“I’m sorry I’m late,” Rina blurted as Claire took her seat at the head of the glass conference table. It looked like they had all been waiting for her, and Rina hated to think that she had kept them there for almost an hour when they could have been doing something else with their time.
“Right.” She looked at the person who had spoken, his eyes unwavering as he glared at Rina, not bothering to hide his distaste.
“Can you not do that, Anthony? You have been late more times than I can count, and while we do not exactly condone tardiness, we do not clamp down on people the way you just did. Rina Power is going to be working with us for a year, and even though she will not have direct contact with you after today unless there is an issue with the contract, kindly regard her with the respect she deserves. She had worked her ass out to get to where she is today and I will not you talk down on her, no matter what you heard. Are we clear on that?”
“My apologies,” Anthony muttered, his red hair almost hitting the table as he nodded. “I understand.”
“Rina, have your seat, please.”
She moved to sit on the only empty seat in the room, at one end of the table. It seemed to have been intentionally left empty so everyone could see her when the meeting commenced. Rina knew she was in a foreign space where people held their different opinions about her, and she needed to let them know she couldn’t be easily intimidated, especially after what Anthony did. So she armed herself with her confidence, looking everyone in the eye without an iota of shyness. Rina wasn’t sure Anthony liked that.
“First of all,” Claire started, easily pulling everyone’s attention back to the head of the table. “I want to thank Ms. Powers for accepting to work with us and making the trip to be here. At Pages of Claire, we value the effort of every single person and we do not take them for granted. That is the world you will be joining for the next year, and I encourage you to treat us in the same manner. Secondly, the reason you are here is to bring the members of the board up to speed with the terms of the contract. While we waited for you, we went through it to save time and agreed on most of them. The only one we think you might be pleased to note is the stipulation where you have to wear our products in public.”
“We have decided that as part of the perks of working with you, you would be given the freedom to walk into any of my stores anywhere in the country to shop for free. Of course, there would be a monthly limit set by us, so anytime you have an overspill of purchase, it would be covered by your pay. Is that fine by you?”
“Yes. That works for me.” As long as she knew the limit, Rina didn’t see a reason to purchase more than she would need. And she had a lot of their products already.
“Perfect then!” Claire rubbed her hands together. “We already shared your schedule for the month with you, so we don’t have to go through that again, for the sake of time. If there is any other improvement or adjustment made, we will contact you through your manager. I thought he was going to make the trip with you.”
“He had something to do back home, but he’ll be here for the next shoot.”
Claire nodded and looked around the room. “Does anyone have any questions?”‘
The man dressed casually scooted to the edge of his seat and cleared his throat. “Hello, Ms. Power. It is so nice that you are joining us here. I have been a huge fan of yours for as long as I can remember, and it is so great that I get to style you, and squeal in excitement while doing it. I am the Director of Designs so you will be relating more with me and the Director of Media, of course, as well as Public Relations. I hope you enjoy working here.”
“I’m flattered that a designer at Pages of Claire is my fan,” Rina gushed. “I’m so excited to be here.”
“I have a question.”
Rina turned her attention to Anthony, already expecting him to say something. He didn’t look like the type of person to give up easily, but the interesting thing was that Rina was exactly the same way. She wouldn’t let him walk over her, director or not.
“Why did you leave O. S. N fashion house? Mr. Osteen didn’t refute the allegation of you seducing him or his suddenly realizing your motive and kicking you out of his fashion house? What do you have to say about that?”
“It would seem you already made up your mind on which it is, so nothing I say is going to change that,” Rina replied, not batting an eyelid.
Anthony appeared flustered, but he recovered from it almost immediately. “I wouldn’t be asking that question if I knew exactly what went on, would I? For us to accept you here at Pages of Claire, we would need to be a hundred percent sure that you wouldn’t try to seduce any of our employees, especially the directors since you might want to aim high. No offense meant. But we have a lot of good-looking employees as looks are a very important part of our hiring requirement. Who’s to say you wouldn’t drag some of your bad press over to us?”
“It obviously didn’t matter when you were being employed,” she muttered under her breath, but loud enough for Anthony to hear.
“What?”
“You said looks are a requirement for employment over here. I think it skipped you. Or was it favoritism?”
Anthony’s eyes widened in fury and he whipped his head around to Claire like a baby crying for his mother. “Are you going to let her speak to me in that manner?”
“You started it Anthony,” Claire said in a clipped tone, then looked at Rina. “Anthony is a member of the board of directors, so he should be respected as well.”
But there was no fierceness to her tone, and was that a wink she just directed at Rina?