Ctrl Alt Defeat: A Secretary's Takeover 02

Chapter 2: An unorthodox solution

The quiet knock at Mia's door was so faint, she almost didn't hear it over the TV. When she opened it, there stood Morgan Wright, his usual bravado nowhere in sight. Without waiting for an invitation, he shuffled past her and began to pace the small room like a caged animal. "What are the chances," he muttered to himself, more to the air than to Mia. "Of all the places."

Perplexed by his demeanour, Mia closed the door and faced him, trying to piece together the fragments of his ramblings. "What are you going on about, Mr Wright?" she asked, her tone laced with both curiosity and annoyance. "What’s happened?"

"It wasn't my fault, Mia," Mr Wright protested as he continued his pacing, his voice a mix of defensiveness and exasperation. "I was just being friendly."

Having reached the end of her tether, Mia snapped. "Will you stop pacing around and look at me!" she demanded, her voice louder than she intended. Mr Wright stopped dead in his tracks, turning to face her with a look of bewildered confusion.

Seeing his reaction, Mia softened, though her stance remained firm. "I'm sorry to raise my voice, Sir," she conceded, acknowledging his stunned silence. "However, you just told me we are going home. Meaning that your family company, along with the shares I own in it, are about to go up in smoke. I think I have the right to hear why. So, please, sit down and tell me what happened at the bar. Who were you being 'friendly' to?"

Reluctantly, Mr Wright strolled over to the bed and perched on the end, his posture deflated. "There was this woman, Mia," he began, his voice lifting at the memory of her. "All alone and dressed to attract attention."

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"I offered to buy her a drink," he added, his voice suddenly changing, becoming quieter, almost embarrassed. "And... the nerve on her."

"She refused your offer, then?" Mia asked, unable to stop her eyes from rolling, though Mr Wright failed to catch the gesture.

"She did! and she was very rude about it!" Mr Wright exclaimed, a hint of indignation creeping into his voice. "Even when I tried to explain that I wasn’t expecting anything in return."

Mia felt a surge of anger and annoyance but managed to mask it, keeping her voice neutral. "So, what happened next?" she inquired, dreading the answer yet needing to know the full extent of the disaster.

"Then this idiot comes over out of nowhere and accuses me of bothering the woman," Mr Wright continued, his frustration palpable.

"You were," Mia muttered quietly under her breath.

“What was that?” Mr Wright questioned, his head snapping around.

"Nothing, please continue, Sir," she said quickly, her irritation growing by the second.

"Well, I tried to explain to him, calmly, mind you, that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. However, this joker threatened to get security and have me banned from the hotel," Mr Wright said, shaking his head in disbelief at the recollection. "Well… that’s when things… escalated," he added, clenching his fists. "We kind of ended up in a little… scrap."

Mia inhaled deeply, shaking her head in disbelief. "That sounds awful, Sir. But forgive my ignorance. What does this have to do with Mr Horton and going home?" she pressed, needing to understand the full implications of her boss's actions.

"Well you see... the thing is... this man was Mr Horton. And the woman by the bar was his secretary," Mr Wright confessed in a sheepish tone, his gaze fixed on the floor.

"Oh no!" Mia groaned, rising from her seat to pace the room herself, the gravity of the situation setting in. After a few laps in her fluffy slippers, she halted, her mind racing to piece together a solution from the chaos. "How bad was this... scrap?" she asked, her voice laced with concern yet tinged with an underlying hope that the situation might still be salvageable.

"Bad enough," Mr Wright replied, his head shaking in dismay. The gravity of his actions and their potential consequences seemed to finally be dawning on him.

Mia sighed loudly, her brain working overtime. "So, there's no chance he's going to invest in Stitch & Sovereign if you turn up to the meeting," she stated, more to herself than to Mr Wright, piecing the scenario together out loud. "But!" What if I were to go in your place?" Mia suddenly proposed, a spark of inspiration sparkling in her eyes.

"Won't work," Mr Wright snapped back almost instantly, dismissing the idea. "A man like Mr Horton isn’t going to conduct business with a secretary."

