MR SENSUAL, MISS SASSY

DANG!

"Dave, we are not doing well," I said in alarm to Dave.

I was calculating the amount of clothes that had been ordered off the website since the debut of the clothing line. When I initially thought of venturing into owning a clothing line, my expectations were that we'd sell well and fast. That was in theory of course, I wasn't gullible enough to think the theory would match the reality. There was certainly going to be some disparity. What I was seeing though was below my expectation. In order words, I could lose everything I'd ever worked for. I had put my soul and finances into making the clothing line a brand. It was a huge risk that I thought would pay off, but it wasn't looking like it did base on my calculations.

"We need to be patient, it's been only few weeks," Dave said.

"I know but we should be doing better than this. This is a bad start."

"It takes a year or two for start-up brands to be noticed by the general public."

"I can't wait that long, I have mouths to feed."

Dave remained silent and I thought about the things I could do to improve sales.

"I've got it," Dave said.

"What?"

"What if we did a giveaway on the website and social media accounts?" Dave asked.

I looked at him and leaned back in my chair. "How's that going to help?"

"Every brand does it, the requirements needed for them to win will include following all our social media accounts and tagging their friends and followers." I looked on as he explained, "That's a good way to publicize the line and hopefully, some of these people will like the clothes that are not included in the giveaway and actually pay for them."

"That's interesting. People like free things, I think it should work. Get started on it."

"Alright." Dave went to the door.

"Dave," I called and he turned around. "Did you deliver the PR boxes to our clients?"

"I did, but the thing with celebrity is that they're always on a different timeline than the rest of us. It might take months before they give us a shout out online."

"Damn. Alright, that's all." I went to the window when Dave walked out of the door.

I wasn't broke yet but in few months if the clothing line continued doing as badly as it started, I might start paying my workers from my personal account. That was usually the beginning of bankruptcy. I watched the traffic below and hardly noticed the cars, my mind was full of scrambling thoughts.

My parents, I was the one sending them monthly allowances. What about my workers? Their salaries? I couldn't go broke. It would be a mighty disaster. I thought about the things I could have done differently. I shouldn't have made so many pieces and I should have tested the market first with only few pieces. I should have tried to ask for expert opinion, maybe hired a consultant who knew about the market. I got too excited about having something other than the styling business, and I made an amateur mistake that could possibly end everything.

I'd paid bloggers and social media personalities to advertise the line the moment the site was opened to the public. That obviously didn't work as well as I thought it would. Now, we were depending on a giveaway I knew wouldn't work. I could easily go back to focusing on styling more people but I needed to increase my list of clientele. My mind went back to the business meeting I had that Chike fumbled.

It was a good thing that I was going to end the fling. He was too distracting, too stubborn, too good, too rude. He was too much of everything and I was falling for him. That was the last thing I thought would happen, yet it did. It was a mistake that needed to be corrected. I never had a successful relationship with men even when I put all my energy into making them work. Kola was a testament to that as well as the rest before him. I gave the bastard eight years of my life and what did he do? He ripped my heart right out of my chest.