Episode 3: The Man Across The Table

POV SOFIA

The announcement came on a Tuesday morning.

Marcus called the whole team into the conference room and stood at the head of the table with the particular energy and trying very hard to contain something significant and not quite succeeding.

"Cole Enterprises," he said.

The room went quiet.

Everyone knew that name. You didn't work in finance and not know that name. Ethan Cole billionaire, his very cold and his kind of man who built empires while other people were still drawing blueprints. His company had been untouchable to firms like ours for years.

"They've agreed to a meeting," Marcus continued. "One meeting. One chance to present our partnership proposal." He paused. "If we land this account it changes everything for this company. The contract alone would be the biggest we have ever signed."

Someone asked about the bonus.

Marcus named the figure.

The room exhaled collectively.

I sat very still and did the math in my head.

That number — that single number — was more than six months of my salary. It was doctor's appointments and hospital bills and a life I had no idea yet how to afford. It was the difference between drowning quietly and actually keeping my head above water.

I needed this.

More than anyone in that room knew. More than I was willing to say out loud to anyone except the ceiling of my apartment at three in the morning when the weight of everything got too heavy to carry silently.

"Sofia."

I looked up.

Marcus was looking directly at me.

"You're leading the presentation," he said simply.

I called Claire that evening.

"You have to do this," she said before I had finished explaining.

"I know."

"Sofia this is not optional. This bonus—"

"I know Claire."

"Do you?" Her voice softened slightly. "Because you're growing a human being inside you and you have no idea what that's going to cost and this is the universe handing you exactly what you need at exactly the right moment and I need you to take it."

I looked at the ceiling.

"I'm going to take it," I said.

"Good." A pause. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I might throw up."

"Morning sickness or nerves?"

"Both probably."

She laughed.

I almost did tho.

I spent the next four days preparing.

Every number. Every projection. Every possible question they could ask and every answer I could give. I built the proposal from the ground up — not because anyone told me to go that far but because going that far was the only way I knew how to do anything.

By the morning of the presentation I knew that document better than I knew my own reflection.

I was ready.

I had to be.

Cole Enterprises headquarters rose from the city like it had decided the skyline belonged to it and simply never entertained the possibility of anyone disagreeing.

Glass and steel. Clean and cold and deliberate. The kind of building that didn't need to announce its power because everything about it already did.

I stood outside it for a moment.

Looked up.

Okay, I told myself. Just walk in.

I walked in.

The lobby swallowed us the moment we stepped through the doors.

Marble floors. Ceilings that went on forever. Staff moving with the quiet efficient purpose of people who understood that time here was worth more than most people's entire existence.

We were collected by a young man named Daniel — precise, efficient, the energy of someone whose entire professional life revolved around making sure things ran exactly on schedule — and taken up to the thirty eighth floor.

The conference room was large and serious and already arranged for a meeting that mattered. Long table. High backed chairs. A presentation screen set up against the far wall.

I connected my laptop. Pulled up the slides. Went through everything one final time.

You know this, I told myself. You built this. There is nothing they can ask that you don't already have the answer to.

I believed it.

I had to.

They arrived at exactly twelve o'clock.

I heard them before I saw them — footsteps in the corridor, the door handle, the particular shift in atmosphere that happened when people with real authority entered a space.

I was facing the screen when they walked in.

I turned around.

And the man at the centre of the group stopped every coherent thought I had.

Tall. Dark suit. The kind of face that a room full of people noticed before he even opened his mouth — not because he demanded attention but because he simply had it. Sharp jaw. Dark eyes. The expression of someone who had walked into a thousand rooms and found perhaps three of them worth his time.

He walked in like the building already belonged to him.

Which it did.

I noted all of this in approximately two seconds and then put it away because I was a professional with a presentation to give and this was not the time.

He sat down at the centre of the opposite side of the table.

Set his phone face down.

Looked at the presentation screen with the patient expression of a man who had already decided he probably wasn't going to be impressed.

Introductions were made around the table.

When Marcus said my name I looked up.

And found the man already looking at me.

Dark eyes meeting mine across the table — steady, unreadable, the gaze of someone who saw considerably more than other people did.

Something about it made me want to look away.

I didn't.

I held his gaze for exactly the right amount of time — professional, confident, completely impersonal — and then turned back to my screen.

"Thank you for the opportunity." My voice came out exactly as I needed it to. Clear. Certain. Giving nothing away. "I'll get straight to the numbers."

I clicked to the first slide.

And began.

The moment Ethan Cole looked at the woman presenting to him and recognized a face he had last seen in a hotel room doorway — lost, confused, gripping the frame with both hands.

He went completely still.

His eyes moved across her face — the grey eyes focused on her presentation screen, the composed expression giving nothing away, the quiet striking beauty of someone completely unaware of being looked at.

He had thought about that night more than he intended to.

He had thought about her.

And now here she was.

Standing in his conference room.

Finally found you, he thought.