Free Billionaire With a Twist by Lila Monroe Page A

angry
cartoon character. If he didn’t care about the company, then
what the hell was I doing at his estate in the first place? “Excuse
me?”
    “You do your job. Don’t
feel like you have to bother me with any details.” He sighed as
if speaking to me was the most tedious thing in the world, and toyed
with his fork. “I don’t think it will have any real
effect anyway.”
    “ Excuse me?” Yep,
steam coming out of my ears. Blood pressure rising. Also, the urge to
kill, that was rising too.
    “Today’s consumers are
savvy,” Hunter said condescendingly. “They’re not
going to fall for a catchy tune and a promise of good behavior from a
corporation.”
    I fumed, unable for several moments to
even form words. My hands were clenched in fists at my side, and I
could feel my stomach roiling. “If you feel that way about my
plan, why’d you even hire me in the first place?”
    “It was the lesser of two evils.”
    I felt like I had been punched in the
stomach. “Gee, thanks.”
    “No offense,” he said, and
for a second, his tone seemed different. Like maybe he actually meant
it. “You’re clearly very good at your job, and very
dedicated. I’ve just never been able to see the point of
advertising. It seems like lying. Either your product’s good,
or it isn’t. Outside forces shouldn’t be able to muddy
the waters.”
    “That’s not true at all!”
I protested. I leaned forward, elbows on the table in defiance of
everything my mother taught me as I let him have it. “Advertising
lets people know about products they might never have heard about,
about issues they might never have considered, about angles they
might never have seen things from. It helps them embrace new
experiences. And that’s just the consumers. A clever ad can
help the little guy get an edge over a big corporation, give small
businesses some crucial and much-needed public visibility, it can
make dreams come true—”
    “But the little guy isn’t
likely to be the one getting the clever ad, is he?” Hunter
interrupted, leaning forward as well, eyes fiery as he slapped his
palm hard on the table.
    Well, I had wanted him to engage with
me.
    “It’s the big corporations
like McDonalds and Geico and, yes, Knox,” Hunter went on, “that
can afford a big fancy think tank. A big team of advisors. The best
research and focus groups. You think the little guy can compete with
that?”
    “They don’t have to.”
I set my chin, determined to make him understand. “Those things
are nice, but they’re not necessary. You only need one good
idea to make a wave in the advertising world, and that idea can come
from anywhere .”
    He raised an eyebrow. “And you
think the next one’s going to come from you, Allison Bartlett.”
    I looked him right in the eye. “Well,
why not?”
    There was silence again as we stared at
each other, challenging, but this time taut as a pulled-tight rope, a
balance beam that we might fall off of if we looked away.
    A distant part of my brain noticed that
both our faces were flushed, and we were both leaning forward. Our
hands almost touching on the table.
    Then Hunter leaned back in his chair,
and the distance yawned between us again, wide and insurmountable.
    “Well, you’re certainly
doing a good job advertising the advertising industry,” he said
with a light laugh. “I suppose I shouldn’t expect
anything different. What did you do before that?”
    Well, at least he was asking questions.
We could probably have a conversation if he kept that up. And that
was all I wanted, wasn’t it? I didn’t need his approval.
Well, not for my life choices, anyway. I only needed it for my final
pitch.
    “What did I do before I joined
the forces of evil?” I said. “I interned with them.
Before that, I was in college. Before that, I studied the complex art
of disappointing my mother in every way possible.”
    I hadn’t meant to say that, but
my sass reflex had popped up to block anything more emotional. I
could