CHAPTER ONE
“Of course, this latest allegation has been a huge shock to all of us.”
Lacey O’Connor glanced up from her phone as Mitchell Tremain, Head of People and Culture, uttered the bald-faced lie without so much as a twitch.
He wore a blue Ralph Lauren dress shirt with his tie loosened and the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. An image carefully constructed to say professional but accessible, management but still in there getting his hands dirty. Why he bothered in a room full of PR and advertising professionals, she had no idea.
Around the crowded boardroom, people shuffled their feet and looked at their shoes. Lacey returned to tapping out her message to her cousin. Just because she was stuck in here while Mitchell worked his way through the next steps in The Dummies Guide to Handling a Corporate Scandal didn’t mean she couldn’t be productive at the same time.
Next, there’d be the spiel about employee wellbeing and doors being open.
“I hope you all know that Langham & Co is first and foremost about our people.” Mitchell hit the next step right on cue. “If you have anything at all that you need to talk about, my door is always open.”
Unless it was after three on a Friday. Mitchell’s tee-off time was four sharp. Not even the scandal that had kept on giving for six weeks had managed to divert Mitchell away from his standing date at the New York Country Club.
Lacey let the side of her mouth lift. She guessed the guy deserved his respite wherever he could find it. Trying to maintain the facade that Langham & Co was something other than a cesspit of inappropriate behavior had to be exhausting. Her small and perfectly formed team the only exception.
Book publicity may well be seen as the prudish great-aunt in the world of advertising and PR. Still, not a single person in her team had been fired in the recent company clean-out. Another bow in her quiver for promotion. One that was already watertight but should come borne on a silver platter. After all, if there ever was a time for the Executive to add another XY chromosome around their table brimming with middle-aged white men, the time was now.
“I’ll hand it over to Guy for the final agenda item, the Chair’s Update.”
Mitchell took his seat as the CEO stood from his end of the table and moved toward the front of the room. Distressed designer jeans and white shirt completed by a carefully curated five o’clock shadow.
There were two good things Lacey could say about Guy McRoberts. The first was that the man kept his hands to himself. Which, until recent weeks, had been a character trait in short supply in Langham & Co. Second, he knew she was by far the best candidate for the next President of PR and Publicity. Had all but promised the job was hers.
She had even done him the favor of drafting the press release announcing her appointment. One that was long on experience and nonexistent on pedigree and family connections.
There was no silver spoon in her mouth. No mother called Bitsy. No father with numerals after his name subsidizing her “little book job.” No antebellum mansion in the South. No youthful summers at Martha’s, sailing and eating clam chowder.
Just her. And her 150 New York Times Best Sellers.
Lacey hit send on her message to Emelia and put her phone on her lap. The Chair’s message had gotten terser as the weeks had gone by, as the headlines continued and the body count had grown.
Guy cleared his throat and winced as he looked at the piece of paper in his hands. Lacey straightened in her chair. This promised to be interesting.
A knock at the door and Guy’s assistant, Sandra, stuck her head through the gap. “Um, Guy. You’re needed right away.”
Guy looked up from the sheet of paper. “Can it wait a couple of minutes, Sandra? We’re just about to wrap up here.”
Sandra shook her head, eighties spiral perm bouncing. “No. It really can’t.”
“Sorry, guys, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Guy looked resigned as he headed for the door, no doubt braced for more bad news on the other side.
“Who do you think it is this time?” Jeremy from accounts sat a little straighter in his chair.
“No idea.” Lacey’s phone buzzed in her lap, and she reached for it. No point worrying about whatever Guy was dealing with. They’d know when they left the room and found another empty desk. Lacey certainly had a few wishes for whose desk she hoped would be vacant.
The door opened, and a woman walked into the room, Guy shuffling behind her.
Lacey’s phone clattered to the floor, but she didn’t even look to see where it had gone. Her eyes were glued to the tall figure at the front of the room.
Meredith Langham. Their owner. The Chair. Her red hair with its famous asymmetrical cut swung across the shoulders of a navy Versace trench coat. In Lacey’s entire decade at Langham & Co., Meredith hadn’t appeared in person once. Not for funerals. Not to hand out bonuses. Not even to put in a token appearance at the Christmas drinks.
Never.
Meredith Langham was not a Lean In kind of woman. She was a kick the ladder down behind you one. Meredith Langham was one of the reasons it was ten times harder for a woman to get into the executive suite than a man.
There was an audible sucking in of breath and jerking of heads as the rest of the room realized who was taking Guy’s place at the head of the table.
Guy stood diagonally behind the Chair, hands clasped behind him and body ramrod like he was on a parade ground at West Point.
Going by his buggy eyes, he either knew what was coming and was in shock, or else he had no idea what was coming and was bracing himself along with the rest of them.
Lacey’s mind raced through the possibilities as the woman took her time surveying the room as if she was memorizing every face. Was she going to fire Guy? In front of everyone? Would he be the next person added to the body count?
As far as Lacey knew, Guy had never harassed anyone. And she had no intel of him trying to cover anything up either. He’d only been in the job for a year. A year many women in the company had spent trying to determine if he was friend or foe. The consensus had been leaning toward friend, but that wouldn’t mean anything if Ms. Langham was out for blood.
Sell the company? Langham & Co. had been started by her father. According to urban lore, Meredith had bested her three brothers for the role of Chair through a coup that was bloodless in name only. And nothing suggested she was the type of woman who would sell when Langham’s stock prices had hit a record low.
“I apologize for not giving more notice of my appearance.” The woman’s English accent sliced through the charged room. “Please make sure that you note it for the minutes.” She nodded to Sheryl, whose hands had frozen midair above her laptop keyboard.
There were no minutes at these meetings, and Sheryl was a graphic designer who probably didn’t know how to open a Word document. Hopefully, Meredith wouldn’t ask to see the minutes afterward.
“First.” Meredith raised a long bejeweled finger. “Obviously, you’re all now aware that there is no longer any tolerance for people who can’t keep their hands or their misogyny to themselves. But it’s become apparent to me over the last few weeks that stance is not going to be sufficient if I want to salvage anything out of this organizational dumpster fire. So, starting now, there is a strict no fraternization policy. If you are currently fraternizing, you have three options. One. End it. Two. One of you is no longer here in thirty days. Three. Get married. If you don’t, both of you will be clearing your desks.”