taking off?” Erik asked, frowning.

“That’s right. The design went on to be the year’s best seller for Echo,” I said. “And Fisher got a promotion out of it.” It still made my blood boil.

“What a major dick,” Shay said, her jaw hanging open. “I can’t believe he did that to you.”

I let out a little laugh, more resigned than amused. “I couldn’t believe it either, at the time. But looking back…there were so many red flags, like we were saying. We went to design school together. I saw him cut corners on assignments, take more credit than he deserved on team projects. He came from money, and he was used to coasting through life. He never had to take anything seriously because he never had real consequences when he screwed up. I knew he was a little spoiled, a little immature. But I put up with it because he was fun and charming—and I thought he’d grow up eventually. When all this went down, I finally opened my eyes and saw him for who he really was. Do you know, he didn’t even apologize for getting me fired? Just said that I should’ve known better than to go to management. That if I’d kept my mouth shut, we could’ve both kept our jobs.”

Bonnie looked dumbstruck. “Girl, I would have throttled him.”

“Oh, we broke up immediately. There was definitely no coming back from that.” Blew my whole life apart in the process. No job. No boyfriend. No home. And then I’d lost my parents shortly after. The one and only good thing about that period was meeting Stacy, who befriended me, helped me find work, and got her landlady to rent me the brownstone’s basement apartment.

“Good,” Bonnie said. “He didn’t deserve you.”

“I know that,” I said, smiling at her. I liked that it felt like we were becoming real friends. “Now.”

“I guess compared to that, the Paris girl doesn’t sound all that bad,” Shay said, clapping Erik on the shoulder.

He laughed. “Yeah, she was a gem.”

“Back on topic,” I said. “How are the latest designs going? Bonnie, you got my email with the updated desk designs?”

She nodded. “Those have been finalized. There was a supply chain issue with the wood for the desks, but we’ve sourced a new supplier.”

“One that still meets our sustainability requirements?” I asked.

“Yep. All good on that front.”

“Perfect,” I said. “I talked to Javi last week, and he said we’re on track to have a couple of the new pieces set up in showrooms stateside. They should be ready before the show.” Saunders was preparing to present a few pieces from the new line at the High Point Market—the largest furnishings industry trade show in the world—in North Carolina at the end of the month. We were on a bit of a time crunch to have the pieces ready, but rushing now was better than waiting until the next trade show in April. And marketing wanted to build off the press for the launch before going overseas. “These are the latest designs I’m toying with,” I said, flipping through my slides. “What do we think?”

“I like that one,” Bonnie said as a bookshelf flashed across the screen.

Shay nodded. “Oh, me too!”

“What about…” Erik said, getting to his feet. He took the remote from me, flipping between two designs. “And just hear me out…We take the top of this shelf and combine it with the desk?”

“You’re still drunk from the weekend,” Bonnie said.

Erik laughed. “Yes. But maybe just enough for this to make sense.”

“Huh,” I said, watching as he flipped back and forth between the screens, the images blurring into one. I could totally see what he was getting at. “You know what? I kind of love it.”

Erik fist pumped. “Score.”