Page 1 of Take It Offline

CHAPTER 1

SURVIVAL OF THE 1%

EMMA

Rich bitch. Princess. Trust fund baby.

I’ve been called it all, and worse.

Lil heiress trying out a corporate job. Isn’t that cute?

It doesn’t matter that I’ve delivered everything asked of me, and I’ve done it early and under budget.

It doesn’t matter that I work late and never take sick days.

It doesn’t matter that I live paycheck to paycheck now, or that there could possibly be more to me than a last name and a pretty face.

Roberts (Karl, technically, but everyone calls him by his last name) stabs at the wall-mounted screen. “Change the colors. It’s too harsh. Try blue. The percentages don’t tell me anything, so change that back to full figures. And add filters for Discipline, Vendor, and Facility.”

A part of me wants the screen to fall on him.

Would it count as manslaughter if I manifested harm to my own boss?

On a related note, if karma truly exists, then whoever inflicted Power BI on the world will only ever know pain.

Rolling my shoulders, I note the changes he wants, reversing the suggestions he insisted I make last week.

“I know you’ve been struggling with this level of advanced reporting,” he says, as if he isn’t the reason this report is taking three weeks to complete, instead of three days.

I focus on the bar chart, wishing he was joking. It’s not the reporting that’s difficult to understand, it’s him.

He sits, clasping his hands on the table. The condescending pinch of his mouth makes my stomach drop. “But it’s important that you learn. If you want to make up for your lack of experience, you need to invest in yourself. I won’t be able to hold your hand next time.”

I’m shocked he doesn’t pat me on the head.

He’s right about one thing. Though I’ve worked for Helix for five years now, it’s still my first job.

But I’m determined to prove myself.

There’s no separating me from the reputation that comes with my name, but I’m damn well going to try.

Roberts points back to the screen. “I’ll need this finished before I present it to Emmanuel on Wednesday.”

Two days from now. Fantastic.

I don’t often dream about what my life would look like if my parents hadn’t thrown away our eight-figure net worth, but when I do, it’s because I’m stuck in one of the world’s longest meetings, wishing I could scream at my boss.

It turns out that smiling and nodding at condescending older men is a fact of life, no matter how engorged my bank account is.

The retail therapy is infinitely better, though.

Reactions to my last name are always the same.Conway? As in…? Yep.I’m a second-generation nepo baby, so people never understand why I would choose to work a nine-to-five, especially at Helix of all places, the “gas giant gone green” as the news announced a decade ago, shocking the world.

Back when my world consisted of trunk shows and St. Barts, I wouldn’t have pictured it either.

What nobody knows is that the great Conway legacy was gambled away on bad investments. The only reason my parents haven’t declared bankruptcy is because I sold off as much as I could and took this job to pay off the rest.

But, as life regularly reminds me, hard work isn’t always enough.

---