Many thanks to:

jtbwriter, xBrokenMindedx, Mirlo, TwighlightSnowStar, Emily, Chibi Binasu-chan and Clearysane

for your reviews. All advice was very helpful, and hopefully all questions will be answered sometime in the (relative) future!

Onto the interesting bit:

Monday had come far too soon, Christine mused, shifting restlessly in the elevator up to Destler's office. The weekend had been good for her and spending the time with Meg had eased her fury at the man. Of course, there was still a heavy dose of resentment there but she had promised to keep her anger at bay this time. There was no point in giving him the satisfaction of knowing he could push her buttons. The best thing she could do was turn up, act professional and hope that Destler wouldn't be too…Destler like. Which as a lot to ask for, she admitted privately.

She showed her pass to the secretary, who led her into Destler's office. He was talking with an associative and would only be a minute, the secretary explained, she was to take a seat and wait for him presently. Christine scowled somewhat at the women's retreating back – what else was she going to do in his office? Strip naked and starting dancing on the man's desk? She certainly wasn't going to rifle through his desk; she wasn't completely suicidal, if that's what the woman thought.

She sat down on one of the chairs in front of Destler's desk, getting out her pad and pens. Over the weekend she had thought about various designs, producing many rough copies to bring along to the meet but she had a feeling that he would want a design of his own creation. It was a big job, not only because of who she was doing it for. Erik Destler wanted a new design for his company – one to put on business cards, letterheads and in the foyer of his building but he also wanted several designs for advertising purposes. Personally, Christine couldn't understand what was wrong with his old design – it wasn't as if he was losing profits, either, as much as she understood, business was good.

However, she suspected that no-one actually understood Erik Destler. Checking her watch, she saw that ten minutes had gone by. She became impatient – it was bad enough that she had to come and face him after being blackmailed into coming back, but even worse was waiting for the confrontation that was sure to come. Fifteen minutes went, and then twenty and she became convinced that there was no meeting with an associative and he was just making her wait because he was a miserable, egotistical, sadistic bastard.

It was only when she decided that enough was enough that he appeared. "Ah, Miss Day. I hope you haven't been waiting too long."

Christine withheld the comment that was on the tip of the tongue and merely turned to him in her seat. "Of course not, Mr. Destler."

There was no response from him as he shut the door and walked to his desk, but she got the vague impression he was disappointed he didn't get the reaction he had anticipated. That, she felt, was a definite point in her corner. She had come here to be professional, to do her job and so far she had managed to withhold her temper. However, his next comment made it very apparent that he was not going to make it easy for her.

"I'm delighted that you decided to come back and work for me," he said, something akin to amusement on his face, "whatever made you change your mind?"

'Your delightful manners.' she thought sarcastically. "I was hired to do a job," she said eventually, remembering his words, "and I've come back to complete that job."

"I'm glad," he said, but there was a patronising note to his voice, "because I heard you weren't exactly happy about coming back. In fact, I think I was told to – how did you put it? – get stuffed. I'm not entirely sure how I should go about doing that, but the sentiment is clear, anyhow."

Christine had the sudden thought that perhaps being fired wasn't really the end of the world. In fact, she rather thought that being fired was entirely worth it if she could only wipe that smug smirk off Destler's face. "I'm glad," she said, in a voice that was controlled, "at least we both know where we stand in the situation."

The smirk didn't entirely disappear but it lost most of its sting. "How about we get down to business, Miss Day."

X X X

"I don't like it."

Christine sighed despairingly – it was either that, or give in to her temptation and beat Destler to death with his own stapler. She had been here for close on two and a half hours and each design he had seen he had said the exact same thing: I don't like it.She was close to being convinced that he wouldn't like anything. Each of her designs she had brought had something wrong with them, and he seemed to delight in pointing out each and every mistake in them. That in itself was fine; she had to create designs to the client's desires, not what she herself thought would work.

However, she had spent the last forty-minutes attempting to draw designs off the top of her head, only to have them ripped to pieces by the man. She wouldn't have been quite so frustrated if the man could simply tell her what he wanted. Every client had a picture of what they wanted in their minds – it was her job to materalise that on paper. Christine figured one of two things were at fault here: one, that he didn't actually have any idea of what he really wanted, or two, he had an excellent idea and he was simply just playing with her to further punish her for telling him off and walking out on him.

"Are you even listening to me?" Destler barked at her.

She was rudely brought back to reality. "I'm attempting," she said patiently, "but you're not making it particularly easy for me. Hearing 'I don't like it' constantly isn't exactly incentive to listen to you, Mr. Destler."

"I thought you were supposed to be good at your job."

"I am good at my job," she retorted, and she had to swallow the rest of what she had been about to say (when my clients aren't being total assholes). "Alright, Mr. Destler. Let's go through this again. What would you like for your company?"

"You're the designer," he said irritability, "aren't you supposed to be the one to come up with bright ideas?"

