His tone is casual, but there’s steel beneath it.
“This one isn’t for me,” he adds, walking us toward the boardroom. “It’s for the investors. You want my vote? Show me you can sell it to them.”
We step inside, the room already filling with murmured conversation and glossy portfolios. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the skyline like we’re already inside the tower we haven’t built yet.
“Got my notes?” Damien whispers to Grant.
“Reviewed and integrated,” Grant replies, crisp and sure. “They made it into the final deck.”
A flicker of doubt scratches at the edge of my mind—unsure if that was before or after my contributions.
Grant takes the lead as we begin. Damien and Marcus sit at the head of the table, flanked by five investors and two advisors. The click of the remote is the only sound as the first few slides go up.
Overview. Legacy. Vision.
But then he stumbles—right on the first change I made.
Grant pauses for a beat too long. Clears his throat as he looks over the slide.
I step in before the moment stretches any further.
“The next phase of the structure will incorporate a solar-integrated glass façade. Each panel is custom-engineered for passive light harvesting—no compromise to the aesthetic.”
One of the investors—O’Connor, I think, the one with the oil-refinery empire in Houston—leans forward, brow creased.
“Wait. You’re saying the façade itself is energy-generating? That’s… ambitious.”
He doesn’t sound impressed. He sounds threatened.
Of course he does. The man made his fortune off fossil fuels and political lobbying. Passive solar makes his portfolio nervous.
I open my mouth to respond, but Grant steps in first.
“It’s one of several options on the table,” he says smoothly. “We’re still evaluating which features will be most strategic for investor alignment.”
It’s a nice way of sayingdon’t worry, your outdated bullshit is safe.
He clicks forward. Supposed to be financials next.
Instead—my section.
I nod toward the screen and take the floor again.
“This is where we’re pushing the boundaries. The building will feature an off-grid cooling system—zero reliance on municipal electric—and we’ll recycle ninety percent of water on-site through our reclamation circuit. It’s sustainable, yes. But more than that—it’s resilient.”
Eyes track to the screen. I see the investors trying to do math in their heads, trying to reconcile the beauty of the tower with the systems beneath it.
Finally, Grant steps in again. “Let’s move to the numbers.”
He runs through the financials—sharp and efficient—but I can feel the shift in the room. The questions at the end are fine. Mostly surface level. Timeline. Budget. Tax credits.
But I can see it in their faces. They wanted the numbers first.
We buried the lede.
When the meeting adjourns, there’s a round of handshakes and polite nods. No fireworks. No buzz of excitement.
Not a disaster.
