A Pretty Beach Wish by Polly Babbington (scary books to read TXT) 📗

Fifteen minutes later, she’d finished the presentation, culminating it with the teepee shots and then a short video which she’d put together on her phone - just as Michael had told her about weeks before.

Juliette smiled and sat down as Victoria began her own brief presentation with her projections on the brand and its position within Lellery. Victoria then invited Juliette to stand up for questions from the floor.

Juliette got up and smiled. Inside, her heart was thumping like crazy, her hands were trembling, and she clasped onto the side of the table to steady herself. Ten minutes into the questions she relaxed; there had been a question about how she got the idea for Sparkle Up Your Christmas, a question about the reliability of suppliers for the classic range and a question about how often she updated the vintage assortment - nothing particularly taxing and nothing she couldn't answer.

Just as Victoria was looking around to wrap things up, a tall, gangly, red-haired man in a green bow tie stood up. Juliette smiled down the table at him. He did not smile back.

‘Sorry, but can I get something straight?’ the man said with what appeared to be his whole face working together to look as contentious as he possibly could.

‘Of course, what would you like to know?’ Juliette smiled warmly.

‘You claim that you do all the styling and photos for content etcetera on your own, that’s right, isn’t it? Is that actually true?’ the red-haired man questioned not delivering the query with a smile.

‘That’s correct. I take most of them on my phone now as the camera is so good. But up until last year I had a good camera and a great lense... and I forced myself to read the manual to actually work out how to use it,’ Juliette joked and a few people smiled. The man’s face did not move. He just stared down the table at her aggressively.

‘Really? So, for example, the pictures in the conservatory with the huge Christmas tree - you did that all on your own?’

‘Not quite alone, no.’ Juliette’s mind was racing - she didn’t want to sound like some hokey-cokey, country bumpkin who worked on her own the whole time, but she wanted to be honest. How did she answer this?

‘Right, I thought as much. So, you weren’t quite honest earlier there then about that shoot, were you?’

‘For that one I had an assistant,’ Juliette knew that technically that wasn’t quite true. The assistant had been Sallie, who had, in actual fact, facilitated the whole thing with the use of the Orangery and the Christmas tree.

‘Hmm. So, you just had a place like that spectacular conservatory and the huge Christmas tree, what, at your disposal? All to yourself? You didn’t have stylists and a photographer? You're that good at taking photos, are you?’

Juliette started to get annoyed by this pugnacious, gangly man whose big watery eyes were staring at her furiously as he barked out his questions over the green bowtie sitting at the base of his neck. Juliette leant forward onto the dining table and stared straight back at him.

The man coughed a little bit, somewhat taken aback - he was clearly used, as a senior member of Lellery’s team, to speaking to people in this manner. In a split second, Juliette decided that she was having none of it. She didn’t need to be spoken to rudely nor to have the time of day for the belligerent manner of this man. If one of her children had addressed anyone in this manner they would have been pulled up and right away. She might want Lellery, but frankly, she didn’t actually need it, and her life was far too short for someone like this jumped-up executive to speak to her as if she was an idiot.

‘Sorry, what was your name? You didn’t introduce yourself.’

The gangly, red-haired man coughed and replied, ‘The name is Adrian Liellcock.’

Juliette couldn’t hold back a smirk at the name. ‘Okay, Mr Liellcock, as I said, let me put this to you straight. It might make it a tad clearer for you - I work mostly on A Christmas Sparkle alone. I have people to help for the busy periods and I have no reason to tell you otherwise.’

Adrian Liellcock wasn’t quite ready yet to back down and continued, ‘It’s just quite unbelievable that you came up with this all on your own, and that you work on it alone - the branding, the social media. I mean the podcast alone. I know that the rate card to advertise on there is more than a full page in a broadsheet - that’s indeed if one can get on the show in the first place.’

‘Apologies Mr Liellcock,’ Juliette continued emphasising the ‘k’ at the end. ‘Are you intimating that I am not telling the truth in some way?’

The whole room had gone silent, Victoria stood up and started to gather papers together, but Juliette continued, ‘Only if you are, I am not sure if Lellery is the sort of company A Christmas Sparkle might want to be associated with. And also, just so that you know for future reference, I do not like to be spoken to in that tone. Perhaps you get away with it with other suppliers, but you won’t get away with it with me. I am extremely choosy about who I work with, which is precisely why A Christmas Sparkle and all of the above that I’ve been talking about is doing so well. I treat people as I expect to be treated and believe it to be the core value of my brand.’

And with that Juliette sat down. And so did Adrian Liellcock.

Chapter 39

Victoria ushered Juliette out of the boardroom. ‘Let me just run back and get my handbag. Pop yourself there by the lift and I'll see you in a second.’

Five minutes later, Juliette and Victoria walked out of the big revolving door of the Lellery offices and into the street packed