Page 17 of How to Get Even

‘Because as director, you should know that hard sell, jingoistic crap works. It attracts the people that enjoy that kind of stuff. And they tend to be the people with fat wallets.’

‘As director, I’m saying the copy is fine,’ he declared.

‘And as your comms director, I’m letting you know that it’s not,’ she said, getting up from the sofa and leaving the office.

As she threw the folder back onto her desk and sat in her seat, she heard Maurice announce, ‘Round One, Miller.’

Just Desserts WhatsApp Group. 16.42EST.

Bella

Is it illegal to copy a set of keys for your office? Asking for a friend.

Sienna

Depends what’s written in your contract.

Astrid

Depends if you get caught.

* * *

Chase watched Bella leave and closed his eyes in frustration. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and saw five missed calls from Tej. There wasn’t really any avoiding this. He went back to his desk and pulled up the video call app.

He steeled himself and hit send.

Tej’s worried face appeared before the ringing stopped.

‘Are you okay?’

‘YesMom,’ Chase fake-whined.

‘That’s shit, man, I’m sorry.’

Chase shrugged his shoulder, hoping he could pass his speechlessness off as nonchalance. But itwasshit. They had lost their feature artist, Zadzisai – a South African painter Chase had been courting for months – following the news of Julia’s abrupt departure.

‘Look, this didn’t come from Zadzisai.’

‘I know,’ Chase bit out.

He knew where it had come from and why. There was an understandable amount of scepticism about his role as gallery director. General consensus seemed to be that either he would get bored and go back to being an artist, or he would fail because he didn’t know what he was doing. Only a few people seemed to think that he could actually do this. Zadzisai had been one of them.

At least until Julia. Her sudden departure had run through the art world like wildfire, and Tej’s chosen replacement, another complete newbie, had been the nail in the coffin.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Tej continued, attempting to counter the inner demons haunting Chase’s internal monologue.

‘I know,’ Chase lied. ‘I’ve got a call in with another possible artist I’m hoping to meet with later.’

‘That’s great,’ Tej replied, a little heavy on the enthusiasm. ‘Really great. How’s everything else?’

Chase looked over to where Bella stared mutinously at her computer screen.

‘I just went head to head with the new comms director,’ he admitted.

Tej smirked. ‘And how did that go?’

‘I’m impressed,’ he admitted. ‘She held her ground.’

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