1
JOSS
Iwas three sentences into my pitch when the door opened behind me.
I didn’t have to turn around to know who’d just walked in. I could read it on the faces of the people seated at the table. Mira Patel, my grand-boss and the head of product at Myrror, had been giving me the polite encouraging nod she gave every junior product manager presenting to leadership. That nod stopped. The head of engineering set down her pen. The head of design straightened in her chair without realizing she’d done it.
I kept talking. Whatever I was saying about user retention curves, I let my mouth keep saying it while my brain raced ahead.
He was here.
Sutton Randall, the CEO of the company I’d fought my way into for the last fourteen months—the man whose name was on every all-hands email, every press release, and the bottom of my offer letter—had just walked into my Outfit Builder approval meeting.
He hadn’t been on the invite list.
Mira’s eyes flicked to mine for just a second.Keep going, that look said. So I did.
I clicked to the next slide and tried not to think about the fact that I’d dressed for this meeting like it was just another Friday morning. My sharpest blazer, sure. The blouse I knew worked with my coloring. But my hair was up because it had been raining when I walked in, and I hadn’t bothered with the lipstick I’d been planning to swipe on in the bathroom because the meeting had been moved up by fifteen minutes and I’d had to sprint here from my desk.
I could feel him behind me. Standing, not sitting. Listening.
“...which is why we’re projecting Outfit Builder will increase session length by an average of forty percent,” I said, sliding into the next beat of my pitch. My voice sounded normal. My voice sounded great, actually. Whatever was happening in my chest was not happening in my voice. “And forty percent more session time means?—”
“More opportunities to convert.”
His voice.
It came from behind me, lower and quieter than I’d been expecting. The kind of voice that didn’t need to be loud because everyone in the room was already listening for it.
I turned.
He was leaning against the wall by the door, hands in the pockets of a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my rent. Dark hair. Dark beard, neatly trimmed. Pale blue eyes that should not have been on a face that intense. Those eyes were not on the screen. Those eyes were not on my slides.
Those eyes were on me.
“Right,” I said. I sounded normal. I was almost positive I sounded normal. “More conversion opportunities.”
“Keep going, Ms. Henning.”
He knew my last name.
Of course he knew my name. I was presenting in front of him. It was on the slide deck. It was even on the invite—except he hadn’t been on the invite. He’d come in late and unannounced…and he knew my name.
I reached for my notebook on the table next to my laptop and set my hand on it. I didn’t open it. I didn’t need to open it. I just needed to know it was there.
Then I clicked to the next slide and kept going.
I made it through the rest of the pitch in five and a half minutes. I made it through the demo video. I made it through the projected engineering timeline and the licensing tie-in slide and the closing summary. By the time I clicked back to my title slide, I’d almost convinced myself I hadn’t lost my place once.
Mira was the first to speak. “Thank you, Joss. That was very clear.”
She turned toward Sutton, who’d finally moved from his post against the wall and slid into the empty chair at the head of the table. He hadn’t sat down for the last seven minutes of my presentation. He’d just stood there. Watching.
He didn’t look at Mira when he answered her. He was staring at me.
“I have questions,” he said.
The head of engineering picked up her pen again, like she’d been waiting for permission. The head of design crossed one leg over the other. Mira sat very still.
