Page 26 of So Not My Type

The brief? Did she not have her alerts on? She would’ve jumped on that immediately, mid-conversation with Malcolm or not. “When did it come in?”

“About ten minutes ago, when you stormed out of here.”

“I didnotstorm.” Okay, fine, she might have stormed.

“Sure,” Ella muttered.

Maybe she deserved a little pushback.

Ella thumbed her glasses. “It was lighter than expected. Not sure if this is a standard objective statement or not.”

Sophie hated that Ella had seen it first.Hated. Sophie should be the one coming to Ella—the trainee—breaking down what they needed, teaching her about objectives and statements and spotting when a team would need clarification.

“What did they teach you in your classes about the brief?” Sophie didn’t mean it to come out as harsh as it did. She genuinely meant the question to gauge Ella’s baseline understanding, but her subconscious slipped through her tone.

“They, ah.” She squared her shoulders. “At UW…”

U-dub. If Ella muttered those words one more time, Sophie might toss a docking station through the skyrise window.

“We reviewed templates and wrote mock ones with the, ah…” She looked at the wall and chewed on her cheek. “…with the demographics and requirements and things.”

Demographic, requirements, andthings? She hated the voice in her head, hated the way she felt a bubbling dam inside her about to break. She wanted to pull it in, stop it from rising, but she couldn’t. But she was tired… so freaking tired. And Ella was leaving early, Ella went to college, Ella got everything. It was so deeply unfair how people just got things depending upon where they were born—a fancy home, an education, even health insurance, for God’s sake.

She was done.

“Things, huh? So, if someone says they are targeting an eighteen-to-thirty-year-old demographic, then that’s good? Hey all, create an entire marketing campaign based on the requirement that it’s not a heaping pile of shit, andthings.”

The words were unfair, but so was this entire situation. She was already further behind than had she just run this entire campaign by herself, but she couldn’t give up now. Letting Malcolm down or showing her co-workers that she couldn’t hack it as a project manager, was not an option.

Ella’s fingers spread across her desk, her knuckles turning white. “Why are you such a?—”

“Such a what?”

Ella crossed her arms. She turned to Sophie, not only making eye contact, but hard eye contact.Fieryeye contact. “A bully.”

“A bully?” Was shekidding? Bullies were the girls who ganged up on Sophie in the seventh grade. Bullies were the men she worked with at the pier who said, “Good thing you’re cute, ’cause you’d never make it otherwise.” A bully was how Ella treated her the first time they met, degrading her and making her sob in the bathroom. “You cannot be serious.Youare the one who is a bully.”

“Me? Me?” Ella’s hands smacked against her thighs. “I have done nothing but eat your shit with a spoon these last two weeks. Seriously, what have I ever done to you?”

“I can’t believe you,” Sophie hissed. “When we first met…”

“When I first met you? What? I barely evenrememberyou.” Ella’s head snapped back, and her darkening gaze flickered between Sophie’s eyes. “Clearly you don’t make the impression you think you do.”

She barely even remembers meeting me?How Ella made her feel that day gutted her, enough to leave a six-year lasting impression.

Ella exhaled through her teeth. “You have not given me a chance to prove myself.”

Enough! A chance? Everything Ella had gotten since the second she walked in here was a chance. “You are trying to pay your dues with the currency of your father’s legacy. You’ve probably done that your whole life, and it’s not going to work with me. CEO or not, you haven’t proven shit. In fact, the only thing you’ve proved thus far is your incompetence.”

Sophie winced at her own words, not recognizing them as they flew from her mouth. This was too far, totally unlike her, unfair, and her stomach sank. Jesus Christ. Maybe shewasa bully.

Come on, yell. Please. Puff your shoulders, flare your nose, something. Ella sat for a moment, stiff and silent. Then, like an emotional domino, Ella’s shoulders slouched, then her head dipped, then her chin trembled. Behind the tortoiseshell glasses, Ella’s eyes filled with tears.

Shit. Oh no. No, no, no. She went too far, and the regret was instant, hot, and gross. “Ella, I’m so?—”

Ella sprung from her chair, pivoted like a dancer, and speed-walked out of the room.

And Sophie almost threw up.

---