Breaking the Rules (eBook)

Ania Ray (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
300 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-1599-8 (ISBN)

Infos

How does the 'good girl' become the other woman? Marley Harrow moved to Spain to chase her creative dreams-not her boss. But when Thomas starts giving her the kind of attention she's always wanted, Marley risks everything: her job, her friendship, and her self-respect. Caught between ambition, desire, and shame, Marley must decide if she can live with the damage she's done-or fight to rewrite her own story.

Ania Ray is a mama, author, and CEO of Quill & Cup, a fiercely supportive community of women who are committed to prioritizing progress on their novel and making rest a non-negotiable. When she's not curating curriculum, hosting events, or teaching research-backed mindset tools to empower women, she's hanging out with her family. To fill her cup, catch her hiking, planning her next trip, or enjoying a delicious meal with loved ones. The Cromwell Rules is her debut women's fiction trilogy, where each woman must face the worst of herself before she becomes the hero of her story.

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Marley Harrow has always hated drama: she creates art, not conflict. Abandoning New York City to live a laid-back life in Granada, Spain, Marley is following her compass and ambition, ready to be taken seriously as a senior level creative. And, if she's honest with herself, she also wants what her recently-engaged best friend has: the promotion, the charm, and a man who looks at her the way Logan looks at Lily. There's only one problem: she'd rather die than be the center of attention. When Thomas Elker, her boss, gives her the impression that he might want more than her professional opinion, Marley starts breaking the rules, but she doesn't care. Thomas is giving Marley the attention she craves and Marley can't stop wanting more. What will happen when Marley's attraction causes her moral compass to break? Can Marley find a way to fix what's been broken, forgive herself for the damage she's caused, and maybe even create her own fairy tale ending, too?

Textauszug

Create Art, Not Conflict

Marley cleared her throat. She had been practicing this presentation for months, but if she were ever going to speak as effectively as Lily or Isabel, she had to practice.

She scanned the empty conference room.

“And so you see, ladies and gentlemen, a million clients is not a ridiculous expectation. But a few thousand is all you’re going to get if you choose a different agency to develop and deliver your brand. With us—” She shrugged, letting her lips dip into a smug smile. “—that’s what we call day one.”

Marley tugged at the front hem of her blazer. Maybe she could present today. Ezequiel would be so surprised. She wanted to know that she could do it without him or Margaret, his wife, a high school communications teacher, who’d remind Marley to be mindful of her inflection, tone, rhetorical devices, when to smile and when to look stern. Of course Zeke would still be in charge of intercepting any of the pointed questions their colleagues Maria or Isabel would undoubtedly ask. And he’d still have to save her from any of Brandon’s passive aggressive snark. But she’d deliver the meat of the material. She had to. It was time.

Marley took a deep breath and looked around. Complete silence—just how she liked it.

She grinned and let something like pride settle through her. This must be what Lily felt every day at work at IceStorm, a start-up that was about to IPO thanks to Lily’s grit and vision—which she was not afraid to share with people. Mostly men. At least at Marley’s company, La Agencia del Tigre, the ratio of women to men was more balanced. Still, Marley had to give her friend credit for her gumption: Lily had done it all “right.” That is, she had graduated from MIT, worked hard as a junior engineer and had become lead architect a few years later. But after years of being Lily Cromwell’s best friend, Marley Harrow hadn’t quite developed such socially adept and skillful persuasion talents, which really did have to reveal themselves soon if she were going to survive this next round of cuts and, please dear sweet baby Jesus, hopefully, fingers crossed, become a senior creative. It was why she left New York, after all. Climbing the ranks in a romantic Spanish town was much more Marley Harrow’s speed.

She straightened her back. “Agencia del Tigre is the only agency I’m willing to work for. If I don’t make your company the kind of success that Spain has never seen before, I’ll have to find my way back to New York - and I’m not ready to go back yet.” Marley glanced at her binder. Be personal was underlined, hard-pressed arrows pointing to the words. What was she supposed to say? That her blood rushed when she heard about the Moorish-influenced architecture and teahouses of Granada - and the fact that a quick weekend in Morocco - Africa! - was only a ferry ride away? That this was the exotic adventure she craved because she felt she was the most ordinary, boring human who ever lived? That living in the house with her mother Peggy in Jersey was getting too repetitive and mundane and, as much as Marley loved structure and routine, she knew there had to be more to experience?

And she had been right: that her daily commute took her along cobble-stoned streets and white stone buildings to the sound of the same accordion playing the same version of “Blue Danube” over and over again was equally dependable and made her feel like she had gotten off the hamster wheel - at least enough to make her feel less of a lame-o.

