Page 5 of The Butterfly Effect
“Goddamn it!” I slammed my fist down against the dark granite of my kitchen countertop. She’d better hope she never saw me again.
I poured a hot cup of coffee and drank it black, letting the bitter taste resonate in my mouth with each sip. The smell was sweet and rich, the way Julianna’s lips had tasted. She had the undeniable taste of honey, and I took another gulp of hot coffee, hoping to drown it out or burn my taste buds. I was torn between wanting to taste every inch of her mouth again and wanting to choke her for leaving.
Thankfully, there would be plenty to distract me from the woman. Monday would be my first day running the new company my dad had purchased, Digital Marketing International. They had no international clients, so I’m not sure why they tacked that on there. Wishful thinking, I assumed. The company would be operating solely under DMI Incorporated going forward.
My dad’s marketing firm in Chicago was a powerhouse, and in the last couple of years, he’d been acquiring smaller agencies around the Midwest. When he found DMI and saw they had a few major accounts coming their way, he made an offer they were all but overly desperate to accept. Now he was making me run it. Making me uproot my life and leave my penthouse and role in Chicago to move to Grand Rapids. So far, the only benefit has been the cheap housing. I was able to get a 8000-square foot mansion on a good amount of land with no neighbors for a fair price, and the quiet privacy away from onlookers was something I didn’t get in Chicago.
I took another long gulp of the coffee in my hands and cursed when it was already almost too cold to drink. On the counter next to me, my phone rang, and I set the mug down firmly before picking it up. “Yes, Dad. What can I do for you at seven in the morning on a Sunday?” He always knew the worst times to call; it was one of his many talents.
“William. I’m just checking in. How have you settled in Grand Rapids? Is the property you found up to standards? I hear they can be hit and miss in that market.” His deep but cross voice was smooth, even over the phone, but the judgement in his tone was never far.
“I have, and it is.” It wasn’t a lie. I had found a house that would suffice just fine. The main floor had a modern, open floor plan with a good-sized kitchen, complete with a large marble island in the middle. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the backside of the house, opening up to a view of Lake Michigan, and a fourteen-foot hand-carved fireplace adorned the wall in the living room. I preferred the hum of the city, but the privacy I got here would be a nice, temporary change of pace. “Thank you for asking, but surely that is not why you’re calling me this early.” I wasn’t in the mood for his small talk.
“I was reviewing the DMI backlog…” he started before I interrupted him.
“At seven in the morning on a Sunday?”
“A successful business never stops working, William. We’ve discussed this. Now, as I was saying, I was reviewing the DMI backlog. They have a couple of small retail chains and a new brewery coming down the pipeline. It’ll be vital to get these accounts locked down. This brewery…” He paused, shuffling papers. “I have the name of it here somewhere.”
“I’m sure I’ll have all the information on the accounts in my office when I arrive tomorrow. I can review it then.” The annoyance was more evident in my voice than I’d intended, and I cursed Julianna again in my head for leaving early. If she hadn’t, I was sure I would be much less frustrated. A pounding began in my left temple, and I pressed against it, moving towards the cabinet that housed a small bottle of ibuprofen for moments exactly like this.
“Well, I’d sure hope so. The point is that you need to get to work quickly and get on these accounts. You’re going to want to assig—”
“Enough, Dad. I know what I need to do. This is not my first rodeo. You’re so quick to doubt me.” I ignored his sigh. If the accounts we expected to receive were worth as much as we hoped, I’d be able to make a lot of money in Michigan. It was worth the change, and I was glad my father had chosen me to run DMI rather than my older brother, Demetri, but he was going to have to trust I knew what to do.
Demetri was the brother our father trusted to always “get shit done,” and I’m sure the only reason he wasn’t the one taking over DMI was because he hadn’t wanted to move out of Chicago. I was determined to prove this acquisition was a successful one, and then when he went for the next one, I wanted it too. But judging by the way my father was up at dawn on a Sunday to review the business I was going to be running, I imagined he was still doubting me.
I promised myself I’d prove them all wrong on this venture and interrupted his mumbling, having stopped listening minutes ago. “I need to let you go. I’ll talk to you soon.” I hung up, and I set the phone roughly on the counter as I scowled. Leaving it there, I walked back to my bedroom and turned the shower on cold before climbing in.
