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Charlotte Williams was a very busy woman, with no time to read letters with no return address plopped on her desk in the middle of the night.
She was the chief financial officer of Rothschild Stationery Co., a supplier of everything from sketchbooks to greeting cards. And as chief financial officer, she was constantly busy writing and reading reports, checking records, and managing budgets.
She glanced at the letter. Only a few words had been written on the stained envelope.
Charlie
for your eyes only
God. When was the last time someone had called her "Charlie"?
It was a childhood nickname, one that she had discarded once she had grown from a tomboy teen with scraped knees into a powerful woman with important duties. She'd known a childish nickname like "Charlie" wasn't going to serve her in her career, not if she wanted to be taken seriously.
Charlotte stood from her desk. Standing at full height, she was an imposing presence, tall and slender, her long red hair worn in a carefully simple ponytail. She was sharply dressed at all times in a black pencil skirt and dark brown suit jacket, with a stern expression and straight back to match her strict demeanor. Her voice had a faint accent, so slight that none of the Americans she worked with could hope to pin down where she was from.
They paid more attention to her tone, besides. She didn't shout, and her voice wasn't particularly deep or high, but she spoke with such clarity and intention that it didn't matter- when Charlotte spoke, everyone listened.
She didn't take kindly to failure, either her own or that of people in her employ.
She ran a mental tally of all the secretaries and interns she could think of. No one who hoped to keep their job would've been caught dead haphazardly tossing unsigned envelopes onto the desk of one of the most frightening people in the company.
Her office was similarly imposing. Massive wooden bookshelves filled to the brim (but no further) with dense legal and financial texts framed the room. Directly across from the small door stood Charlotte's expensive desk, its many drawers stuffed full with paperwork, memos, and documents. The desktop was immaculate, all of her pens in order and papers stacked neatly, aside from a stained letter that appeared to have been hastily tossed onto the desk, sitting askew to one side.
The carpet, walls, and furniture were all in pleasing shades of brown, with just enough red to avoid feeling boring or monotone, along with a single tall, green plant in one corner.
The warm color scheme did little to make the space seem inviting. Throughout the entire room, there wasn't so much as a single speck of dust out of place- aside from the letter.
Behind the desk, a huge window provided a gorgeous view of the city, and the water beyond it. Charlotte stood at this window now, gazing across the rooftops as the golden light of sunset filtered into her office.
The windows were locked, and had been since the end of the summer. The locks did not appear to have been tampered with.
There was only one person Charlotte could think of who would still call her Charlie.
But it didn't matter, because that person hadn't been in her life for years, and she was going to keep it that way.
Charlotte grabbed the letter and tossed it in the trash bin, and strode out of her office.
A few minutes later, she returned, fished the letter out of the trash, tore it open, and began to read.
This piece was written for a class. The prompt was to write two pages of creative writing. I had the idea for a letter that says "your eyes only", and created a recipient who absolutely did not want to read that letter- or did she?