Heavy Schemes, Heavy Intimidation, Heavy Inspiration

Alex had expected the culprits to take action, yet she hadn't anticipated a direct confrontation. She took a deep breath and stood up straight, bracing herself for what may come. Not wanting to draw any suspicion, she made a beeline toward the shelves where the water bottles were contained.

As soon as they saw her collecting the bottles, the woman said in a mockingly sweet voice, "Hey. You need help with that? Don't want you to trip and fall again."

"I got it, thanks," Alex stated plainly. "They're sealed, so it's not like it'll make a mess."

"True, but what if a bottle smacks someone in the face? Or worse... knocks off someone's wig! Then you'd get fired on the spot!"

The two snickered at the thought, and Alex clutched the bottles in her arms as she resisted the urge to smack them with one.

"As long as no one is careless enough to leave around something that I can trip over, I don't think I have anything to worry about," Alex said. There was just enough bitterness in her tone for the girl to pick up on the implications, and she scowled in response.

"Tch. Seriously," the woman grumbled.

Seeing how much she was struggling to counter Alex, her man stepped in and said, "Don't get too cocky. Not even your boyfriend can protect you if you fuck up this one."

Knowing this was a trap to confirm their relationship, Alex ignored him and walked past them, heading to where she needed to be. They didn't follow, so she was in the clear for the moment. As for the meeting room, she made it in one piece without any drama or disasters. Who knew something so simple could be considered an accomplishment?

The meeting was an odd mix of old and new, formal and casual, and monochrome and colorful. That's what happens when fashion meets business, especially when you had shareholders who didn't know the first thing about it. The shareholders were easy to pick out because of this, and she prioritized serving them before anyone else. They didn't even bother to acknowledge her existence, focused on what the other business-type person was saying, but that was fine.

As she placed a bottle down beside Edmund, she leaned in to whisper, "Bob and Aerith might be the gossipers. I'll keep an eye on them."

Edmund subtly nodded in response.

Since this wasn't her place to stay, Alex left the room and returned to her desk while the meeting resumed its course. Part of her was anxious about having such important people close by. In general, anything they said had a chance to greatly affect how she worked here. They could move departments around or lay people off to cut back costs. Then again, she trusted people like Nami and Edmund to interject to such things, having the employees' best interests in mind. That helped ease her worries a bit.

At least it would have if she could be left alone at her desk, but a certain couple wasn't going to allow that. Bob and Aerith approached her once again, with Aerith getting up close by slamming her hand on Alex's desk.

"Good job there," Aerith said sarcastically. "But hey. Since Nami is busy, can you help us out with some important stuff?"

Alex raised an eyebrow, skeptical of the request. "I guess? What do you need?"

Bob came in with a stack of papers and slapped them on the desk as he said, "We have a draft proposal that needs to be looked at today. Otherwise, we're going to be behind again."

Well, this was a logical and doable task. Alex had reviewed drafts with Nami before, so she had an idea of what her standards were. Plus, with all the edits and revisions that might need to be done, even if she said yes to something now, the final product could be completely different anyway. No harm in providing input, right? If she had to guess, this was probably a test of her competency.

"Sure, no problem," Alex said as she grabbed the papers to read them over. Everything seemed to be in order at first. Celebrity styles, fashion news, beauty coverage, all of that was fine. The proposal was very detailed on how to approach the sections while keeping audience retention in mind. Alex was actually impressed by how much effort was put into this, and she was almost ready to just hand it back right then and encourage them to go for it. However, her heart sunk when she got to the 'new' ideas, and that's when she realized she'd been duped.

There were three articles: How to dress to impress your boss, how men can embrace their feminine side, and an interview with a drag queen on the dos and don'ts of cross-dressing. To anyone who knew nothing, they were innocent and even well-meaning ideas. To anyone who did know, this was an insult to everything Alex had accomplished until this point.

Anger boiling up her chest, Alex clutched the papers with shaky hands as she stifled, "This is some kind of joke?"

The two avoided eye contact with her, trying to play innocent. Eventually, Aerith replied, "No, of course not! We just felt so... inspired by how far you've come this year. We figured it must be so hard, and there must be so many people like you going through the same problems. Why not help them too?"