“Katie,no. Now is not the time to go into detail with you. Especially not here.” The office was noisy with the murmur of voices. It wasn’t a large place, and there were no cubicles. Desks faced each other in clusters of four, and in each cluster sat a team. Mine included Grant, the graphic designer, and Sasha, the social media specialist. Katie was the content writer, and I was the project manager. Our little group had the tendency to be a bit quieter in the morning, at least until we had our coffee and got through our emails. It was part of why we worked so well together. Nobody had their best ideas at 8:15 a.m.
“Jules, comeon. You can’t just leave the bar with Mr. Moody Rich Man, take an Uber home from his massive mansion atthree a.m., and then not give meanydetails.” She was whisper-yelling at me as if Grant and Sasha couldn’t hear her and looking at me over her computer. She slowly turned her head side to side the way she always did when she didn’t get her way.
I lowered my voice to a whisper and leaned closer to her. “I slept with him, okay? And it was amazing, but he was anasshole. So… I left. I didn’t even leave him my number, and I’ll probably never see him again. End of story.” If we were at my apartment, I’d fill her in on the way he choked me, literally making me see stars, and how he made my entire body quiver in ways it never had before, but sitting at my desk with my “I hate Mondays” mug and surrounded by colleagues was not the right time or place.
She rolled her big brown eyes at me and sat back with a grunt. “You’re no fun.”
Sasha laughed quietly, but Grant still pretended he wasn’t listening. It wasn’t the first time Katie had asked about my love life at the office. Our team had been together since I’d gotten my promotion. Before that, it had been Sasha, Katie, and me under a different project manager.
I shrugged and looked back at the dual computer screens in front of me, sure she would pull details out of me by the time we left. The words in my emails blurred together, and I couldn’t focus. I kept flashing back to the way William had practically made me beg him, and butterflies fluttered in the pit of my stomach.
When Grant groaned next to me, I looked up to see our director walking towards us. She wore the stern look of a woman who rarely smiled, and her dirty-blonde hair was wrapped in a tight bun on the back of her head. Like every day, she had on a knee-length charcoal-gray skirt and a white button-down shirt. I couldn’t think of a time I had ever seen her in something colorful. She stepped directly in front of me, hardly waving a hello to the rest of my team.
“Got a minute?” she asked. A bile-like mix of anxiety and dislike churned in my stomach. I had no reason for her to get after me, but that hadn’t stopped her before. Sandra and I had never gotten along very well.
“Yeah, sure.” I stood and followed her, looking behind me back at Katie, who gave me a mixed look of pity and encouragement.
Sandra closed her office door behind me and gestured for me to have a seat. She waited to take her own until a few seconds after I sat. I was silent, insistent on her not making me feel uncomfortable. With a small cough, she cleared her throat. “As you’re well aware, our new CEO starts this afternoon. He is going to want to meet all the PMs, and he is going to need someone to show him around. I won’t be able to babysit him all day. I mean, who has time for that?” She mumbled something to herself about how she was a busy woman and busy women didn’t have time to deal with uppity executives. “But you can handle it.”
I wanted to speak up and let her know I had plenty of work to do and didn’t have time to follow around a man who probably just wanted his space. Also, one who would hopefully be able to find his way around. It wasn’t a big office; it wouldn’t take long for him to see it all. “Uh, sure.” I paused for a moment, softening the annoyance in my voice. “So… do you know anything about this guy? Since I have to give up my afternoon and all…”
She looked around as if checking to see if someone was sitting between her and the wall behind her. “All I know is that his dad is probably one of the richest men in Chicago, and he’s basically a marketing mogul. Apparently, his thing is buying smaller companies and then making them really successful.”
“So that’s us then. His next project.” I sat back in my seat and crossed my legs.
“You could say that… but we want to be successful, and he has the perfect track record, so just keep him happy. Whatever it takes. Okay?” She crossed her arms, no longer playing into my gossipy-girlfriends façade.
“Yes,ma’am. Is that all?” I didn’t wait before I stood up and moved towards the door. Sandra simply nodded, watching me as I walked out.
