CHAPTER 13 - JUDGEMENT

The heavy silence hung in the massive office while Victoria Volkov glared down at my half-eaten plate of creamy pasta, and I could feel the harsh judgment radiating from her sharp eyes.

She dragged her gaze over my thick waist and my cheap navy blue pencil skirt with clear disgust, making my stomach twist into painful knots.

I squeezed my hands together in my lap until my knuckles turned white under the bright fluorescent lighting because I was terrified of speaking to her.

Maximilian stood perfectly still near his glass desk, and he waited for me to answer his mother instead of stepping forward to rescue me.

He kept his large hands tucked inside his dark suit pockets, and his intense gray eyes silently commanded me to fight my own battle.

I swallowed the dry lump in my throat and pushed my black-framed glasses up the bridge of my sweating nose so I could see the spreadsheet clearly.

"M-ma'am, the predictive algorithm was..." I started to say, but my voice broke into a pathetic, trembling whisper that barely filled the quiet room.

Victoria scoffed loudly and crossed her arms over her expensive gray suit jacket while rolling her eyes at my stutter.

"Is she going to cry right now, Maximilian, or is she actually going to form a coherent sentence about the finances?" the older woman demanded sharply.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a brief second while a hot flush of deep humiliation spread across my cheeks and burned the tips of my ears.

David always yelled at me and called me stupid whenever I stuttered, so I felt like I was shrinking into a helpless child all over again.

I forced my eyes open and looked down at the printed spreadsheet resting on the table, because I desperately needed a distraction from her cruel words.

The rows of black numbers and complex formulas stared back at me in perfect, orderly lines.

Numbers never judged my heavy thighs, and they never cared about my messy hair or my cheap clothing.

Mathematics only demanded pure logic and undeniable truth, whereas people always found ways to tear me down and make me feel worthless.

I pulled a slow, deep breath into my lungs and let the familiar comfort of the data wash over my racing thoughts until my heartbeat began to steady.

I unclasped my trembling hands and reached out to grab the black leather presentation folder resting near my soup bowl.

I opened the dark cover and slid the ten printed pages across the glass surface so they faced Victoria's side of the table.

"The senior analysts used a standard linear depreciation model for the target company's manufacturing assets," I said smoothly, and my voice did not shake this time.

Victoria raised a thin eyebrow and leaned closer to the table to look at the documents, although she kept a sneer on her painted lips.

"A linear model is standard protocol for an acquisition of this size, so I fail to see what the actual problem is," she snapped back instantly while pointing at the page.

"It is standard for real estate investments, but it is a massive failure for heavy industrial machinery," I countered while pointing my index finger at the third column of the spreadsheet.

I tapped my fingernail against the highlighted row of red numbers so she could see the exact calculation her senior men had approved.

"The target company operates specialized manufacturing equipment in their overseas factories, and those specific machines lose value at an accelerated rate during the first three years of use."

Victoria frowned deeply and traced the line of numbers with her own manicured finger, but she did not interrupt me this time.

"If you ignore the accelerated decay, the profit margins look incredibly high on paper, which makes the buyout seem like a perfect deal," I continued explaining while looking directly into her angry eyes.

"But when you apply the correct double-declining balance method to account for the heavy wear and tear on the machines, the actual value of those assets drops by forty million dollars."

The older woman pulled her hand away from the paper as if the glass table had suddenly burned her skin.

"Are you telling me that my hand-picked senior financial team missed a forty-million-dollar gap in the final projections?" Victoria asked in a tight, strained voice.

"Yes, ma'am, they missed it because they copied and pasted a lazy formula instead of writing a custom algorithm for this specific factory deal," I answered truthfully.

I turned the page over and pointed to the five lines of complex mathematical code I had written at the bottom of the spreadsheet to correct their lazy mistake.

I watched her eyes scan my new formula, and I knew she understood the math because she was a veteran board member who knew how to read raw data.

I proved to her that I was not just a heavy girl eating lunch in her son's office, because I was the only person in the entire skyscraper who caught a mistake that would have ruined her personal investment portfolio.

A bright, splotchy red color crawled up Victoria's neck and spread across her sharp cheekbones as the bitter realization hit her.

She looked from the flawless mathematical proof on the paper over to her son's stoic, unreadable face, but Maximilian did not offer her any sympathy.

He just watched his mother realize she had been humiliated by an intern, and a tiny, almost invisible smirk touched the corner of his mouth.

"This is f***ing absurd," Victoria hissed through her teeth as she grabbed her expensive leather purse from the nearby chair.

She glared at me one last time, but she could not find a single logical argument to tear down my data or defend her incompetent analysts.

"You are running this billion-dollar empire like a circus, Maximilian, and you are both absolutely insane!" she yelled while turning her back on us.

She stormed across the dark gray carpet with her black heels clicking loudly against the floor, leaving a trail of expensive perfume in her wake.

Victoria grabbed the cold metal handle of the massive oak doors and yanked them open with far too much force.

She stepped out into the reception area and slammed the heavy wood shut behind her with a deafening bang that made me jump in my seat.

The loud noise echoed off the floor-to-ceiling windows and rattled the empty coffee cups on the glass desk.

The massive corner office fell into a thick, agonizing silence the second the door clicked shut, and the heavy tension in the air finally snapped.

I stared at the closed wooden doors for three long seconds while my brain tried to process what I had just done.

I had just talked back to one of the most powerful corporate board members in the city, and I had basically called her chosen financial team a group of lazy idiots.

The protective shield of cold logic vanished from my mind, and the pure, unfiltered terror rushed back into my veins.

The black leather folder slipped out of my numb fingers and hit the glass table with a loud smack that made me flinch again.

My lungs suddenly felt tight, so I gasped for air, but I could not pull enough oxygen into my chest to calm my racing heart.

Hot, thick tears pooled behind my prescription glasses and spilled over my bottom eyelashes to run rapidly down my flushed cheeks.

"Oh god, oh my god," I choked out between rapid, shallow breaths while pressing my hands over my trembling mouth.

I curled my shoulders forward and tried to hide my crying face from Maximilian because I felt so weak and pathetic after trying to act strong.

"I-I'm so sorry," I sobbed out blindly, expecting him to fire me for losing my composure in his professional workspace.

I heard the sudden squeak of his leather chair pushing back, and then heavy, rapid footsteps closed the distance between his desk and my chair.