Tongue Tied

Chapter 20

I wanted to groan out loud but that would've sent Sean right back out the door. He had a determined frown on his face and he looked like he wasn't about to waste his time on anything that wasn't completely worth it. I immediately started biting back self-consciousness, shaking his hand and greeting him with my first fake smile of the day.

"Mr. Ashworth." I pretended to be thrilled to see him. "I'm so glad you could make it."

But was I? I had been under the impression that he would be video chatting us, not meeting in person. And since he was apparently leaving the country tomorrow, I knew I was going to be fighting a probable time crunch with his schedule today.

Sean nodded, his handshake firm. "Let's make this quick, Miss Laughlin. I've got a plane to catch to New York in an hour."

Exactly. Time crunch. Great. I wasn't going to get even a half hour to play with in that case.

I asked him to please have a seat while Michelle and I rushed to put the final things in place. The projector wasn't necessary anymore since Sean was here and I could just play the slideshows on my laptop for him. Michelle looked like she felt she'd wasted her time setting things up. I couldn't blame her. It would've been nice if someone from Rutherford Laurence had called ahead of time so we wouldn't be surprised about Sean's physical attendance. I had a feeling Margaret refrained from letting us know to get back at Michelle for her montage of calls.

"Mr. Ashworth." I gestured to the poster boards displayed to my left. "During our last meeting you told me to trash the commercial idea and redesign the posters with better artwork," I reminded him.

"And you had a week to impress me and you didn't, Miss Laughlin," he said, leaning back in the leather chair and crossing his arms while he inappropriately propped his feet up on the meeting table.

I remembered Sean saying he would have Margaret call me with his notes on the presentation. That never happened. Not that I was surprised though. Rutherford Laurence was beginning to grate on my nerves with their unprofessionalism and inability to keep their word.

"I didn't have a chance. You immediately jumped on Harper Media's pitch," I told him, trying and failing to hide the frustration in my tone. "Your secretary never called me with those notes either. And you didn't attend our second meeting. I don't appreciate being left hanging."

Sean's brows pulled together and I noticed his face redden a bit. I almost thought he was going to start cussing but he kept quiet, simply nodding in response. I was thoroughly surprised.

"Anyway." I directed his attention back to the poster boards. "As you can see, we completely redid the boards. There's a lot more detail in the designs but not too much to make it unappealing or confusing."

He tapped his chin with his pointer finger, eyes scanning over the images. "It's better."

Better? That's all he could say? Shelby, the graphic design team, and I had all worked our asses off on his stupid posters and all he could say was they're better?

"They're considerably improved," I challenged with the politest voice I could muster. I would rather have started yelling at him about how much effort I'd put into it. He obviously didn't appreciate my work, not that I was expecting any different.

Sean shrugged, waving his hand in a circular motion for me to continue. I tried to remind myself that I was supposed to be impressing the guy. I was supposed to be saving my job with this pitch. I was supposed to act like a happy little clam who wanted to cater to his every advertising desire. But I wasn't. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hold back my cursing.