And wouldn’t you know, there’s one from Freddie Bilson waiting there for me.

RE: A Thank You to the Troops

Mr. Conway,

I am a new hire at your company, but I’ll give my best assessment of the situation, just as you asked. Your employees appear to be either intimidated or outright afraid of you. Whether this is due to your managerial style or your track record, I can’t say.

Management’s plan for a Thanksgiving lunch in the break room as a thank-you doesn’t seem to resonate with the staff, although I’ll admit I’ve only interacted with a limited sample. Perhaps they’d prefer a day off or a bonus, if the aim is truly to reward them for a year of hard work and anxiety?

That’s my solicited advice, Mr. Conway, based on less than twenty-four hours’ work experience at your company. I look forward to deepening my understanding of Exciteur and being of further use to the company. You won’t hear unsolicited advice from me again.

Best,

Freddie Bilson,

Junior Professionals Trainee,

Strategy Department

I lean back in the chair, crossing my arms over my chest. Well, he has balls, I’ll give him that. He’d responded to what I’d asked of him, short and concise, without unnecessary niceties and platitudes.

Except the last two sentences, that is. I recognized a blatant appeal to be allowed to stay when I heard one.

But I’m not planning on firing Freddie. What he said about the company’s employees rings true, even if I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself. The last year has been brutal to many of the people who still work in this building. They’d seen co-workers laid off and positions re-shuffled. A lot had been sacrificed on the altar of ever-increasing profit margins. I know they’re intimidated and afraid.

I grin as I realize exactly what to do, reaching for my phone and dialing the familiar extension to Clive, the COO. Freddie is a trainee in Strategy, after all. If he wants to contribute to Exciteur… perhaps we’ll put him in charge of Thanksgiving.

6

Freddie

It’s been four days since the fiasco with a capital F. I think that’s what I’ll always remember it as. “The Fiasco,” when I, Frederica Bilson, underestimated how easy it is to mix up the act of forwarding and replying to an email.

Every email I’ve sent since is triple- and quadruple-checked to ensure it reaches the right recipient. Toby had seen me do it once and laughed, calling me neurotic.

I hadn’t told my co-workers about The Fiasco, but at any moment, I expected Eleanor to come out of the glass box that doubled as her office and inform me my internship was over. That it came from the very highest authority.

But she hadn’t, and I haven’t heard back from Tristan Conway either, not since I responded to the last email. This gives me two possible outcomes. One, I’d pulled off the right amount of insolence and contriteness to earn his respect. Or two, he’s preparing to fire me and just hasn’t gotten around to it yet.

Each passing hour I leaned more toward option one, but it didn’t stop me from anxiously refreshing my emails. This week had been altogether too exciting for me already. New job. Accidentally email my boss’s boss’s boss with an insult. Sleep with the most magnetic man I’d ever met. All of it in the span of less than seven days.

Really, that should earn me some sort of medal.

“Uh-oh,” Toby murmurs at his desk. “Someone’s on the war-path.”

Both Quentin and I look up to see Eleanor advance on us, her heels clicking with professional ease on the floor.

“Freddie,” she says. Quentin and Toby turn back to their work, and my stomach drops out beneath me. This is it.

“Yes?”

“I just got a call from management. They’re pulling together all of the Junior Professionals for some cross-department project.” She blows out a breath. “And it’s still your first week. I tried explaining that you needed to settle into your department first, but they were adamant.”

I clear my throat. “And this came from management?”

“Yes. They didn’t tell me anything else.” The look in her eyes makes it clear she considers this an oversight on their part.

“Where do you want me?”