“I’m sensing Carson left out the part of the story where he asked me to table dance,” I said.

Miguel shook his head. “Carson said you’d probably mention that. He said he teased you about how you and Sophie used to go out in college and that you got defensive about his comment, which was intended as a harmless joke.”

“Because sharing stories about my misadventures in my youth and asking me to show some cleavage or lift up my skirt, in front of people I supervise, wasn’t intended to humiliate me?” I asked.

I could feel my temper beginning to heat. When Carson’s plan to diminish me in front of our coworkers had failed, it was clear he had run crying to Miguel to complain about me. At the moment I wasn’t sure which one of them I was more frustrated with.

“He assured me that it wasn’t, and in fact, he didn’t want to say anything at all but came to me because he’s concerned that your inexperience working in an office setting might cause you to mishandle your supervisory responsibilities and land us in a lawsuit,” Miguel said. He looked uncomfortable and it occurred to me that he didn’t want to be having this talk any more than I did. “I feel it’s important that I remind you that you are in this position for a probationary period of three months, at the end of which there’ll be a review.”

That felt like a stone-cold slap. Not gonna lie, it hurt.

“Where is Sophie?” I asked. The connecting door to her office was open, and I could see that the lights were still out.

Miguel glanced away before he answered, “She had an appointment.”

I nodded. “So you decided to do this now with just the two of us.”

“Is that a problem?” he asked. One of his eyebrows ticked up.

“Not at all,” I said. But it was a problem. A big problem.

Up until this moment, I had considered Miguel my friend as much as Sophie was, but now it was becoming clear that the underlying tension I’d felt between them since I arrived did exist. It had something to do with me, and I was now unintentionally caught in a power struggle between husband and wife. It seemed fairly obvious that Miguel had wanted Carson to be creative director while Sophie had pushed to bring me in and Sophie had won.

I would bet my last jelly doughnut that Miguel had only let Sophie offer me the job because he thought I would say no, but instead, I had surprised us all by accepting.

“Carson was your pick for creative director, wasn’t he?” I asked.