The Christmas Surprise

by R. R. Banks

  “Hello,” she said. Her voice was just as icy as it had always been. “I look forward to getting to know all of you.”

  Getting to know all of us? That sounds ominous.

  “And she will have plenty of opportunity,” Mr. Royal said. “The primary reason I’ve called all of you together this morning, other than to share my wonderful news with you, is to announce that moving forward there will be a shift in the leadership of Royal and Company. I have been considering retirement for some time now and my lovely bride has convinced me that now is my chance. I will spend the next few days getting some loose ends tied up around here and then I will be leaving on a world tour. I will be handing over power of the company to your new president…Lucille.”

  I felt like I was going to throw up. Lucille’s eyes seemed to darken slightly as they swept across the room toward me and a vile curve came to her lips.

  “I know that we will work extremely well together and bring Royal and Company to new levels of success,” she said. “That will take effort and dedication from all of you. I know that there are certain ways and operations to which everyone is accustomed, and some of them will need to change. That means that we are all starting fresh. I don’t know you or what you are capable of, so you will need to prove to me that you are of worth to this team and the contribution that you can make. This is a beginning for all of us. Everyone is on level ground now.” She looked directly at me and I knew that that comment was for me. Lucille went back to looking at the rest of the group. “I will be shaking up things around here to make sure that we are all able to reach the potential that I know we have. You may have already noticed some of the changes that I have made in an effort to make our shared work environment healthier. A healthy work environment encourages a healthy team and I know that all of you will not just get accustomed to the changes, but will embrace them and the benefits that they will bring.”

  Bitch, where are my doughnuts?

  Chapter Three

  Lucille

  “Are you sure that these reviews are accurate?” I asked.

  The papers spread out on the desk in front of me were nothing short of infuriating and I could only hope that I would find out that they were as absurd as the rest of the way that my ridiculous new husband had run this company. New husband. That made my skin crawl and a chill run down my spine. There was no romantic motivation in the reaction. I had never been one of those women who envisions the perfect wedding and the dreamy man standing at the end of the aisle. Instead, I thought only of power. I always knew that I was going to marry the man who was going to put me in the best position in life, and it just so happened that I ran across Walter Royal. I had no difficulty convincing him that we were so perfect for each other that there was no point in dragging out our courtship or engagement. He was all too eager to jump on my offer of marriage during our visit to his island over the weekend. Exorbitantly wealthy and notoriously generous, he was exactly what I was shopping for when I attended the industry event several weeks before, even if he was more than twice my age and had the type of health philosophy that led him to believe strawberry ice cream counted as a serving of fruit. It was just an added bonus that he was the boss of my biggest rival.

  Snow Whitman. Just the thought of that name made my muscles tense and my hands clench. She had been the bane of my existence since the first day of college when I walked into my first class and saw her sitting in the front row, already gazing admiringly at the professor. Glossy black hair and piercing blue eyes seemed to transfix the young male teacher and I knew in an instant that she was going to be intolerable.

  “Yes,” Mr. Glass said.

  That was it. Just “yes”. Fantastic advisor.

  “How can she possibly have this many accounts?” I asked, sifting through the pages of her file and reading the names of the companies that she had worked with in the last few years.

  “She is highly sought after,” Mr. Glass said matter-of-factly. “She has been an enthusiastic contributor to projects since she was first hired and it didn’t take long for her to start getting her own accounts. Now new clients often ask for her to be involved in their campaigns.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What makes her so amazing?”

  I didn’t really want to hear it. Actually, I already had. I had been hearing it for years. All through that first class when the professor couldn’t seem to get three sentences out of his mouth without praising her or asking for her opinion on what he was saying. In the classes that we shared in the years that followed when the professors just mimicked what the first had done, seeming to fall deeper and deeper under Snow’s spell. Out in the world as we competed for positions at the best agencies and then feuded for the highest-paying accounts. I’d had my mind set on working for Royal and Company from even before I went into the university. Even then it was the best advertising agency in the area and I wanted only the best. Of course, it wasn’t me who got the prime position. Snow walked into the agency and charmed Walter Royal into offering her the position along with a perks package that was far beyond anything that any other entry level position should have offered.

  I looked down at my hand and saw the massive diamond on my finger sparkle in the light. Now I was the one with the perks package. There might be a few elements of the – job description that I wasn’t entirely fond of, but I could deal with it to get me right where I was right then. Besides, Walter was going to be away for weeks on his retirement vacation. I was only thankful that I had been able to convince him that he should go on his own rather than bringing me along so that I could get to know the company and the employees. I realized that Mr. Glass was talking, droning on about all of Snow’s attributes, and I forced myself to check back into the conversation. As much as I didn’t need to hear another speech about her perfection and all of the ways that she made the world a better place, I wanted to know what it was about her that had lured in these clients and landed their accounts. To me, she wasn’t an asset. She was the competition and a stumbling block in the way of my success. When I could identify what about her was so appealing and reflect it for myself, then I could eliminate her and finally take the success that was owed to me.

