I’m not fooling anyone. Monica has to come to the front of the room to help me load the correct images, and it’s a complete mess. I can feel the anger emanating off Denise, who is doing her best to placate the Cuddles people while I attempt to salvage the meeting.

It takes twenty minutes, but I finally get the right image on the screen. Okay, fine—it was a bit of a snafu, but the important thing is, I’ve got a great website for their product. That’s all that matters.

“I don’t know, Abby…” Cofield is saying.

Jesus Christ, now what?

“Yes?” I say, as calmly as possible.

“I don’t love that slogan.” He shakes his head. “Cuddles Baby Food—nothing is more important than your baby’s tummy.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Aside from the fact that it’s terrible. I couldn’t come up with anything better.

“It’s clunky,” he says.

“Clunky?”

“I want something that rolls off the tongue,” he says. “You know?”

Denise is giving me the stink eye from across the room. I wrack my brain, trying to remember the list of slogans I had saved on my computer. There are others they might like better. If only I could remember…

“How about,” Monica says suddenly, “Cuddles Baby Food—because your baby deserves the best.”

The slogan rings a bell. It’s from the list of rejects from last night.

Cofield turns to stare at the woman who’s been serving him coffee and helping with the projector. A slow smile curls across his lips. “Actually, I like that.”

Monica beams. “Really?”

“Yeah!” He nods vigorously. “It’s clean, simple… and it guilt trips the parents into paying a little more for our baby food.” He leans over to grin at Denise. “This girl here is a gem.”

“Well, I can’t take credit,” Monica says quickly. “It was on Abby’s list. She’s really the one who came up with it.”

“Yes, but you’re the one who knew it was right for us,” Cofield says. “That’s half the battle.”

“Very true.” Denise smiles warmly at my assistant. “You know, Monica is one of our rising stars here at Stewart.”

She… is?

The meeting is salvaged, but I don’t feel good about any of it. Cofield was supposed to love my presentation. Instead, somehow Monica stole the spotlight with my slogan. When the meeting ends, the people from Cuddles are chatting her up like she’s the one in charge. Meanwhile, Denise grabs me by the arm so hard, it feels like she might yank it out of the socket.

“What was that, Abigail?” she hisses in my ear so the Cuddles people can’t hear us. “You almost blew it. Are you on drugs or something?”

“It was an honest mistake,” I mumble.

Her ice-blue eyes meet mine. “People get fired over honest mistakes.”

“It all worked out okay.”