𝑻𝐇𝐄 𝑵𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒━━ 𝘴𝘢𝘱𝘯𝘢𝘱

07

"dream, someone's at the door!" i yelled from the top of the stairs as i tried to get the cat hair off my pantsuit.  "can you get it please?"

"why can't you?" dream yelled from his room.

"because i'm busy getting your cat's hair off my clothes so i don't show up looking homeless," i huffed before going back into my room to finish getting dressed.

i had a meeting with my marketing executives in a few hours and i wasn't too happy about it. my company- well my family's company- was doing great. i just hated the meetings where i had to sit still for hours on end while listening to boring people drone on about boring things.

twenty minutes later, i was fighting my car keys out of percy's mouth by the front door.

"nick! can you take percy on a walk please?" i begged, grabbing his leash to distract him.

nick was behind me seconds later. "why?" he asked.

"because he won't let me leave," i said, completely exasperated.

"i'll take him," someone else said from behind me. i stopped wrestling with percy and turned at the familiar voice.

"KARL!" i screamed before running and hugging him. "i didn't know you were coming."

"i decided yesterday i'd just drive on down here. it's great to see you again," karl said as he gave me a tight hug.

"i would love to stay and talk but i've got to get to a meeting."

"we can hang out later. i'll take percy for a walk," he offered.

i handed over percy's leash and watched as he immediately dropped my keys and ran over to karl, sitting down at his feet and waiting for the leash to be clipped to his collar.

"i swear he loves you more than me,"
i said to karl. "i'll be back in a few hours." i grabbed the dog slobber covered keys and opened the front door. "bye!"

"bye, thalia!" karl yelled after me.

half an hour later, i was stepping out of my car and heading into the company's building. it was technically mine since my father had passed away.

i waved to the receptionist and made my way to the elevators, adjusting my pantsuit. if i showed up looking anything less than confident and powerful, the men in the room would go nuts and accuse me of being unable to be CEO of the company.

"hello," i said as i walked in and took my seat at the head of the table. "are you guys ready to begin?"

"ready when you are," mark, the head of marketing, said. he was a nice guy, unlike some of the people who worked with him.

i opened up the folder in front of me and skimmed over the pages. "well it looks like business is doing great. have you talked to accounting to make sure the numbers are right?"

mark nodded. "income went up by 27% the past three months, and we have seven potential companies that want to hire us on."

"johnathan, could you please go fetch anne from accounting and julie from contracting? then you and the rest of the marketing team, save mark, can go wait in conference room b," i said sweetly.

johnathan looked like he wanted to argue with me but he did what i asked nonetheless. fourteen months ago- two weeks after my father had passed and i was named CEO of monroe marketing- johnathan had fought my new position with everything he had, claiming that i didn't know the company the way he did and that, as a woman, i couldn't do the job properly. now, i loved to exert my power over him in the smallest ways.

a few minutes later, there were only four people in the room: three people i trusted and myself.

"julie, may i have the contracts please? i'd like to look over them," i said.

"certainly, ms. monroe."

i flipped through the contracts, skimming the most important ones from the major companies. one of them i set aside, the rest i handed back to julie.

"please inform mr. lawrence that i will need to meet with him in person in two weeks time to go over this. ask him to bring a lawyer."

"yes, ms. monroe," julie said, tucking away the folders.

as she walked away, i said, "and for heavens sake, please call me thalia!" julie just smiled and walked away.

"mark and anne, we need to discuss numbers. from what i saw of those contracts, if we agree to them all, we're looking at a bigger revenue. but we don't have the workers for that."

"what do you suggest?" mark asked.

"we need a whole new department, separate from our other tech workers. off the top of my head, i'd say we need ten employees and a president for that department. only the best because we're going to use them for the bigger companies," i explained.

"anne, can i see the funds?" mark asked. she handed over the papers and he scribbled a few notes down. "okay, if my math is right, we can start with fifteen employees and give them their own budget."

anne checked over his math and said, "he's right. the company has more than enough money to fund this, especially with all the new business we'll have in the next few weeks."

"great. we'll meet again in one week to finalize plans. call me if you need anything," i told them before standing up to indicate that the meeting was over.

as soon as i walked out of the front doors, i felt much better. this meeting went better than some of the past ones. maybe it was because i didn't have all the misogynistic men in the company in one small room teeming with a testosterone overdose.

really, today's meeting was the easiest one yet, also due to the fact that my father left me the company when it was fully sufficient and all i had to do was oversee things and occasionally check in.

and now i got to go home and hang out with my favorite people.

word count: 1024