  “Her creativity is unsurpassed by anyone else. She’s the best in the industry.”

  “No, she’s not,” I muttered.

  “Excuse me?” Mr. Glass said.

  I looked up at him again, shaking my head.

  “Nothing. So, she’s creative? That’s what makes all of these people fall all over themselves for her? Isn’t creativity a basic job requirement of advertising?”

  “There’s something different about her type of creativity. It’s like she sees things in a completely different way than other people. She’s able to grab the attention of the clients and convince them that she knows exactly what that specific demographic needs so that she can create a campaign that will be irresistible to them.”

  “That’s it?” I asked, dumbfounded by the level of trust and confidence that that seemingly unremarkable skill had instilled in even stony, emotionless Mr. Glass. “She is considered the best in the industry because she can convince clients that she can make a good campaign? Silly me, I thought that that was what everyone in advertising was supposed to be able to do.”

  “If you would like a more in-depth understanding, I can bring you the files for her most recent account.”

  I felt my frustration increase.

  “I thought that I specifically requested that you bring me all of the information about her. Why did you leave that out?”

  “Miss Whitman is still working on this particular account. She just landed it two weeks ago and has been working on it intently since. The files on it are in her office.”

  I drew in a breath to calm down, reminding myself that my goal was to try to appear as disarming and beguiling as Snow to these people.

  “Could you please get them for me so that I’m able to look over them?” I asked as gently as I could. “I would really like to get the f
ull perspective of all of the employees and projects within the company so that I can make the best plans for our team moving forward.”

  Mr. Glass’s expression didn’t change. I didn’t know if it was because I hadn’t impacted him enough to have an emotional impact, or if this man simply didn’t have emotional reactions at all. He gave a single nod and turned, leaving my office without another word. I let out a sigh of exasperation as he closed the door.

  I don’t think I’m cut out for this bullshit.

  I heard a knock on my door and I smoothed my hair back.

  “You can come back in, Mr. Glass,” I called.

  “Actually, it’s not Mr. Glass.”

  The voice was familiar and I felt my jaw tense hearing it. My fingers clenched around each other on the top of my desk and I debated telling her to go away, but I knew that that wasn’t going to fly. I relaxed the tension in my shoulders and leaned back in the chair.

  “Come in,” I said.

  The door opened and Snow looked around it at me. She looked just about as thrilled to see me sitting there as I did to see her, which was uplifting in a way. If it was going to make me miserable to have to be in her presence every minute that I was at the office, it was comforting to know that I was making her just as unhappy with my presence as well.

  “Hi,” she said.

  She pressed the door closed behind her, but only took half a step away from it. I couldn’t decide if it was that she was feeling intimidated and didn’t want to be too far from the door so that she could escape as soon as she wanted to, or if it was that she felt the same forcefield of negativity between us that I did, keeping her from getting any closer. I would prefer if it was the former.

  “Hello.”

  I could have said more, but I wanted to watch her squirm. She stared at me for a few moments as if she was expecting something else and then she took a step toward me.

  “Look, I just wanted to come in here and say congratulations on your marriage and no hard feelings. I hope that we can put everything behind us and focus on finding success for the company in working together.”

  “Working together?” I asked with a hint of mirthless laugh in the words. “Surely you’re kidding.”

  What I could only imagine was Snow trying to look beseeching melted from her face and she tilted her head to look at me with a more quizzical expression that I knew others found adorable, but that I only thought was simpering and obnoxious.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “You don’t seriously think that we’re going to be working together, do you? Like some happy little team? Like friends? You can’t really think that.”

  “Well, I just thought that since you’re here…”

  “I’m here for one reason and one reason only, and that is so that I can climb myself to the top where I have always belonged. You’ve been interfering with my success for as long as I can remember, and I’m not going to allow you to do it any longer, Snow.”

  “You’re not going to allow me?” she asked, a sneer dissolving all of the sweetness that had been on her face. “Who do you think you are to allow me to do anything? I worked harder than any person you have ever met to get to where I am. All you did was sleep your way to a seat in this office. That doesn’t make you good at your job and doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful. If anything, it means that you are going to drag this company down in the same way you have dragged down every other agency and project that you have ever been linked to.” She put one hand on her hip and cocked it at me, looking me up and down in a scrutinizing way that filled me with fury. “Of course, you managed to use all of your…assets…to get you out of all of those situations, too, didn’t you? Or did you think that no one knew about that?”

  I slammed my hands down on the desk in front of me and was starting to push myself up into a standing position when there was another knock on the door.

  “What?” I snapped.

  The door opened and Mr. Glass stepped in, one thin hand gripping a stack of folders.

  “I retrieved those files that you wanted, Mrs. Royal.”

  “Those are my files,” Snow gasped, staring at the files in Mr. Glass’s hands. “Who gave you permission to go into my office?”

