I grunt. The name is familiar, which means she was a friend of Hazel’s when I met her. Which means I had my team background check her already. Whoever this Kristen friend is, she must be a decent person.
Which means there are now two women in danger instead of one. Because of me. Because I failed to do what I should have done a long time ago, too busy following my dick instead of listening to my brain.
I’m a fucking bastard.
I head back to the elevator and rush out of the lobby to curious eyes, meeting a car at the curb. Black weaves in and out of the city traffic with the kind of reckless urgency that only working for me could inspire, and we’re at the conference, hosted in the ballroom and auditorium of a major hotel, in no time.
We rush inside and there are people everywhere. Vendor booths, salespeople, and conference attendees swarm around, the crowd too thick to part easily, too vast to see whether Hazel’s head of dark hair is among them.
I turn to Black.
“Exits,” I tell him. “I want men at every door.”
“Yes, sir.”
There are at least a dozen men working to find Hazel now, and another dozen making sure that Hazel doesn’t make her way out of the building unescorted. I just hope that it’s enough.
6
Hazel
“Oh my god,”Kristen gushes. “That presentation went so well! You killed it out there.”
“Me?” I say with a smile. “Please. I’m just the geek behind the computer. You were the one out there talking numbers. Holy shit, you’re not a business woman, you’re a businessqueen.”
“Stop,” Kristen says. “You’ll inflate my ego so much, I won’t be able to fit it in the cab home.”
We file out of the main auditorium, weaving out of the crowd to find the ladies room in the hall.
“I mean it,” I say when we get inside.
We take bathroom stalls, side by side, continuing our conversation.
Is it weird, talking to your friend while you pee? Maybe. But Kristen and I are so tight, we talk in the bathroom on a regular basis. She’s my ride or die, my best friend for life.
Right now I’m riding on the amazing high of our successful pitch. We had so many questions from investors - always a good sign, according to Kristen - and multiple people taking our handout materials and writing our contact information down.
“I just hope they actually call,” I say, pulling my jeans up and flushing. “They said they would, but I’m scared they were just being polite.”
We wash our hands in the sink, and then I lean against the counter, out of the way of the other women while Kristen touches up her makeup. She reapplies her red lipstick with the kind of speed and precision that only a woman who has a lot of experience can, and fluffs her already-voluminous blonde hair. I watch in admiration.
Kristen is what some would call a bombshell. Classic good looks and vivacious curves, with big brown eyes that she likes to aim at unsuspecting men who love to underestimate what a beautiful woman is capable of.
She’s the kind of woman who, if not for our friendship, I would feel agonizingly jealous of. But since we’re friends, I just soak it all up, trying to learn from Kristen’s confidence, the way she always seems to have her shit together, and more.
“They’ll call,” she says, capping her lipstick and throwing it in her bag. “They’d be idiots not to. Please. You saw them. They all want to get in while it’s still early because they know this thing is going to take off and make millions.”
“You seem so sure of that,” I say.
“I just have a good feeling about this,” she says with a smile. “An app that simplifies the shopping process? An app that can tell you what size to order, no matter the brand? Women everywhere are going to lose their shit for this when we launch. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ordered a size sixteen from one place and it turns out to beway smallerthan a size sixteen from a different place.”
A woman washing her hands in the sink next to ours turns our way.
“Same,” she says with a sigh. “It’s so unfair. My husband has been buying the same size for fifteen years. It’s always the same, every single time. But I guess for women’s sizes, brands would rather use made up magical numbers that don’t mean anything. Don’t even get me started on bras…”
Kristen lights up, springing right back into business woman mode.
“We’ll have bra sizing available soon,” she says. “It’s in beta testing now and going well.”
