Samiah straightened her shoulders. “I have work to do. You can go back to your desk, or straight to HR. I don’t care. But you need to get out of my office. Now.”

If she wasn’t so pissed, Samiah would have laughed at the shock on her coworker’s face. But this wasn’t a laughing matter. Keighleigh Miller was well on her way to making a career out of taking credit for other people’s work.

“Not this one,” she said as she watched Keighleigh scuttle away from her office.

Having adequately disposed of her nemesis, she returned to her desk and the profusion of projects cluttering her day planner. The minute she sat, Justin Vail’s face popped up on her interoffice messaging app. Samiah, do you mind coming into my office? We need to talk to you.

Well, hell. Keighleigh must have run to HR.

No problem, she replied.

Minutes later, Samiah approached her supervisor’s office, prepared to defend herself. At the same time, she understood that Keighleigh could have taken her words as a physical threat and reported it that way. With Trendsetters’ zero-tolerance policy when it came to office violence and harassment, Samiah may have put her job in jeopardy.

Justin’s office walls had been switched from clear to opaque, something he rarely did. She couldn’t stanch the instant panic that began to spread to her extremities. She entered the office and the panic escalated to mass internal hysteria.

Justin sat behind his desk. Barrington Jacobs, Trendsetters’ CEO, perched against the front of the desk, his arms folded over his chest and feet crossed at the ankles.

She was being fired.

But why would the company’s owner be in on her firing? That was a job for Human Resources.

Samiah cleared her throat. “You wanted to see me?” she asked, trying not to jump to the worst-case scenario.

“We do. Please, sit.” Justin motioned to the empty chairs in front of his desk. She sat, and Barrington took the seat opposite hers.

“We won’t keep you long,” her supervisor started. “I know you’re swamped with finishing up the Leyland Group and Swiss Burger projects—although Grant told me about Keighleigh’s great idea for that one.”

She bit the inside of her cheek.

Deep breaths.

“We have a proposal for you,” Barrington started. “How would you like to head up your own department?”

Samiah’s head snapped back. She blinked several times. If someone was recording her right now, no doubt she’d be a meme on Twitter by the end of the day.

Oh, wait! Thanks to that viral video she was already a meme on Twitter.

Pay attention.

“I would like that very much,” Samiah answered. She looked to Justin. “Are you leaving?”