I don’t put those words on interview forms, but I know them when I see them. If Olivia has them, she’ll make herself useful fast. If she doesn’t, I’ll know in the first ten minutes.
Chapter Three – One Week Later
Olivia
I’m early, and the room is too quiet.
Conference rooms always feel like waiting rooms to me. I set my laptop at the head because Caterina said that’s where I should be, then immediately second-guess whether I should have chosen the side, less presumptuous, more collaborative. I move the laptop two inches to the left, like that fixes anything, and take a breath.
The screen shows the first slide of my deck: simple, white background, the hotel-casino logo, a title that reads “Opening Series & VIP Acquisition: First Pass.”
My notes are in a folder even though I’ve rehearsed enough to talk without them. I flex my hands once under the table.
They’re colder than I want. I force a sip of water. The glass sweats against my palm. I wipe it with a napkin, set it down, square it to the coaster because I need one thing to be perfect while my stomach does small, unhelpful flips.
“You’re early,” a voice says.
I look up. Caterina stands in the doorway with a stack of notepads. She’s in navy today, hair tucked behind one ear, a pen already clipped to her shirt. She sends me a friendly smile, and despite that, I know I’m performing for her today too.
“Habit,” I say. “I like to see the space before.”
“You’ll fit right in,” she says, then sets the notepads at the center of the table and moves around the table. “You’re going to do great. You’ve done the work.”
“I know,” I say, and I do. I slept five hours last night because my brain wouldn’t stop rehearsing a transition between comp policy and tiered invitations, but underneath the nerves is a solid line of certainty: my ideas are good, my deck is clean, the words and ideas will make sense. It’s the eyes that worry me. Not hers. The others.
A man in a black polo and a lanyard steps in next. Security, is my guess. “Morning,” he says, then looks to Caterina for confirmation he’s supposed to be here.
“Morning, Tomás,” she says. “Thanks for coming. VIP screening and access are in this.”
He nods, takes a seat two down from the screen side, eyes flicking once around the room and then settling on me like he’s cataloging exits, entrances, and whether I’m likely to trip on a cable. I put “security” in my mental layout of the table.
Next is a woman with a leather portfolio and a calm, serious face. “Gina, F&B,” she says, offering her hand to me with a kind press. “I hear you came from Fitzroy.”
“I did,” I say. “Loved their partnerships team.”
“We stole their pastry chef once,” she says, sitting. “He went back. Good man.”
I file that away. Don’t poach pastry chefs from Fitzroy. Or do, but be prepared to lose them back.
A tall man with a blazer and a phone pressed to his ear strides in, mimes apology, mouths “Ops,” and drops into a seat while saying something about load-in windows and a delivery that is apparently allergic to schedules. I catch “lighting truss” and “Fire Marshal” and decide I’ll send him a follow-up email later with a summary of where my plan intersects his bottlenecks.
Caterina does quick, efficient introductions as people filter in: Finance, HR, a PR consultant. Each one gives me a small nod, polite, curious, measuring. I’m measuring back while pretending I’m not.
Then he walks in.
He doesn’t touch the door—someone else is leaving as he arrives; the timing just works—and he slips through the space with the kind of economy that makes me think military at first and then discard it.
He’s tall. Not sloppy tall, or towering for effect, just… complete and exuding confidence.
The suit fits like a tailor’s pride and joy: light gray suit barely concealing a fit, muscled body, blue tie, and a shirt so white,I wonder if it’s new. No pocket square. No watch flashing the way some men do.
He has strong features, square, clean-cut jaw, dark hair, and piercing blue eyes that miss nothing, as I feel them sweep the room and land on me, with a gaze that’s impossible to ignore. I note the fine lines around his eyes that speak of lived experience and dangerous wisdom.
He doesn’t introduce himself. He doesn’t offer a hand. He doesn’t look away when I notice him, but he also doesn’t hold the look. He just notes me and takes a seat at the far end of the table.
I feel my heartbeat jump, a little rabbit against the ribs, not because he’s temptation wrapped in Armani—though, okay, he is—but because something about him says “decision.” I have no idea who he is, but I know right away that he’s important. An investor? Owner?
I take another breath. This is exactly the kind of detail that can knock a presentation off its axis. It won’t. Not mine.