  “I did,” I said, not able to keep all of the smugness out of my voice. “As far as I’m concerned, every office in this building is mine. You don’t get to decide who goes anywhere, especially when it pertains to accounts that I need to review.”

  “I already submitted my progress reports on this account,” Snow argued. “You don’t need my files.”

  “Of course, I do,” I said. “This is my company now. Royal and Company is under my guidance now, and that means that I will do absolutely anything that I want to to make sure that I know what’s going on here and make the changes that will need to be made to ensure this company continues to thrive.”

  “You mean so that you can ensure that you get to take all of the credit and look like you know what you are doing.”

  “I don’t have anything else to say to you,” I said. “You can go now.”

  “What am I supposed to do? You just took all of my work.”

  “Figure it out. If you are really as valuable as everyone seems to think that you are, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  I settled back in my chair again, looking down at the files in my hands in a demonstration of dismissing Snow. She hesitated for a few moments and then let out an angry sigh before stomping out of the room. I hadn’t been paying attention to the words in the file until she was gone, but almost as soon as I heard the sound of the door slamming, the name of the account sank into my thoughts. I felt the anger inside me growing and heat spread across my cheeks.

  “The Diamond Mine?” I asked through gritted teeth. “She is building this campaign?”

  Mr. Glass nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “The client told us that Miss Whitman came highly recommended and they were extremely impressed by her initial brief. They asked that she helm their entire campaign and expanded the scope to include print media and unique boutique marketing designed specifically for them as well.”

  I felt my body shaking, the anger inside me at a point now that I wasn’t able to control it. Mr. Glass had already heard the angry exchange between me and Snow and I didn’t care if he knew just how infuriated I was about finding out that Snow had landed the account that I had been courting for months. An extremely exclusive nightclub, The Diamond Mine promised to be an exceptionally lucrative account that would only become more valuable the more popular the club became. This client really only needed to advertise to the most elite of clientele due to the restrictions of the club, and what Mr. Glass was describing went well beyond that. What Snow had proposed, and was now planning on delivering to them, straddled the line between true advertising and PR, something that was more than what other advertising agencies would have ever offered, but that was exactly what had handed this highly sought-after account right into her waiting hands.

  “She’s the best,” Mr. Glass said. “It is my professional opinion that you would be best served aligning with her and continuing to encourage her to expand and pursue further clients for the agency.”

  I looked up at the man with fire in my eyes. He had to be fucking kidding. He wanted me to become yet another of Snow’s many admirers and admit that she was better than me? Absolutely not. That was never going to happen. There was only room for one of us in the industry and that meant that Snow was simply going to have to go.

  Chapter Four

  Hunter

  I stepped up to the door of what was once Mr. Royal’s office and hesitated. I didn’t really want to go through it. I didn’t really want to step into the office and face the woman now sitting behind the desk. In fact, if I could have just turned around and left, pretending that I had never gotten the memo that she wanted to speak to me, I would have, but that wasn’t an option. Unfortunately, the new Mrs. Royal had inherited the entire company from h
er new husband and that meant that she had inherited me right along with it. I was at the mercy of her bidding.

  I took a quick glimpse over toward Cindy’s desk and saw the slight woman hunched over her computer, typing feverishly. I was fairly certain that she wasn’t actually typing anything of consequence and was instead just trying to do whatever she could to look busy so that she didn’t have to face the new Madam President. This never would have been a concern if Mr. Royal was still leading the company. Cindy was his secretary, responsible for all the same things as the classic 1960s version of the position, just without the shady innuendo. She answered phones, took messages, and typed up memos. If Mr. Royal needed something more than that, he came to me. As his personal assistant, I took care of all of the other musings of his mind, either helping him to accomplish what he was envisioning or doing what I could to rein him in and turn his focus back to more practical pursuits. It had once been an ideal job. Walter Royal was as hilarious and eccentric as he was romantic and impulsive, which meant that his ideas were often far-flung and a blast to try to follow, but also that it didn’t surprise me in the least that he had gotten swept up by the thought of a whirlwind courtship and marriage to a young, mysterious woman.

  Now the job was nothing short of a nightmare. Lucille Royal had been in the office for less than a week and I already hated her. She was cold and harsh, smiling only in that way that I half expected to see a forked tongue flicker in and out when she looked at certain people in the office. Her absconding with the doughnuts and coffee from the break room had resulted in a small riot, but that had gone nowhere but back into the conference room for an impromptu seminar about the importance of health and nutrition in the workplace. Being her assistant had left me feeling like a twelve-year-old hoping to get an interview for his school paper by shadowing a powerful CEO. She had me scurrying for juice and sourcing essential oils rather than doing anything that even closely resembled advertising. It had been an order to drive two hours to an herbal shop that turned out to be the tiny back room of a woman’s cottage to purchase particularly ominous-looking substances intended for “women’s uses” that pushed me to threatening to quit. Lucille had hung my contract over my head, though, and I knew that I was screwed.