Chapter 8 · The Client's Unexpected Favor

Chapter 8

"Can you do it?" He was waiting for my answer.Charles was watching me as well.My throat had gone dry. "Yes."Alexander didn't say good, and he didn't say no either.He just gave a brief nod. "Then I'll see you in three days."He looked back down at whatever he had been reading on his desk, and the signal couldn't have been clearer. I was free to leave.I stood up and walked toward the door.Just as I reached it, his voice came again. "Ms. Simmons."I turned around."The next time you feel like complaining about a client," he said, his tone perfectly flat, "maybe check the group name before you hit send."And then, just barely, the corner of his mouth lifted.It was such a faint smile that I almost thought I had imagined it, but the slight upward curve stayed with me.It wasn't mocking. Was he entertained by me?No. That couldn't be right.I could feel the heat rising up my neck."There won't be a next time," I said, and then I pushed the door open and stepped out.In the hallway, my legs finally decided to give out.I leaned against the wall for a moment, waiting for my heartbeat to settle back to something normal, but my mind was already racing.I only had three days for a complete overhaul, and this was my last and only chance.Charles came out after me. He stood beside me for a second, then glanced over. "Nervous?""A little," I said honestly."Mr. Ford isn't a bad-tempered person, not really," he replied. "But he holds people to a very high bar. And when he says 'start from scratch,' he means exactly that. He's not looking for you to tweak a few things around the edges."I nodded."This project means a lot to him," Charles went on. "Fordwell Group is doing a full brand upgrade this year. Every piece of external communication needs to be overhauled and unified."This isn't just some run-of-the-mill ad campaign. It's a strategic initiative at the group level, which is why he's been monitoring it so closely."I had always known the project was big, but I had assumed it was strictly a brand department affair.It had never occurred to me that Alexander was personally overseeing things."I have a question," I said.Charles looked at me."All eight rounds of revisions," I began. "Every time the direction shifted. Was that coming from you?"His brow furrowed slightly. "What are you getting at?""What I mean is, there were a few major turns along the way. The tonal shift from V6 to V7, for instance, and the positioning change from V3 to V4."Were those comments coming from you directly in the group chat, or were they being communicated to our team leader offline?"Charles paused to think. "For V6, I said in the group that the direction worked and they just needed to flesh out the details. So when V7 showed up with a completely different approach, I actually thought it was odd at the time."Then Mr. Lane told me your internal team had discussed it and decided you wanted to experiment with a new direction. It seemed fine to me, so I didn't push back."My heart gave a sudden, sharp thud.So Charles hadn't asked for those changes at all. Richard had told him that we wanted to try a new direction.Meanwhile, what Richard had told me was that the client was demanding the shift.He had been running two completely different lines of communication."What about the other one? V3 to V4?" I asked.Charles shook his head. "My feedback on V3 was very straightforward. Just some copy adjustments here and there. The overall direction was solid. Then V4 came in, and I honestly had to do a double take."It was an entirely different concept from the one I had approved. I asked Mr. Lane about it at the time, and he said it came from your designers, that you all felt the original direction was too conservative."

Chapter 8