"Every bright idea I come up with," she said slowly, reminding herself that Destler was a client, "you don't like. So instead of us wasting time, how about you at least try to tell me what you want?"

The man pushed his chair away from the desk and stood up abruptly, making his way to the window. It was at that point she knew why she was getting no-where with a man that always knew what he wanted – he had something else on his mind. "Perhaps," she stopped suddenly, realising that she was attempting to be nice to a man who had blackmailed her, "perhaps we should attempt this tomorrow?"

"We can do it now."

Well, so much for her idea of being nice. "Alright then, we'll do it now. Have you got anything in mind?"

"Something formal," he said, waving a hand distractedly in her direction, "nothing too exceedingly bright or ridiculous."

Which, she thought, withholding the sigh, really didn't help her that much. "What about photography? Or do you just want some sort of drawn design?"

There was no answer and he had her back to him. Grounding her teeth she packed up her pad and drawing tools into her side bag. It was a ridiculous waste of time, especially if he wasn't even going to listen to her. "Obviously you've got other matters on your mind, Mr. Destler, so I'm going to go home and make up some designs. I'll come back in a few days and hopefully we'll be more productive."

He turned from the window. "I said: we do it now."

Christine steeled herself for the argument to come. "We're not getting anything done presently. I think a break will be helpful. It'll give you some time to really think about what you want –"

"I want you to do your job."

"At least we're on the same level," she retorted, "I'd like to do my job too, but you're not making it particularly easy for me. I think up several image designs, as well as some ideas for advertising, and you shoot them all down. I ask you to tell me what you want and you use vague words that could mean anything!"Destler merely continued looking at her expectantly and she sighed in frustration, sitting back down on the seat and getting her tools out once more. "Got any bright ideas?" she said, thoroughly annoyed with him at this point.

Destler had turned around again, the smug smile on his face only apparent to the scenery he was viewing. That was probably a good thing anyway, seeing it would have pushed Christine over the edge and out the door. "We will concentrate on the image, first and foremost, I think. The advertising designs can come later."

"Alright, then." she conceded, just happy he had finally made a decision about something.

"But, as you said, I've got other things on my mind at the moment that must take precedence. We can continue this at a later date; I will get my secretary to ring you with a time and day."

Destler could picture the look of outrage on her face which turned his smug smile into one of outright amusement. He could hear her muttering curses under her breath as she packed up her tools once more. Well, she could be angry but there wasn't much she could particularly do about it. It was time she learnt that he was in control of everything – he decided what happened and when. Christine disappeared out of his office quickly after that, the door shutting louder than usual as she did so. He turned back to his desk, his fun was over and he had more pressing things to do.

Christine's anger at Destler's power-play dissipated somewhat as she rode back down on the elevator, though she half-suspected that was simply because she knew she wouldn't have to deal with him for at least a couple of days or so. She would have the luxury of making up a few designs without his disapproving gaze on her as she did so. The fact that he would probably shred them the moment he saw them was irrelevant.

That was definitely worth the relief of being away from a poisonous man like Erik Destler. Because he was poisonous, Christine's temper had always been in check before she had met the man, and now it seemed as though all she could feel was angry. He was a miserable, angry person who had decided that because he couldn't be happy, no-one else should be either. It was taxing, dealing with him, she discovered, leaning against one of the elevator walls.

A sort of weariness fell upon her as she exited the elevator, passing a man who was waiting to go up. She had just given her pass back and was making for the door when a voice stopped her.

"Christine!"

Curiously she turned, noticing that it was the man she had passed who was calling her. She hadn't given him a second glance, too wrapped up in her thoughts, though he was smiling and waving and walking towards her. He got closer and his face seemed oddly familiar to her, though she couldn't quite place…

"Oh my – Richard?" he laughed, dropping his suitcase and sweeping her into a bear hug. Christine laughed, hugging him back before stepping back to fully survey the boy who had turned into a man – she had been convinced that she would never see him again. "Look at you! You're even taller than before and I didn't think that was possible!" He was very tall; at least over six foot, but his light brown hair and blue eyes hadn't changed.

"Just look at you," he answered, a grin on his face, "you're just as short as before. Not that I thought that would ever change."

Despite the insult, she couldn't help but laugh. "Well, at least your abominable sense of humour hasn't changed."

"I can't believe it's you. After I heard about your father's death, I went looking but I couldn't find you. I'm sorry, by the way," he added, his eyes downcast, "about his death. And that I didn't come to the funeral."

"If you had known," she said softly, "I know you would have. I tried to find you and your family to ask you all to come…but it seems my luck was as good as yours."

"Hey," he said, suddenly, "I have a meeting upstairs, but did you want to get together for lunch afterwards? The meeting only goes for half an hour. We can catch up; have a bite – how about it?"

Even if Christine hadn't actually wanted to go have lunch with him, she couldn't have said no to his enthusiastic face. "That sounds great, Richard," she smiled at him, "I'll meet you outside in half an hour."

My bribe for reviews this time is e-kit kats. I ate one as I wrote this and it was really good.