Beatrice’s face lit up with a vicious, malicious grin. “Officers! Right there! That’s the man who assaulted me!” She marched aggressively toward them, waving her hands frantically. “Arrest him immediately! He belongs in handcuffs!”
But the officers didn’t move an inch. They just looked at Steven, who looked like he was about to physically be sick.
Steven completely ignored Beatrice’s shrieking and rushed straight past her toward me, extending both of his hands in a frantic gesture of respect. “Mr. Vance, I am so incredibly sorry for the delay. The private car is waiting downstairs to take us directly to the signing.”
Beatrice stopped dead in her tracks, her triumphant smile sliding off her face like melted wax. She blinked rapidly, her brain short-circuiting. “Steven? What on earth are you doing? Why are you shaking this animal’s hand?”
Steven shot her a look of absolute, unadulterated horror. “Beatrice, shut your mouth. Right now.”
She gasped loudly, clutching her pearls in genuine shock. “Excuse me?! My husband will fire you for speaking to me like—”
“Your husband doesn’t sign my paychecks anymore, Beatrice,” Steven interrupted abruptly, his voice trembling as he gestured wildly toward me. “He does.”
The color completely and instantly drained from Beatrice’s face. She stared at me, then at Steven, her mouth opening and closing silently like a fish out of water.
I stepped forward, the sticky, dried soda still clinging visibly to my shirt, and looked her dead in the eye. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Mrs. Sterling. I’m Julian Vance. My company, Vanguard Holdings, finalized the hostile takeover of Hargrove & Associates exactly six weeks ago. Your husband hasn’t told you yet, but he is now my subordinate.” I leaned in slightly, my voice dropping to a terrifying whisper. “I own your company.”
Before her shattered mind could even process the bombshell, Steven’s phone began ringing frantically. He answered it on speakerphone, and Arthur Sterling’s panicked, screaming voice echoed loudly through the quiet terminal gate area.
“Steven! Is my wife off the plane yet?! You have to get to her and take her phone! A video just leaked online of her assaulting a Black man in first class! It’s got three million views and climbing! The board is calling an emergency vote!”
An arrogant lady poured soda all over my documents in first class, threatening to use her husband’s money to destroy my career. I didn’t yell or fight back. I just smiled and waited for the plane to land, because I was about to deliver a piece of news that would change her life forever…
The icy, stinging shock of carbonated liquid hit my chest before I even realized what was happening. I gasped, instinctively jumping up from seat 2A as the dark soda soaked through my custom Tom Ford suit, dripping down onto the confidential acquisition documents resting on my tray table.
“Oops,” a shrill, dripping-with-sarcasm voice chimed from above me.
I wiped my eyes and looked up. Standing in the aisle was a middle-aged white woman draped in Chanel, her knuckles white as she gripped an empty glass. Her lips were curled into a sneer of pure, unfiltered disgust.
You’re in my space,” she hissed, leaning in so close I could smell the gin on her breath. “And I don’t sit next to people who look like you. Especially not in first class.”
My name is Julian Vance. I am the founder and CEO of Vanguard Holdings, a $4.7 billion consumer conglomerate. I’m used to high-pressure boardrooms, ruthless negotiations, and cutthroat competitors. But I had never experienced someone deliberately pouring a drink on me at thirty thousand feet just for existing while Black.
