She leaned forward, fascinated. “What did you and Nate do in the military?”
“Besides learn how to shoot?” He took a sip of water. “Strategic rotations. Defense planning. Shadowed command briefings, spent a year inside the Ministry. Learned when to speak. When not to.”
“So even there, you were being shaped for King Global,” she surmised.
“If we weren’t learning about numbers, we were learning about power,” Gage said, pragmatic. “Our fathers made sure of it.”
“And then St. Ives.”
“Freshman year, we got live portfolios. Started running acquisitions,” he said, shuffling his language cards again. Found one that saiddébutant, laid it face up on the table. “We once lost fifteen million because we were distracted by exams. That didn’t happen twice.”
Bea studied him. Chiseled over decades—rough edges sanded down, soft parts forged into steel. The kind of man who could dismantle her slide deck and her heartbeat in the same breath.
His name was his ship. And his cargo. It was hard not to admire him.
“Your parents,” she said softly, “they’ve prepared you well.” Her words sat there. True. And nowhere near big enough.
He took a while to respond. “It wasn’t about making me happy. It was about making sure I could carry what came next.”
The boardroom was smaller than the ones in Gage’s building. Still, it felt large and looming, filled with the quiet hum of open laptops and expensive pens. Her team was already gathered: three analysts, her supervisor, and two interns who eyed Bea with disinterest.
She breathed once, twice, then started. “I’m recommending we pivot the next quarter’s marketing spend to Solution B,” Bea said, clicking to the first slide. “The data suggests it’s already outperforming baseline projections by eight percent, and with reallocation, we can double brand visibility in one of our softer territories.”
One of the analysts, a sharp-looking woman in a tan blazer, tapped her pen. “What’s your source on the visibility metric?”
Bea clicked forward. “Slide four. Based on last quarter’s campaign tracking and sentiment review. I’ve included both consumer and wholesale response.” She paused. “The full sheets are in the appendix.”
The woman didn’t nod, just underlined something in her notes.
Her supervisor pursed her lips, then looked at the others. “Not bad.”
Another analyst grunted. “It’s more than I thought we’d get.”
Bea was just about to let herself exhale. But as she went to shift to her final slide, the man seated nearest to the door—Dev, senior analyst, expensive watch, reputation for being the one who “cut the interns’ teeth”—closed his laptop with a quiet click.
“Sorry. Can we circle back for a second?” His voice was mild. His expression wasn’t. “You said Solution B boosts visibility. But visibility doesn’t equal conversion. So unless you’re proposing we move goalposts, I’m not sure I see the upside.”
Bea’s brain scrambled. “I’m not moving goalposts,” she said, her voice steadier than her spine felt. “Visibility isn’t the end goal, but in this region, it’s the most immediate hurdle. Awareness has to rise before conversion can. We’re treating this like a two-phase play, not a standalone metric.”
Dev leaned back, unimpressed. “And you’re confident the correlation holds?”
Bea clicked again. Her pulse kicked. “Pages eleven through fourteen. We mapped it across a control group and used comparative markets to isolate the trend.” A breath. “It’s not perfect, but the confidence interval sits above industry average.”
A long silence followed before Dev exhaled through his nose. It seemed he’d finished his bite and didn’t need another.
“Alright.” He didn’t nod, exactly. More like he relented.
That time, she exhaled for real.
When the meeting ended and everyone filed out of the conference room, her chest buzzed with residual adrenaline. She hadn’t drowned. She’d been tested. And she’d held,just.
No one clapped, but no one shredded it either. In this place, that was praise.
She was halfway back to her desk when the elevator chimed. Bea glanced up, and stilled. Immediately the warmth drained from her face.
Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, Catherine Vale walks into mine.
Hair in a sleek ponytail, cream floral blouse tucked into Oxford-blue trousers, heels sharp enough to leave marks. Her gaze swept the floor, clearly not expecting to see Bea.
