“You’ve been quiet,” he said. “What do you think?”
I glanced around the room. Everyone was staring at me now—some curious, some annoyed that the newest hire was getting called on.
“I think—” I cleared my throat. “I think we’re trying too hard to reach people where they’re not looking.”
His eyebrow lifted slightly. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, people who want kitchen help during the holidays aren’t scrolling through tech blogs or watching webinars. They’re at home shows, gift expos, lifestyle events… Places where they’re already thinking about upgrading their lives.”
“Home shows,” Lloyd said flatly. “You want us to set up a booth next to the guys selling miracle mops?”
“Actually, yes.” I sat up straighter, warming to my idea even as my face heated. “My friend Marianne called me yesterday. She runs vendor relations for the Home and Hearth Holiday Expo in Salt Lake City. One of their tech exhibitors dropped out last minute, and they have booth space available this weekend. Prime location, right near the cooking demonstration stage.”
The room went silent.
I pushed forward, even though my heart was hammering. “It’s one of the biggest home shows in the region. Thousands of attendees—and not just consumers. Retail buyers, lifestylemedia, home goods distributors. The exact people who could get Stella into stores next year.”
“A home show,” Monique said slowly, like I’d suggested we sell Stella door-to-door.
“It’s not our typical venue,” someone else muttered.
Jameson hadn’t moved. Hadn’t spoken. He was just watching me with that unnerving focus, and I couldn’t tell if he thought I was brilliant or completely out of my mind.
Then he straightened. “Everyone else, that’s all. Thanks for your time. Sutton, stay back for a minute.”
Oh, god. I was getting fired.
The room cleared with remarkable speed, people gathering laptops and coffee mugs and shooting me sympathetic looks—or maybe curious ones, wondering if I was about to cry.
Monique was the last to leave, pulling the door closed behind her with a softclick.
And then it was just me and Jameson McKnight in a room that suddenly felt much smaller than it had sixty seconds ago. He walked over to the window, hands in his pockets, staring out at the view of Pleasure Valley’s downtown. From the tenth floor, you could see the lake in the distance, its banks lightly dusted with snow.
“Tell me more about this expo,” he said after a long silence.
“It’s this weekend. Tonight through Sunday. They get about fifteen thousand attendees over the two days.” I pulled up the website on my phone, grateful to have something to do with my hands. “There’s a whole section dedicated to smart home tech and kitchen innovations. We’d be in good company, but we’d stand out because Stella’s more intuitive than most of the competition.”
“And you think we could actually pull this together on short notice?”
“The booth space is already set up—we’d just need to dress it and bring equipment. Marianne told me they have display tables, power, internet, the works. We’d need demo units, marketing materials, someone to run the booth…” I trailed off, suddenly realizing what I was probably volunteering myself to do.
Jameson turned around, and there was something different in his expression. Something that looked almost like hope.
“Someone who knows how to talk to actual people,” he said. “Not tech investors. Not VCs. Just…people who cook dinner and want help with meal planning.”
“Right,” I said carefully.
“Someone who used to be an influencer and knows how to make technology feel approachable.”
My pulse kicked up. “I mean, that was a long time ago, and I don’t really?—”
“Are you available this weekend?”
The question hung in the air between us.
I opened my mouth to say no. To say I couldn’t just drop everything and fly to Utah on such short notice. To say I didn’t have clothes for a trade show or experience running a booth or any business being the face of his company.
But then I thought about my résumé. About how “social media coordinator at a struggling startup” wasn’t exactly going to launch my career into the stratosphere. About how I’d been playing it safe ever since I’d stopped making my own content. How I’d been hiding instead of putting myself out there.
