Romances de Sofie

“How was it?” Jade asked immediately she got home.Anne dropped her bag on the floor and sat beside Jade. Steve migrated immediately from the windowsill to Anne’s lap, which he did whenever she seemed like she needed the weight off something.“He wants to fund ANGEL” Anne sighed.“Okay” Jade said carefully. “That’s good news right?”“There’s a condition.”“I knew it! What was it?”Anne looked at her. “He needs a wife. For twelve months. For a public image situation involving his company board and the gala.”“He wants you,” Jade said slowly, “to marry him.”“In exchange for full seed capital, infrastructure and personal mentorship for ANGEL.”The apartment was quiet except from the purring sounds coming from Steve Jade looked at her for a long moment “Steve,”addressing the cat, “your landlord is getting married.”Steve purred.“It’s not a real marriage,” Anne said.“It’s a legal marriage for money, which is technically the original definition of marriage, so.”“Jade.”“I’m not judging

The invite came at seven-thirteen in the morning. Anne knew this because she had been awake since trying to shut her brain off as it was going on overdrive. It was already a week since the summit, since she embarrassed herself in front of Royce and since she gave her contact to Marcus. And now…. Now she’s reading an official mail from NeuroPont asking her to come to the DuPont tower for a meeting by 9am?!!She read it three times like the message would disappear anytime soon. Then she sat up, which disturbed the cheshire cat Steve, her room mate and her best friend Jade found. “They got back to me” Anne said “they actually got back to me.” Steve stood, turned around once, and lay back down facing the wall. This was his standard response to information he considered beneath his attention.She had to get ready.Jade was in the kitchen when Anne emerged from her room, already dressed, already second-guessing the dress.Jade was Anne’s roommate, best friend, and her moral support since t

The city never went dark. That was the thing about Las Vegas that people who had never lived here didn’t understand. They came for the aesthetics and go back home sunburned and lighter in the pocket and tell people the Strip was something else at night. And it was. The Strip was a performance, it was Las Vegas putting on its most expensive outing clothes. At 11:50pm on a Tuesday night, the top floor of DuPont Tower was lit in the way it was always lit clockwise with that particular brightness of a workspace that didn’t know the difference between daytime and midnight. There was four people on the floor, Royce, Marcus, a junior analyst named Sasha who was definitely regretting her career choice and Vincent the overnight security guard. Royce DuPont was at his office as usual. It was a very unremarkable environment which came as a surprise to investors and journalists. It was very spacious and boring with a large clean desk placed at in front of the floor to ceiling window which sh

Yes!She could do it..!Anne set down the glass of wine she was holding onto the coffee table and pulled up ANGEL on her tablet.She had given this presentation numerous times despite the rejections. Different pitches to angel investors, university programs or that one venture capital associate who had seem enthusiastic but turned out to be heavily caffeinated and hyperactive, lastly the tech journalists who had said “interesting” but never wrote about her work. Name it all, she had done everything. She had everything down to memory, she knew which numbers landed, which problem statement made people intrigue which phrase made them nod. But….Royce DuPont did not nod or make a reaction as she spoke. He sat on the sofa with a stillness as he watched her. No reaction, nothing. His blue eyes made her flustered as he continued to stare as she finished.“Hmm…” was all he said. Shit! She knew it. She had made a mistake somewhere. This is what happens when you’re too confident. Her heart

The thing about confidence is that it looks exactly like stupidity. Maybe it's a fancy word for stupidity if you look at it.Anna Brooke was banking on this moment, it could either break or make her career. She straightened the front of her brown blazer she wore on top of a black skirt before making her way towards the elevator leading to the thirtieth floor of Gran Astorias like someone who belonged there. The security guard glanced at her lanyard. It said PRESS, only a level two access which got you into the general conference room, panel discussion room and a very sad buffet stand a few floors below. It didn’t get you to the VIP sessions at the thirtieth floor where she was.“Ma’m–““Sorry, yes I know”, Anne said, already moving because the trick was to keep on moving no stopping “Hendericks sent me David Hendricks, he’s with Innovative Tech? He said to grab the deck from the suit and bring it back down. I’ll be out in a minute.” The guard, young and probably new and overwhelmed