Maid for Advertising - Susie Tate Page 0,2

going to convince me that squeezing some token fatties into our outfits will benefit the brand.”

“I’d probably prefer to see a dress on someone healthy than . . . um . . . emaciated. If that’s the question?” I put in, my blood boiling at how much of a dick this guys was.

George rolled his eyes. “Women buy dresses they think will make them look thin. They’ll never buy something after they see it on a bird that looks like the back end of a bus.”

“Women aren’t stupid you know,” I said, my temper rising. “We do realize that it’s the models who are thin and not the clothes creating an optical illusion.”

He waved me off dismissively and snorted his derision. “Doesn’t matter what she thinks anyway,” he said, turning back to Jack. “She’s too young and our target’s not working class, its upper middle.”

I blinked and took a quick step back, my fists bunching at my sides. Luckily I was called by another customer and moved away from George the misogynistic prick. Disappointed that Jack was happy to take on clients like him.

*****

Jack

I watched her move down the bar and my hand tightened so hard on my beer that my knuckles turned white. “George you piece of sh –”

“Hey,” Stella semi-shouted, drawing out the word and inserting herself between me and our current biggest client at the firm. The one we were supposed to be schmoozing and the one I had been about to shake until his teeth rattled.

“Everything good here guys?” Stella smiled at both of us but her eyes flashed me a warning. “Thanks for the beer, Jack. George let me take you to our table. You’ll be more comfortable over there.”

I sighed and clenched my eyes shut for a moment. George’s slurred voice calling Urvi “exotic” and “working class” ran through my mind and I started to feel a little ill. For weeks now I’d been obsessed with this girl. The first time I saw her she’d been in one of the gold dresses the waitresses wore as they moved amongst the tables. I hadn’t been able to speak for a full five minutes. Stella thought I’d had a stroke. Urvi was so beautiful it was almost unreal. And her long, dark hair, which shone under the lights as it fell in sheets down her back stood out amongst the bleached blondes and orange-tinged fake tans of the other girls.

She’d seemed a little shorter than the others and I soon realized that it was because she didn’t wear the sky-high heels they seemed to favour. I had wondered about this until I saw her trip twice on table legs and spill two sets of drinks. Then it was confirmed when she nearly brained me with that cocktail shaker the other night - she was seriously clumsy. They’d probably banned her wearing heels in case they lost too much revenue in spilt alcohol and dry cleaning bills. I assumed that was why she was only ever behind the bar: fewer tables to negotiate. At least now she was in a Dragon’s Den t-shirt and not one of those gold dresses: that had helped me regain the power of speech around her - just about. The only time I’d managed an actual conversation with her I’d probably come across as a self-involved arsehole. Drowning your sorrows after losing a client was pathetic. As was hanging around the Dragon’s Den so I could watch Urvi like a creepy stalker.

Once the crowd at the bar had thinned out that night I had had my chance to be charming. I’m a charming guy, damn it! My whole career is built around my charm. So why, when I really wanted to pull some stellar chat out of the bag, did I have to get too shitfaced to even make much sense? It had been her making me laugh, not the other way around. I’d told the woman of my dreams all about how I’d failed to secure a contract for an ad campaign so huge it would have launched the company into the stratosphere. I didn’t tell her it was my company. Even in my drunken state I knew that would be a mistake.

She’d listened, her eyes filled with sympathy I didn’t deserve – in the cutthroat world of advertising I was as much of a shark as the next man. If I was honest I knew I’d deserved to have that client stolen from under my nose. By the end of