Raine (Gods of the Fifth Floor #2) - M.V. Ellis Page 0,19

pretty sure I was going to prove to be entirely surplus to proceedings.

“Make yourself useful and sit at the back and take notes, or whatever.”

Well, that made some kind of sense, though I wasn’t sure that my notes would. I had no idea who anybody was, to be able to attribute their comments to them, which was going to be interesting.

Not wanting to defy Raine’s orders, however, I sat at the back of the room, and for the next almost-hour, did my best to take what notes I could. The rest of the time I was in an awestruck stupor as I watched Raine do his... Raine thing.

He was... I didn’t even have the adjective to match the thought at that point in time. He was as impressive as he was odious, that was for sure. I made a mental note to google him later to try to find out more, but from what I was seeing, he was an evil genius—though it wasn’t clear which one of the two characteristics dominated.

He was also hotter than seemed fair, or necessary, and certainly hotter than any boss than I’d ever had before. In fact, hotter than all the bosses I’d had before, put together, with his wavy blond hair pulled back to the nape of his neck, and drawing the eye from his perfect bone structure to the expanse of his broad shoulders.

He took the Creative Department through the briefing process with the passion and callousness of a dictator. It was clear that whatever had happened with Carlisle was of the utmost importance, both to Raine personally and the agency in general, but his approach still seemed a little heavy-handed to me. My ears pricked up even more when he started acting like he owned his employee’s souls and those of their first-born children.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, this is the most important thing that is happening in the agency right now, and for the foreseeable future. You are all to clear your schedules of anything but this and all but the most urgent and important of other jobs. You will do this in conjunction with Nate”—Raine nodded toward his partner—“and the heads of the Traffic Department and Account Management. They will co-ordinate what of your other work absolutely has to be attended to, and what can be shelved until a later date.”

“Other than that, you’re to do whatever it takes to get this done. I don’t care if that means working for days straight without going home, I want creative genius from each of you. And if any of you are thinking of handing over work that you did for the pitch, or the first creative route for this client, don’t. I mean it. Instant dismissal.” Jeez.

“Don’t test me on this—you’ll regret it if you do. Everything you give me needs to be fresh, new, different, and absolutely world class. Anything less and you can pack your desk up without even bothering to show it to me. If you don’t think it’s up to standard, it’s guaranteed that I won’t, either.” What?

He was insane. It was like some kind of parody ad agency version of The Devil Wears Prada. Madness. All of this was delivered as he stalked around the room glaring at people as though he was trying to set them alight with laser beams coming out of his eyes. The whole thing seemed pointless to me. Surely there were better ways to motivate and address a team? Raine Davies clearly didn’t seem to think so.

“All non-essential leave is cancelled. And when I say non-essential, unless you’re going to have a kidney transplant or something equally dramatic, it’s not essential. Likewise, overtime is mandatory. I hope those who have families kissed them goodbye before coming to work this morning, because you’re not going to be seeing them for a long—”

Nate’s voice seemed to come from nowhere. “As well as being financially compensated for the additional hours, you’ll each be given an extra day’s leave on us once this is all over,” He had interrupted Raine’s flow to deliver the good news, and Raine was looking at him as though he was something that just crawled out from under a rock.

I could totally see why some kind of placation was needed, though, and it looked like their good cop, bad cop schtick was a well-worn routine with the two of the them, for obvious reasons. They would probably get sued if they didn’t have someone to walk behind Raine cleaning