Undeterred by his scepticism, Mia huffed in frustration and resumed her pacing. But then, as if struck by a lightning bolt of ingenuity, she stopped dead in her tracks. "Okay. How about this? I’ll attend the meeting posing as you?" she suggested, a bold plan forming in her mind. Noticing the bewildered look on Mr Wright's face, she elaborated, "Morgan is a unisex name, or can be. I'll take your place at the meeting and get him to invest," she said, her tone brimming with a newfound determination and a hint of excitement at the audacity of her own suggestion.

Morgan Wright leapt up from the bed, incredulity etched across his face. "Preposterous," he boomed, his voice echoing off the walls. "You? You don’t have the skills or knowledge to pull off a deal of this magnitude, Mia. You’re just a secretary!"

Mia glared at her sexist boss, hands on hips, enraged by the demeaning label. Having served as Morgan Wright's assistant for the better part of a year, she had heard her fair share of offensive comments, but this one took the biscuit.

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Mia's body tensed as she prepared to unleash a torrent of anger. But then, in the heat of the moment, a radical, albeit satisfying idea formed in her mind, halting her outburst. "You're right, Sir," Mia managed to say, her voice steady despite the storm of emotions swirling within her. "I couldn’t possibly do this without you. You’ll have to accompany me."

Mr Wright chuckled dismissively, misjudging his assistant as a ditz. "Have you not listened to a word I’ve just said, Mia?" he asked, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "If he sees my face, I won’t even get through the door."

"Then we’ll change your face, Sir," Mia shot back, her gaze locking onto Mr Wright's with an intensity that took him aback. "I’ll be Morgan Wright, and you will be there as Mia Bishop to assist."

Morgan Wright's face became a theatre of expressions as he struggled to wrap his head around Mia's audacious proposal. His features twisted through an array of bafflement, horror, disbelief, contemplation, and outright anger. As he stuttered, trying to formulate a coherent objection, he resembled a man grappling with a concept so foreign, it threatened to short-circuit his entire being.

"And before you dismiss the idea," Mia pressed on, her voice a blend of firmness and a hint of menace, "if you don't do this, you'll lose the company your grandfather began, and the bank will take your house and all your belongings. Do you think your family will understand? If not, the streets are a hard place to be, especially at this time of year."

As Morgan continued to emit odd, squeak-like noises - a soundtrack to the frantic whirring of gears in his mind - he finally managed to lock eyes with Mia, his gaze narrowed in a mixture of suspicion and confusion. "Go as you? As a secretary?" he echoed, the idea seemingly ludicrous to him.

"Yes," Mia replied with a confidence that seemed to fill the room. "With a wig and some makeup. Nobody will know it's you."

"Out of the question. I’d look and feel a fool," Mr Wright protested, his voice laced with dread at the thought of impersonating a woman.

"If we do it properly, you'll look enough like a woman to get through the meeting undetected," Mia said, her lips curling into a wry smile. "As for feeling like a fool, so what? We all have to do things we don’t like sometimes, Sir. Think of it this way. It’s one meeting to avoid the bank taking everything own."

Mr Wright appeared visibly shaken, sighing loudly as he mulled over the proposal. "This can’t work, Mia. This is real life, not some flight of fantasy," he lamented, the weight of his predicament pressing down on him.

"Ah! Okay," Mia said, her tone shifting to one of feigned defeat. "That's a shame. It really would have worked. But I guess you're too scared to try. I'll get packing."

"Watch how you speak to me, Mia," Mr Wright boomed, his pride stung by her insinuation. "Or I might have to…"

"Fire me?" Mia cut in, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "From what, Sir? In two weeks, you won't have a company to fire me from. In fact, you won’t have anything."

Before Morgan Wright could formulate a reply, Mia strode towards the door, opening it with a flourish. "I’d enjoy that fancy suite of yours while you can, Sir," she mocked, her words sharp as knives. "Because in a few weeks, you're going to be living in a cardboard box, searching through bins for scraps."

"Wait!" Mr Wright called out, his voice a mix of desperation and capitulation. "You're sure this can work?" he added, the scepticism still evident in his tone, yet undercut by a sliver of hope.

"I’m sure, Sir," Mia said, her smile broadening, not just at the thought of saving the company but at the delicious irony of Morgan Wright, the chauvinist, stepping into her shoes, quite literally. "But only if you do everything I say," she added, her voice a gentle but firm reminder of the stakes at play as she slowly closed the door, leaving a flustered Morgan Wright to ponder the lengths to which he was willing to go to protect his family’s legacy.