Page 56 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

I take notes. Hell says a bunch of corporate sounding words that don’t have a ton of meaning. Someone from Finance talks for considerably longer than necessary—truly something that could have been a quick email after the meeting—and then my boss’s eyes are suddenly on me to distribute the printouts.

“We’re still soft here,” Jefferey from Sales says, pointing to the middle of the chart as I pass around the copies.

I look up to see my numbers on the screen. Not literally. Just the corrections I made Friday morning. I feel an embarrassing pulse of satisfaction at how the enormous artificial spike that made everyone panic last week has disappeared.

Hell nods. “That’s what we need to solve.”

They start talking about pulling one of the promotions forward again, but I know that that won’t work because another seasonal line follows on the tails of this one, so it would inflate the forecast again.

“Merryweather?”

I look up to see Hell tapping her perfectly black manicured nail on the tabletop, and Phillip’s gaze on me.

“What do you think?” the CEO asks.

For one horrible second, I assume I missed a question.

“About what, sir?”

“The timing.”

Everyone is looking at me, and I curse the day I became this dramatic, but it feels so embarrassing and my brain responds by immediately forgetting every intelligent thought I have ever had.

“If we pull it forward?”

Hell nods.

“I wouldn’t.”

The answer comes out before I can make it more diplomatic, and Jefferey from Sales shifts in his chair.

I clear my throat. “I mean, you can. Obviously.”

Excellent contribution, Merryweather.

“But?” Phillip says, and I think I see the corner of his lip quirk up, and his eyes suddenly start shining. And oh god, is he flirting with me?

I turn back to the screen, then take a step closer to make sure what I’m looking at is accurate.

“But we’re only fixing this week if we do that. The candy corn promotion was already moved, which is why the forecast was wrong in the first place. If we move this one forward, too, we’re stacking them.”

I reach for the promotional calendar in front of Jefferey from Sales and turn it so everyone can see, like a kindergarten teacher reading a picture book to her students.

“Here. We’d be asking the same retailers to support both within, what, ten days?”

Elizabeth leans forward. “Nine.”

“Right. So we might improve on this number, but we’re probably borrowing it from here.”

I point to the later week. And then the conversation moves on.

That’s it.

Nobody applauds. Phillip doesn’t stand on the table and announce that I’ve saved the chocolate industry. Within two minutes, Finance has put another slide on the screen and Hell is asking about something completely different.

I pick up my pen again and stand against the wall, then look around to see Phillip watching me. Something warm and restless has taken up residence beneath my ribs, and it stays there for the rest of the meeting. I keep looking at the screen instead of my notes, and I become so immersed in the conversation that I dare to answer a few questions without being asked.

By the time we leave an hour later, I have four pages of notes, six follow-ups for Jefferey from Sales, and the peculiar feeling that the hour went faster than most meetings half its length.