a small niggling feeling had been bothering me for weeks about Mister Tate’s nephew, Jason, who’d joined the firm just last year after moving down from Virginia. No. Jason didn’t have near my experience with historical ordinances and designs. He was always submitting brash glass and concrete monstrosities better suited for big city tenements than the genteel low-profile look Charleston was desperately trying to save. I was the better designer and I had more experience, and after they saw my designs today, it would be a no-brainer to make me the Senior Associate.
My phone dinged. It was Meredith.
Sorry I missed you this morning. Heard about girl’s night tonight. I’m in. We’ll celebrate your promotion. You’ve got this! HUGS
I took a deep breath and pushed open the door to my office building with confidence.
Chapter Two
Barbara, my friend and Donovan and Tate’s longtime assistant, greeted me formally since she sat right outside both partners’ offices. “I’m afraid Mr. Donovan couldn’t come in today. Martha was taken into the hospital.”
Mr. Donovan’s sweet wife who I absolutely adored had struggled with several cardiac incidents over the last year. “Oh no.” I frowned. “Is she … is it serious?”
“I’m not sure.” Barbara grimaced. “Mr. Tate is doing your review,” she said with forced positivity.
My heart sank further. “Oh. Are you sure?” I whispered. “I mean, I can just wait. We can reschedule.” I’d rather not be promoted today than have to have my review and associate presentation with Mr. Tate.
“He’s already expecting you in his office.”
I swallowed, then blew out a breath to steady myself. “All right. Thanks, Barb. Oh, I forgot, girls night tonight after work?”
She made an exaggerated sad face. “Sorry, Jeff has a thing tonight. Have one for me?”
“Sure thing.” I turned on my heel.
“Josie?” she called, and I turned back. She lowered her voice. “Stick to your guns. You deserve this.”
A smile broke through the tense muscles of my face. “Thank you.”
I arrived at the open doorway of Mr. Tate’s office. His nephew Jason, my co-worker, was in there. Conversation stopped abruptly.
“Am I interrupting?” I asked
Mr. Tate stood. He always wore pastel colored button down shirts tucked into his suit pants, or into pressed and pleated khaki’s on Fridays, and seersucker suits on Sundays for church. Today, he wore a mint green shirt that clashed with his slightly ruddy cheeks and fleshy jowls. “Jason and I were just catching up.”
Jason smirked at me then turned back to his uncle as he stood. “Yeah. So glad you were able to come by and meet the new commissioner,” he said to his uncle. “You two hit it off. See you for our eight a.m. tee off tomorrow?”
“Jason,” I returned, my expression as bland as I could make it in the face of his supercilious smirk.
I shut the door behind him. I didn’t like being in a closed room with Mr. Tate either, but I hated the thought Jason might listen in. I ran through the words I’d just heard. “The commissioner?” I asked.
“The PPS commissioner,” he answered and gestured for me to sit, not at one of the chairs at his desk but in the seating area where he had a low couch. Low couches were the enemy of skirts. I lowered myself gingerly and angled my legs to the side.
Mr. Tate couldn’t help himself, his gaze still slithered down my legs to my shoes and back to my thighs and then quickly to my face.
“The PPS?” I pressed.
“Planning, Preservation, and Sustainability.”
“Oh,” I said. “I haven’t met the new commissioner.” I had adored the woman, Carole, who’d been in the position before. She’d worked for the mayor’s office and the zoning department for thirty years. She and I definitely saw eye-to-eye on curtailing some of the more egregious development plans greedy investors had for our small coastal city.
“He went to school with Jason’s father, my brother. Same fraternity. He’s Jason’s godfather. Good to have contacts in the city government when you’re trying to get things approved, am I right?”
“Sure. Though, there shouldn’t be a problem with any approval since we all stick to the historic and preservation guidelines, right?”
“Of course, of course. But you never know.”
My eyebrows had pinched together, and I made the effort to relax them. Mr. Tate had fingers in a lot of pies, and I had an inkling he was one to err on the cheaper and uglier side of design if it meant a small kick back for him