You Gave My $300M Deal to an Intern? Enjoy Bankruptcy

Avery's POV

I'm the top account director at my firm, always on the road, running myself ragged on golf courses and client dinners. Some months I barely make it back to the office at all.

Right after I land a $300 million contract for the company, my boss decides to hand the whole thing over to a new intern.

My manager says I'm wasting company resources, that my attitude's a problem. My boss tells me to give the new hire a chance. The intern thinks she can just take over my job without breaking a sweat.

None of them get it. Without me, this project never gets off the ground.

I don't bother telling them that.

Once the handoff is done, I walk straight into our biggest rival.

And watch them beg me to come back.

"Avery, you think our company's just a joke to you?"

Steve Halloran, our department manager, slams a stack of reports down on the conference table.

Minutes earlier I closed a $300 million deal for this company. I lost sleep over it, drank client after client under the table until my stomach was wrecked, and kept revising the proposal from a hospital bed.

On the drive back I actually thought people would be clapping. Instead, everyone in this room is looking at me like I'm something they scraped off their shoe.

"Steve, what exactly are you getting at?" I press a hand against the ache in my stomach.

"What am I getting at?" He points at the attendance log on the screen. "Take a look. Twenty-two work days this month and you badged in three times. You think this place is a hotel? Come and go whenever you feel like it?"

"And look at your expense reports. Client dinners, cabs, all of it."

"I've been out closing the Brandt deal all month. Samuel Brandt is a nightmare to deal with. You think that contract walks itself through the door if I'm not out there on the golf course with him?" I drop the contract on the table.

"Avery, come on." Dennis Crane, our founder and CEO, finally speaks up, that easy, friendly smile on his face. "We all know how hard you work the clients. But this is a company. A team. You're sitting on our best accounts, pulling the highest salary, and you can't even show up to the office. How's that supposed to look to everyone else?"

The second he stops talking, Kayla Simmons, our newest intern, sitting in the corner, tears up and gets to her feet like she's been waiting for the cue.

"Avery, it's not that anyone's mad at you. It's just, you've got so much on your plate, the rest of us never get a shot at anything."

"Yesterday the Brandt contact called in and you weren't around, so I picked up. He asked a couple of technical questions and I froze. Got chewed out pretty bad. I just think if you spent more time here, showed us the ropes, handed off some of the stuff you don't need to be doing yourself, this whole place would run a lot smoother."

On the surface it sounds like she's blaming herself. Everyone in the room knows exactly what she's really saying: that I hoard the good accounts, never train anyone, and drive clients away.

Sure enough, the room lights up.

"Right, Avery's never even here, who knows what she's actually doing out there."

"Kayla stays until ten every night doing research and prep work and never even gets her name on anything. That's not fair."

"Thinks she can walk all over Steve just because she's been here longer."

The whole team starts murmuring.

It's absurd.

Staying till ten? She's sitting in the AC watching videos on her phone.

Every word of that Brandt file, I wrote myself, at two in the morning.

She can't even format a slide deck right after I've shown her a hundred times, and now she's got the nerve to complain about me?

"Kayla, you don't even understand what this account needs. Handing this to you is a good way to kill the company faster." I don't hold back.

"Avery, that's enough." Steve slams his hand on the table. "She's new. She's got drive, she wants to learn, and you're just tearing into her. You think you're the only one who can do this job? Let me tell you something, we've already put in the groundwork on Brandt. We're in the closing stage now. Doesn't matter who signs it."

I go still. Doesn't matter who signs it?

I look over at Dennis, the man who once begged me to come work for him and promised me the best deal in the industry.

"So what is this, then? What are you actually trying to say?"

He looks away and takes a sip of his coffee. "Avery, you haven't been well lately. I heard you were in the ER on an IV. Here's what we'll do. Brandt goes to Kayla from here on out. Young people need the experience. You take some time off, help out on a few smaller accounts."

Hand it to Kayla?

It clicks all at once. The attendance, the training, none of it was ever the real issue.

Once Brandt closes, the commission alone runs into the hundreds of thousands. Dennis has been hinting for a while now that my bonus and commission are a little too generous, that it might not sit well with everyone else.

I never thought much of it before. Next to a deal worth that much, my cut always seemed fair. But now he'd rather hand it to an intern making next to nothing than keep paying out the director who's actually bringing in the money.

And Steve's resented me for a long time, jealous of an employee who outshines his own boss. He's not about to pass up a chance like this.

"Dennis, Samuel Brandt only deals with me. Swap me out and this whole thing falls apart." I make one last push.