Something occurred to her and she stopped with her hand resting on the door knob. “You’re not going to fire her, are you?” she asked.
He spun around, looking down at her. “Of course I am. She’ll never support your ideas. I can’t have someone inhibiting progress. In fact, Dave should have fired her years ago.”
She bit her lip, trying to test out various possibilities. “What if she’s right? What if my ideas aren’t good?”
He pulled her in and kissed her. “Selena, if she were right, she would have had solid justification for her disagreement. As it was, she simply announced that the ideas weren’t good. That’s a sure sign of someone afraid of being overshadowed. So no, Ruth’s rejection of your ideas doesn’t concern me in the least. In fact, they confirm my opinion.” His arms tightened around her for a moment. “Besides, I usually go with my gut when promoting an idea, but I back up my ideas with data.” He winked at her. “Brant isn’t just a pretty face. He might be an ass and the most annoying brother around, but he’s pretty brilliant with numbers. He looked into your suggestions and agreed that it would work. He calculated that your ideas would bring in an additional twenty-three percent more revenue over the next eighteen months.”
She relaxed slightly. “So…” Grinning, she recognized the look in his eyes. “You’re not thinking about Ruth, are you?” she asked, using the poster boards as a shield, trying to defend herself against the heat in his look.
It didn’t work.
“No. I’m definitely not thinking about Ruth and her tyranny over my marketing department.”
She laughed, feeling an excited bubble burst inside of her chest. “You’re thinking something naughty.”
“Yes. You could definitely say that.”
Selena shifted her materials. “I’m going back to my office.”
“Don’t you want to know what I’m thinking about?”
She shook her head and backed away from him, but she couldn’t stop the silly grin. “No. I definitely don’t want to know what you’re thinking.”
“Why not?” he teased, resting a hip on the conference room table.
“Because you’ve already admitted that it is something naughty. Whatever it is, the idea is going to distract me for the next hour.”
“Just an hour?” he purred, lifting a dark eyebrow in question.
Selena shrugged slightly and headed towards the door. “Maybe longer.” With a saucy turn, she glanced over her shoulder. “Maybe not.”
The rest of the marketing team hadn’t gone back to their offices. Instead, they were all warily waiting to see what happened after the contretemps in the conference room, positioning themselves around the copier and the kitchen, trying to look busy. But in reality, each and every one of them were nervously watching. Never before had they witnessed anything so dramatic, having been under Ruth’s thumb for too long.
Selena knew they were anxious about their jobs. Were some of them actually sweating? Ruth in a bad mood meant she would start lashing out at the staff members.
So while their boss had exited the room furious, this new person…she laughed!
After that, two things happened. About half of the staff relaxed, knowing that it was better to get on board and support the new sheriff, while the others who aligned themselves with Ruth scuttled to their offices to update their resumes.
Selena stepped into her office, not surprised by the drama. In fact, she’d been expecting it, although not so publicly and she’d expected it last week when she’d first arrived and introduced her ideas. Change was always difficult and her idea took the marketing and training efforts in a completely new direction.
Unfortunately, as soon as she got to her office, she found that there were stacks of files with a note on top. “File in the filing room.”
Ruth was making a power play. This was her way to keep Selena busy so that she wouldn’t have time to get things done.
Selena glanced at her schedule, surprised to find a number of new e-mails. As she read the first few messages, she realized that her afternoon meetings had been canceled. There was no longer a meeting with the arts department, the graphics department, or the team that would be coordinating events for the advertising launch. Everything had been canceled.