Chapter 340
Belle looked at the stack. It was six inches high and visibly dusty.
“I’m not a secretary,” she scoffed, capping the polish. “I’m a strategist. I deal with big-picture ideas.”
“Strategies require data,” Isolde said. “Input the data, Belle.”
She leaned forward, placing her hands on the edge of the small desk.
𝘛𝗵𝗼𝘶sа𝗻𝖽ѕ 𝗈𝘧 𝘳𝘦а𝖽𝖾𝗋s o𝗇 𝗴𝘢𝗹𝘯о𝘃еls.𝖼𝗈𝗆
“Or is typing too difficult for a double PhD?”
Belle glared at her — eyes full of hatred, but edged with something that looked like fear. She could feel the staff watching.
“Fine,” she spat.
She opened her laptop and began typing with one finger. Click. Pause. Click. It was agonizingly slow.
Isolde walked away and checked the internal company chat on her phone.
Betting Pool: Dave: She lasts until lunch. $20. Sarah: She cries by 2 PM. $50.
Isolde smirked.
At noon, the elevator doors opened.
A delivery team walked in — not wearing the usual food service shirts, but crisp white uniforms bearing the logo of Le Bernardin. They carried silver platters, white tablecloths, and wine buckets.
The lead server surveyed the office of hoodies and jeans. “Lunch for Ms. Escobar? Courtesy of Mr. Lancaster.”
Belle lit up like a Christmas tree. She stood, knocking the entire stack of archive papers off the desk onto the floor.
“Finally,” she announced. “Some civilized food.”
She pointed to the main conference room — Isolde’s strategy room. “Set it up in there.”
The server nodded. The white tablecloth went down, the silver platters followed, and within minutes the scent of Lobster Thermidor — rich, buttery, and aggressively fragrant — saturated the air.
The engineers, eating cold sandwiches at their desks, looked up. Stomachs rumbled. The disparity was cruel.
Belle smiled graciously at the team as she made her way to the conference room. “Sorry, everyone — this is a private lunch. Gray wants to make sure I’m eating well.”
Isolde stepped out of her office.
She took in the silver platters. She took in her team staring at their limp sandwiches. She took in Belle’s self-satisfied expression.
She walked to the conference room door.
“Who authorized a private banquet in a shared workspace?” she asked.
Belle paused, a linen napkin in hand. “Grayson did. He feels bad about the accommodation situation. He wants me to be comfortable.”
Isolde looked at the lobster. It was obscene. It was a bribe dressed in butter sauce.
“This is disrupting productivity,” she said. “And we have a no-strong-odors policy.”
Belle laughed. “It’s lobster, Isolde. Not tuna.”
Isolde reached out and took hold of the edge of the white tablecloth.
“It’s a distraction,” she said.
She looked at the delivery team, who were in the process of uncorking a bottle of sparkling water.
“Pack it up,” Isolde said. “Or I’ll throw it out myself.”
Belle stood over the steaming lobster like a bodyguard, her eyes wide with disbelief.
“You can’t throw this out!” she shrieked. “This cost five hundred dollars! It’s Le Bernardin!”
“I don’t care if it’s manna from heaven,” Isolde said.
.
.