Whatever thread of courtesy held Alex back finally snapped. She dropped the papers, pounded her fists on her desk, and stood right up to glare directly at the two.

"HOW DARE YOU!" Alex shouted. "You don't know anything about me! So don't give me that bullshit!"

Bob raised his hands up defensively, shrinking back to look as much of a convincing victim as possible. "Woah, woah! Why are you getting so upset? It's not our fault you never told us anything. You should be glad we were inspired to suggest more open-minded articles."

"Glad? GLAD?! If you really meant something good out of this, you would've talked to me first. I might've explained myself if you showed some goddamn decency. Even if I didn't, it's my business! Not yours!"

"Why are you making this all about you? Do you really need to have everyone talk to you about everything? Talk about a control freak. Bet that's why you slept with-"

Before he could finish, Alex stomped over to Bob and aggressively grabbed him by the collar as she growled, "Don't you fucking dare."

"Hey!" Aerith yelled as loudly as possible to attract the most attention. "Get your hands off of him!"

"Don't worry about it, babe," Bob said with a sly smirk. "We're just having a man-to-man talk. Am I right?"

Alex's eyes went wide in furious anger as her grip on him tightened. Unfortunately for him, Alex was above violence. She had better methods of asserting herself.

"This is a human-to-human talk," Alex said, her volume reduce to a whisper while still fully seething. "I already made it clear I'm a woman. You don't like that? Fine. That's your problem. Mad about who I'm dating? Fine. Be jealous. But know that everything I have, and I mean everything, I've earned from scrapping together with my bare hands. Learn how to climb instead of knocking people down to your level."

With that said, she let go of him, causing him to stumble back a little. All eyes in the office were on them, silently observing but not interfering. As Alex was returning back to normal, she turned around to see that her audience was much larger than she thought. At some point, the meeting had come to an end, resulting in an entire board of people staring at her. Alex's face turned redder than a beet as her panicking mind raced a million miles an hour.

All it took was for Stella Facade to step in and scan the crowd for everyone to disperse and resume their work. The diva approached Alex with a graceful sway in her hips, and Alex swallowed nervously while clutching her hands against her chest.

"Name?" Stella asked, her deep voice resonating deep in Alex's soul.

"A-Alex Rosalind, ma'am."

Stella paused briefly to look up and down Alex's body. "I see. And what do you have to offer the company?"

Alex blinked, confused by the question, but ultimately she decided it was best to be truthful and speak from the heart. "My hard work and dedication, ma'am! As gratitude for a company that has made me into the woman I am today!"

"Gratitude, huh?" Stella smiled. "You're adorable. That fire and passion is admirable, but do keep it in check will you, dear?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Alex bowed to her. "Sorry for the trouble!"

"You're forgiven. Now get back to work."

"Yes, ma'am!"

And that was the end of the exchange. Stella and the shareholders vanished like shooting stars in the sky, and the office

returned to its original state as if nothing had

happened. However, Alex wasn't out of the woods yet. Edmund called Alex to his office, and judging by how his arms were crossed, he was not happy.

"As your boss, I'm disappointed in how you disturbed the workplace with your personal matters and nearly embarrassed us all in front of very important people," Edmund stated sternly. He then softened his expression and uncrossed his arms. "But as your boyfriend, I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself. So your punishment is to not come in tomorrow while I settle the rest of this."

Alex giggled and sneaked in a kiss on the cheek. "If you say so, boss. Those therapy lessons have really made you more expressive."

"It was certainly worth cutting back on my workload to have the spare time."

"I kept telling you that a lot of the stuff you were doing could be done by someone else. Trusting them made everyone's lives easier."

"About that. We've decided to add another fashion editor and hire more assistants to improve the workload balance."

Alex beamed, already excited at the thought. "That's great! Then we don't have to worry about deadlines as much!"

"So will you be applying for the position?" Edmund asked.

Alex froze. A promotion? After what happened? On the other hand, that was exactly what she wanted. And it seemed like Stella was okay with her. Yet will she really aim for it so soon?

What should she do?