Vulnerability. Ugh. She hated this part. Isabel delivered with such effortless sincerity and “authenticity” - and that reflected in her sales. But it was a skill that Marley desperately needed to learn so that their team’s client, Mariposa - and the team itself - wouldn’t go belly-up in December - only five months away.

She tried out some of the truth: “This past year has been so much fun discovering all that Spain has to offer the marketing world and I won’t let another anniversary go by without doing all that I can to make Tigre a success. Not when I see so much potential with you, Mariposa.” She made sure to roll her r and lighten the a of their client’s company name. She didn’t need Zeke reminding her what a gringa she was.

Her heart sank. What did she have to do to have this Cromwell confidence all the time?

Applause erupted behind her. The hair on her neck stood up and she gripped the top of a chair. Please don’t let it be Karl. Anybody but Karl.

“Bravo,” rumbled a low voice she didn’t recognize. The tension in her shoulders charged through her arm, and she dug her fingernails into the leather. How much had he heard? Why hadn’t it been enough to rehearse in her studio apartment with only Cilantro as her audience?

“It’s nice to see some competence in the company. I wasn’t sure what I had agreed to when Brandon asked if I wanted to switch teams.”

She let go of the chair. What? Competence? In her? Was he serious? Marley kept her head down, but looked up through the curls that she hoped were less frizzy than normal. She blew up into the stray hairs and forced herself to look him in the eye: her least favorite thing to do. Ever.

He was tall. Much taller than she. He was smiling, as though amused by the sight in front of him. His hair was swept back, and silver frames brought out the soft brown of his eyes. She felt something within her squeeze. Try finding this kind of one-on-one attention on a New York City street.

“That was a great start,” he said. “Thomas Elker. It’s nice to officially meet you.”

Marley stared at his extended hand.

“Hi,” she sputtered. She lifted her hand and shook his. It was the best she could do, considering her heart rate was increasing exponentially. “I’m Marley.” She sounded breathless and out of shape. She thought of the rolls tucked in her high-waisted jeans.

How did Lily get people to kiss the back of her hand, like she was some princess?

Because she basically was. Duh.

His grip was strong.

“Small hands,” he said.

She pulled away. “I get that a lot.” Why did people think that was okay to say? It’s not like she felt like she could say, “Wow, what big hands you have” everytime she shook someone’s hand.

He cringed. “That’s probably something that didn’t need to be said.” He rolled his shoulders back. “Sorry. It’s hard to know what’s allowed to say to employees nowadays. I meant to say that it’s impressive that such a strong personality could fit in…”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Do me a favor and stop there,” Marley snapped. She was being more aggressive than she’d otherwise have the courage to be. But the fact that he was standing between her and the doorway was making her claustrophobic, and that was not good for anybody. She suddenly wished it had been Karl who’d walked in. This conversation would be over by now.

He smirked, lifting his hands in mock surrender. Was he always this smug??

The door to the conference room swung open and her colleagues spilled in. Marley spun around, grateful to break off the eye contact. She scooped up the binder that had been waiting for her like a Bible at a pulpit and took a step back to sit in her usual seat: two seats away from the foot of the table and six seats away from the head. It was the perfect place for her to blend in and be invisible. There was a reason she worked with ideas and art. People were a necessary means to an end; otherwise, she could do without all the glib and shallow chit-chat.

She imagined “the group” had traveled together from picking up coffee at Café 43. Isabel would be at the head of the pack with the order of the day, refusing to drink a mocha on a Monday even if the one she had on Friday was out of this world. Marley didn’t know what drink was Tuesday’s special, but she was sure Isabel had let everybody know. She had probably led them to the bulletin board by the copy machines, where Maria scoffed at the sales report, never taking them seriously enough, especially if Isabel was first in sales. Again.

Before long, Karl would remind them that it was time to be on time for their morning meeting. Sheep. They thought having a differently colored stripe here or there would make a difference, but it didn’t keep the wool from their eyes. They so often missed a good idea when it was right in front of them. When she had her own agency one day, things would be different. Marley drew circles in the corner of her binder to join the dark marks that held evidence of such meetings. All talk. No action. It’s why they were all in danger of losing their jobs.

Within the binder were pages of what she’d brainstormed the night before. Brandon had asked the artistic directors for more ideas right before she was going to log off at 5 p.m. She had given her normal shift her all, priding herself on avoiding social calls and social media distractions, so when Brandon asked for more ideas, she had already been squeezed of them and needed to find more. People loved cats. Maybe she could work Cilantro into some mock shots? She wanted so badly to lay down, sleep, and not wake up...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 5.9.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-1599-8 / 9798317815998