Page 9 of Not As Advertised

With my seat claimed, all I had to do was wait for everyone else to file in. As people took their seats, there was a lot less chatter than I was used to from other meetings. The junior teams’ meetings downstairs were full of chatter and not-so-whispered gossip.

I had no idea if this was normal with the most senior teams. I suspected everyone was just nervous about the new boss.

Aiden came into the room a full five minutes early. I didn’t glance up from my notebook to see his expression at my seating choice.

He won’t even care where you sit, my inner voice chimed in.He has way more important things to think about than what you’re doing with your day.

When the last chair was filled at 9:59 a.m., Aiden cleared his throat and stood. No one spoke. The nervous anticipation in the room had my pulse thudding my ears.

Grateful that my only role here was to take the minutes, I noted the time in my notebook. I was just as interested as anyone in the room, maybe more because of how our interactions had gone, about what Aiden was going to be like as a leader.

The group was not kept in suspense.

“Good morning. Thank you, everyone, for being on time. I’ve met most of you informally over the past couple of days. But for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Aiden Sullivan, and I’ve been brought on as the new VP of marketing. I know many of you have been promoted into new roles, and we are all in quite an adjustment period. I want you to know that everyone in this room has been selected personally by me, based on your history here at Appeal, as well as your annual performance reviews.”

He was magnetic in how confidently he spoke. His deep voice resonated throughout the room, making me shiver with its low timbre.

Glancing around to see if he had the same effect on anyone else in the room, I saw a few members of the various teams looking at him appraisingly. Even as clueless as I was in the dating world, I saw that more than a few women and men found him attractive.

It went beyond his looks, though. There was no denying how appealing he was in his effortless ability to command everyone’s attention.

A wave of discomfort flowed through me. Why should I care if other people found him appealing? He was objectively hot. Iwas his EA, nothing more. It shouldn’t bother me. Even if I could admit that I hadn’t fully shaken my physical attraction to him, regardless of his exacting standards, that made me question my competence for this job.

Mentally shaking myself, I forced my attention back to the task at hand. Phillip Kane, the senior head of accounting, was laying out the current financials and future projections for Aiden. He nodded along as Phillip spoke about department budgets. Phillip’s assistant, Anne Sun, made notes and then passed documents to him as he spoke. Aiden looked like this was all old news to him, so I took a quick look around the room again.

As Phillip presented some pretty hardline department budgets, I noted how the various heads were taking the news. Sheryl Mann from print media was pissed, her lips tight and losing color. Likely, she had been expecting more, but even I knew Appealwas deep-diving into digital ads these days. Ethan Wilde, head of the digital arts team, looked confident and unsurprised—he must have figured Phillip, who was conservative by nature, would try to impress the new boss with his fiscal due diligence. Jean Pascal, one of the main copy editors, was totally disinterested in the update, maybe because he knew their budget was protected.

Phillip had nearly wrapped up his portion of the meeting when Aiden asked him about advertising subsidies for nonprofits. Phillip waved that away as if it were irrelevant. Traditionally, Appealchased mid- to larger-sized corporate contracts, which were guaranteed income streams.

“Uh, well, Aiden, Appealhasn’t ventured very far into investigating what state and federal grants are available to the NGOs at this point, but…”

Aiden cut him off. Shuffling through his papers, he pulled out a list.

“Interesting, Phillip, because it says here in last quarter’s financial rundown that we’d made four different proposals to nonprofits to increase their public presence. Not only that, but we’re forecasting a 15 percent uptick in revenue in this area for the current fiscal year due to the extra goodwill exposure provided in subsidizing these nonprofit’s campaigns. That is nothing short of remarkable. How are they not more of a budget focus?”

Phillip’s eyes widened. Anne discreetly passed a note over to Phillip. Looking down, he tried to recover from the situation.

“Oh yes, that’s right, I did have a micro team investigating the nonprofit section, mostly for tax benefits, you see. It’s very unlikely to be a viable path to pursue…”

Anne’s eyes closed, and she took a small breath, which did not go unnoticed by Aiden.

“Ms. Sun, it seems like you might have something to add. Please do.” His tone left no room for argument as Phillip floundered.

“Mr. Sullivan, there’s nothing for her to add, as an assistant…”

Aiden wasn’t having it. Ignoring Phillip, he focused solely on Anne.

“Anne, please share any additional information you have on this topic.”

Others around the table shifted nervously.

Anne cleared her throat. “Well, Mr. Sullivan…”

“Aiden, please.”

“Right, Aiden. Well, you see, Grace and I”—she nodded to another member of the accounting team—“saw that many of the larger corporations had allocated more funds to partnering up with nonprofits. We wanted to see if there were true partnerships being formed or if it was only lip service to please the public.”

Anne launched into an eloquent and succinct explanation of how Appealcould offer several plans to help nonprofits to incentivize corporate partnerships and promote industry change while simultaneously building Appeal’s own brand.

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