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new looking, razor-thin laptop sat on the desk on one side and at the far end

were two huge monitors and a tower underneath. A white leather couch

with a coffee table and two matching cube chairs filled up most of the other

side. It looked like a home office combined with a living room, and she

could actually imagine herself working in here and loving it. She could

imagine herself working at New Shooz 2uz and loving it too.

Too bad her job would be short-lived.

Once June Erickson found out it was her old nemesis who’d just gotten

the new marketing role at her company, Arabella imagined she’d be right

out the door. Even if June didn’t fire her, it was well within her right, at

least karma-wise, to make Arabella’s life a real fiery, living hell.

Arabella let out a strangled sigh, shut the glass door, and walked over to

her new desk. She found a company manual, a company policies handbook,

and an actual map, hand-drawn, with a smiley face, by Tina herself.

She didn’t think she’d be sticking around long, and just hoped she could

find another job to replace this one. If her high school friends could see her

now, they’d say that the mighty had fallen fast and fallen hard, but Arabella

knew she’d suck up her pride and not let her ego push her around anymore.

She’d do what she had to do to keep her family afloat.

Summoning up her courage and mentally slipping into her big girl pants,

Arabella opened the company manual first. Whether she was there for a

short time or not, she couldn’t change the past. She was going to do her job

and do it well, because that’s the kind of person she wanted to be in the

present.

Chapter 4

June

June was probably the one person in the world who loved meetings, but

then, their meetings were anything but typical. She loved sharing and

exchanging ideas, the open playground of fresh thoughts and innovative

concepts coming together to create something very real. She’d been