To Color Your Life - Chapter 87

Emily looked up at the tall building, the floors of which were stretching into the sky as if trying to reach the space. A month ago, she was standing at the entrance to the publishing house in indecision, feeling worried about how she would be perceived, and whether she would be able to show herself.

A month ago, she almost kicked her own boss out of his job, mistaking him for a maniac stalker. A month ago, she wanted to run away from here on her first day at work, because working in an adult magazine did not even come close to intersecting with her interests.

It was just a month ago.

If she was then told how greatly her life can change in a month, she would have laughed in the face of that person and considered him crazy.

She could not have been more wrong.

People live for years, postponing opportunities to change something in their lives. They wait a day, a month, two, considering that they have enough time for this. After all, there is a long way ahead of them.

Having not yet taken a step, a person begins to doubt whether he will be able to walk so much at all or not. After all, the goal is so far away, and the path to it is filled with obstacles.

And people start to be afraid.

They start to be afraid of something that didn’t even happen. Fear stops them, makes them inert, makes them go with the flow.

The person becomes blind. He wakes up and does something every day, but he doesn’t really do anything. Stopping is just a delayed death.

It sneaks up on you when you sleep, when you eat, when you do what you did yesterday every day. You think you are living, but in reality you are just dying slowly.

Because real life is hidden there behind your fear.

Only there you can find out what you are really capable of. Only there, behind your fear, can you understand who you really are.

“Are you feeling worried?” Justin squeezed Emily’s hand.

“To say that I am worried would be to say absolutely nothing. I’m scared to hell. It seems a little more, and I will vomit,” the girl closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

The man put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her to him, “When you kicked me out of here that time, you were much more confident, although there was no reason for this. Now you have every reason not only to enter this building with your head held high, but also to send anyone, who says anything against you, straight to hell. Am I wrong?”

The boss’s trademark smile a la I-am-the-coolest-here-and-I-don’t-care-about-the-opinion-of-others did the trick. Emily smiled back and kissed the man on the cheek, “You’re right. It’s just that I have not yet fully understood what I did yesterday.”

“Oh, that was epic. My grandfather called me in the evening while you were shooting, and for half an hour he had lectured me why you still don’t have the name Evans in your passport,” Justin scratched his chin thoughtfully, “You know, sometimes I think he has an obsession. I wonder why?”

The man looked at Emily, narrowing his eyes mysteriously.

“Your look suggests that you know something. And yet you are asking me?”

Justin shrugged, “Who knows. Maybe I know, maybe I don’t. So, are we going?”

Emily shook her head. Oh, those family secrets. This whole thing certainly had her granny involved in it. When it’s all over, she will need to ask her carefully about the former boyfriend,  Arthur Pitcher. The girl was sure that the boss’s grandfather in his youth was as shameless as his grandson is now. However, the grandfather was shameless even now. After all, genes are powerful.

“Come on,” she squeezed the man’s hand tightly and was the first to pull him forward. With each step that brought them closer to the entrance to the publishing house, her fear began to fade, giving way to confidence and determination.

Come on, Hayes. For this you gave up a very important thing. It’s worth the risk.

“I believe in you. You can do anything,” Justin whispered in her ear as the glass doors slid open in front of them and the couple stepped inside.

“Finally! Where have you been?” Catherine Joyce swooped in as soon as they crossed the threshold of the building.

“Relax, blonde. The bosses are not late, they are holding off a little,” Justin commented.

Emily mentally rolled her eyes. If these bosses had not been impatient to satisfy their sexual needs twice in a row, instead of going to the office, they would have been here an hour and a half ago.

Evans was not bothered at all. The man looked obscenely pleased. Hayes even thought that if he had offered him now to retire with her in his office or to speak to shareholders, Justin would have chosen the former without hesitation.

Catherine wrinkled her nose. “You’re not my boss anymore, Evans. Now there are more important people than you,” she grabbed Emily by the elbow, “Come on dear. Our stylist has already bitten all his nails while he was waiting for you.”

Justin waved his hand, letting the girl and the disgruntled blonde go ahead, and followed them.

The conference hall, in which the meeting was held, accommodated about fifty people. They were sitting at two rows of semicircular tables. On the opposite wall from the tables, there was a small dais and a podium for the speaker. On the wall, a projector displayed presentation slides.

Justin walked into the hall with a confident gait, as if he were a rock star, at the concert of which a crowd of fans had gathered. Unlike most imposing men, dressed in formal business suits, Evans was dressed in plain jeans, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his hair was carelessly tousled. The impression was that the man did not really think about what to wear, so he just decided to put on the first thing that came to hand.

But this in no way prevented him from feeling like the king of the party, the rules of which he established himself.

“I see you decided to have some fun in the very end?” Christian Denver walked over to Justin and held out his hand.

“Why not? This is a presentation from Pharaoh magazine, not some boring scientific publication.” Evans smiled and shook the man’s hand. From the outside, it looked like a polite greeting from the two main opponents, and only these two knew that even such a trifle was the first fight before the main battle.

Just as two boxers meet the day before the fight and try to suppress each other with menacing glares, this handshake was a show of strength. Only in the upcoming battle will they use words, not fists.

Denver glanced across the hall, “Still, a crowd of men and girls in such revealing outfits is not the most appropriate setting for such a meeting.”

Maybe he was right in some way, but why should Justin care about his opinion? So, he didn’t.

“If you took the trouble to study us better, you would understand that all these people are the most popular models in our department. Thanks to them, each issue of the magazine is sold in hundreds of thousands of copies. As for their clothes…”

Evans winked at the girl standing nearby, which made her take an even more relaxed position, as if she had received permission from a priest of the highest caste to take for herself a piece of this Egyptian temple, which was turned into a conference room during the meeting.

Usually austere and businesslike premises were now stylized as a ritual hall. Along the perimeter of the room were men and women dressed in costumes depicting ancient Egyptian gods. The men were standing with spears, the women were wearing long white tunics. A light, unobtrusive melody was playing, scented candles were burning.

This was very different from what shareholders are used to seeing at such meetings. Therefore, many of them huddled together in groups of two or three and talked quietly among themselves, discussing the non-standard design of the meeting.

Evans chuckled in satisfaction. These snobs, sitting in the front row with the largest stakes, were so covered with the dust of their blinkered views and prejudice that they needed a good shake. Division XXX of the Pharaoh Magazine is the best place to do this.

“When the pharaoh himself would arrive, the people of Egypt would greet him in such clothes. You are honored to witness such a momentous event, Denver.”

“You don’t look much like Pharaoh in these jeans, Evans. Why did you make your people play this performance, but you yourself didn’t even bother to match the theme?” asked Christian, not hiding the malice in his voice.

Justin brushed an invisible speck of dust off his shoulder, “Who said it was me?” He turned his back on the man and walked toward the stage, talking to him as he kept walking, “Take your seat, Mr. Denver.. We are starting the meeting.”