CHAPTER ONE: WRONG ROOM, RIGHT WRECKAGE

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 with the crowd wavered.

Anne smiled, not the smile she uses when she wants something. It’s the smile of when the thing she wants practically becomes hers. 

“Suite C?” She asked like she knew.

“Suite C is occupied.”

“Suite B then. Thank you.” She said walking faster.

The thirtieth floor was kind of quiet as she walked into the hallway, she didn’t belong there. Of course she knew. The NeuroPont Inc's Summit noise, the networking buzz, music and sound of more than a hundred people showing the pretentious side of themselves evaporated the moment the elevator closed behind her. Up here in the hallway, everything was muted, the lightning across the hallway gave it a warmer look. The air smelled faintly like cedar and luxury she couldn’t afford.

Anne exhaled slowly. 

She had exactly forty minutes before the afternoon keynote started, at which point every person worth pitching would be seated at the main auditorium and unavailable for two hours. Her NeuroPont badge got her into the keynote but what it didn’t get her was into the room where conversations actually mattered.

The ones before the keynote.

She had tried the proper routes for her start up, 9 months of proper routes, six applications and six direct rejection all saying the same thing “You’re impressive but underfunded. We’d like to see some tractions before we accept your proposal. Please retry again in the next cohort. Best of luck”

Of course how could she start when her best bet was NeuroPont Inc? ANGEL, her start up company, can’t wait for the next cohort in eighteen months. The problem ANGEL could solve wasn’t going to wait for eighteen months. 

Anne was ten days away from running her savings dry. She can’t survive for eighteen months. 

So yeah the stupidity was going to get her what she wanted.

She pulled her tablet from her bag. Suite B’s door was to her left. She was going to show her worth and reached for the door handle.

The door was unlocked. 

She pushed it open.

The suite was spectacular in the specific way that luxurious hotels are, floor to ceiling windows looking directly onto the Strip of Las Vegas, gold late afternoon glow warming up the room and expensive furniture that probably cost more than her apartment lease. A bottle of something, probably rich people’s champagne, was opened on a coffee table in the middle of the suite with two empty glasses beside it. 

And then there was a man. 

He was standing with his back to the door, looking out the floor to ceiling windows with his phone pressed to his ear, speaking in a controlled voice that commanded authority. He wore a white collared fitted shirt that showed the perfect shape of his broad shoulders, his sleeves were folded and his other hand was placed in the pocket of his black trousers. 

Anne took a step back, her heels getting caught on a briefcase that was placed on the floor making her hit the edge of the side board close to the door sending vases crashing down to the floor. 

The man on the phone turned. 

She knew that face, everyone in the Tech community knew that face. It was a face that was plastered on every social media and on Forbes. It was a face that was always photographed because of his perfect facial structure, his very dark hair and his piercing blue eyes.

Royce DuPont. The CEO of NeuroPont. The face behind the success of the number one tech company in the world.

“I’ll call you back” he said to the phone as he ended the call and looked at Anne.

She straightened herself and cleared her throat “That was your fault.”

“My fault?” He asked, his voice going dangerously low.

“Your briefcase was on the way”

He glanced down. His brief case was indeed on the way but this was his suite. “This is a private suite.”

“I’m sorry, I was looking for suite B.”

“This is suite C”

“I can see that now.”

He looked at her for a moment like he was searching her face for something. His blue eyes made Anne feel unsettled like he saw through her.

“The panel deck isn’t here” he said as if he knew what she came for.

“I’m sorry?”

“Whatever you told the security you were here to collect, the deck, isn’t here”

She stilled for a moment. “There is no deck.”

“No,”he agrees. “There isn’t”

He walked to the coffee table and poured the open champagne into the empty glass and held it out to her without asking. She hesitated for a minute before crossing the room and took it. 

“Malbec” he said “Argentinian 2021 was a reasonable year.”

“I’ll take your words for it, I’m more of a wine from a box kind of person” she said taking a sip out of the glass. It tasted bitter. 

Something moved at the corner of Royce's mouth, not quite a smile but an expression of amusement. It was gone immediately as it came.

He sat down on the sofa looking at her. Waiting.

“I’m pitching,” Anne said, breaking the silence that had engulfed the suite. “I needed a room with an investor in it and this was the closest one.”

“And if I'm not an investor?”

“You’re Royce DuPont”

“And if I’m not interested?”

“You haven’t heard it yet” she said with certainty.

He settled back slightly, at least that was a good sign.

“You have,” Royce says, checking his wrist watch “four minutes before my next call.”