“It doesn’t matter.” I steadied my voice. “We couldn’t control it. And we weren’t the ones making fools of ourselves.”
The team nodded along, some of the tension bleeding from the room.
“So where do we go from here?” Kevin asked, scanning each of us like the answer might be written on our foreheads.
Jennifer gathered her notes with brisk purpose. “We move forward.”
David opened his laptop, already typing. “I’ll start cleaning up the numbers from today’s draft. Something ready for review by morning.”
“Good.” The word felt far away. Automatic. The muscle memory of leadership firing even as the rest of me was stuck miles behind.
My mind stayed fixed on Damien—on the storm tightening around him when Nathan pushed too far, the clipped edge in his voice when he came back into the room, something feral burning in his expression.
When the meeting wrapped, people filed out one by one until the door clicked shut behind Kevin, leaving only silence and the steady hum of the city on the other side of the windows.
I stared down at my phone, then inhaled before hitting call.
“Hey.” The line connected, rough, slightly breathless.
“Hey yourself,” I said, keeping it light. “Mind telling me what the hell that was?”
He groaned. “I’d love nothing more than to do just that, but I can’t right now.”
The disappointment landed fast and hot, hollowing me out. “Okay…” I dragged the word, letting the question sit inside it.
“It’s… layered. Too much to unpack right now.”
Layered.
Jennifer had used the same word.
“Fine,” I said. “But Friday, I want to know everything.” A date set only minutes after the last had ended.
“Agreed,” he replied instantly. “Seven p.m. at my place?”
Butterflies flared hard in my chest—reckless, inconvenient—but they slammed straight into the confusion still storming through me.
“I’ll be there.” Before I could overthink it.
Something in his tone curved—a smile I felt more than heard. “Looking forward to it, Ms.Sinclair.”
The call ended, leaving the room too quiet.
And that’s when my screen lit again—this time not with Damien’s name.
Margaret Nguyen—Incoming Call
My stomach dipped. Hard.
The calm I’d been clinging to evaporated. Investors did not call at four-thirty unless something was wrong. Very wrong.
I straightened my spine, smoothed my expression, and answered.
I wasn’t ready, but I had no time to prepare.
The line connected, and Margaret didn’t waste a second.
“Emma,” she said, her tone clipped, too formal. “We have a situation.”
