Page 634 of Manhattan Bossholes

“Well, no better time than the present. What are the plans?”

“I sent you an email⁠—”

“I didn’t get it, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked the question.”

Becca looked like she was about to cry. “Okay, um, I was thinking we’d introduce the line with Boris modeling everything. One piece a day until we’ve highlighted all of them. Ginny, the new staff photographer, is ready to shoot the images when we are. Once we intro the line, we can open it up to user-submitted content, which always brings tons of eyeballs. People can send in their pets wearing our stuff. Those kinds of call-outs always bring lots of traction.”

“Finally!” I gestured toward Becca. “This is what I’ve been talking about. I love it, Becca. Let’s bump everything else off the calendar and make pets our focus.” I turned to Sandrine. “Can you work with Becca to get this rolling ASAP?”

She nodded. “Of course, on it.”

“Anything else?”

I glanced around at my employees, and their terrified expressions finally woke me up. With sinking shame, I recalled that this was how my father used to run the company. Since taking over, I’d always kept a tight ship, but I never used fear and intimidation to keep my staff motivated.

“No? Okay, then. Before you all leave, I just want to say thanks for helping me navigate this storm. It hasn’t been easy for any of us, but we’ll pull through. Let’s focus on the future, okay? We’re done here.” I slapped the table and stood up.

“Hold on,” Alessandra said, grabbing my arm. “I just got an alert…there’s something you need to see.” She scanned the room. “Sandrine? I think you should be here for it as well.”

Sandrine approached us warily. “What’s wrong now?”

“I’m not sure yet, but my alerts are saying that…something was posted.”

I let my frustration get the better of me again. “Alessandra, plenty has been posted lately. What’s different about this?”

She held out her phone wordlessly, and I saw a still of Felicity on the screen.

“She posted a video. On her personal account.” Alessandra said. “And tagged Veritique.”

I sank back into my chair.

Fuck. This was going to be bad.

I’d dealt with my fair share of tirades thanks to Carolina. Rant-filled tantrums that attracted a ton of attention. If the livestream incident had happened with her, I could only imagine the press coverage she’d be demanding. I never believed Felicity was capable of sinking that low, but I was about to get proof she could. I wouldn’t have thought she’d be the kind of person to air our dirty laundry online—but it wouldn’t be the first time I’d been wrong about a woman. I waited until Alessandra, Sandrine, and I were the only people in the room.

“Put it up on the smartboard,” I said warily. “Let’s deal with this together.”

Alessandra nodded, and then Felicity was on the wall in front of me. It hurt to see her.

“Ready?” Alessandra asked.

“I suppose,” I sighed.

She pushed play, and the video began. Felicity was sitting cross-legged on the couch in her apartment hugging a pillow to her chest, smiling softly. She was bare-faced, with her hair in a ponytail, dressed in leggings and a worn t-shirt.

And never more beautiful. My heart pinched with longing at the sight of her.

“Hi everyone,” she said with a little wave. “Been a while since I’ve posted on this account, but I figured it was the perfect place to try to get my message out. My follower count has tripled in the past few weeks, no doubt because of…recent events.”

She frowned for a moment.

“No, Lis, just say it,” she muttered to herself. She reoriented to the camera. “By ‘recent events’ I mean the CamLicity campaign. We’ve all seen what happened by now, right?”

A shadow passed over her face.

“I know many of you are disappointed by the way our story ended. I’ve seen the comments, and I’ve gotten a ton of supportive messages.” She clutched her hands over her heart. “Thank you, friends. Your care means the world to me.”

It was my turn to frown. The only messages I’d gotten were brutal takedowns. I tried to keep up initially, but Alessandra eventually stopped forwarding them to me.