All conversation stopped when I walked into the boardroom.

For a moment, I stood just inside the door, suddenly conscious of everything I had failed to fix before coming upstairs. My clothes were still the same ones I had worn the day before, wrinkled from sleeping in them, and there was probably still a trace of yesterday's makeup beneath my eyes no matter how many times I had wiped my face. Around the long conference table, several executives looked at me with varying degrees of surprise, and I could almost feel their judgment before I had said a word.

I wished, briefly and irrationally, that I had taken five more minutes to make myself look presentable.

Then Vance looked at me.

His gaze moved over my appearance with the same cool precision he used when reviewing a report, and one of his eyebrows shifted almost imperceptibly. It wasn't difficult to understand what he was thinking. I looked nothing like the woman who should have been walking into a room full of senior executives to present a multimillion-dollar proposal.

His eyes returned to mine for a second before he looked toward the table.

“Gentlemen,” he said, and the room immediately settled. “This is Nerissa Sullivan, my lead data strategist. She oversees our European analytics and has been working directly with the Zenith data. She'll explain what the current proposal is missing.”

I glanced at him.

Lead data strategist?

That wasn't my official title. He knew it, and I knew it, but he had given it to me without hesitation, placing a little more authority behind my name than I technically carried. There was no time to question him about it, so I simply walked toward the screen and connected my laptop.

Harrington, seated at the center of the table, raised his bushy eyebrows as he looked between Vance and me.

“We're short on time, Blackwood. We've already reviewed the cost projections, and they're too high.”

“I know,” I said, turning toward the screen. “That's because the projections you're reviewing are based almost entirely on the North American models.”

I brought up the first graph. “They're assuming an average efficiency improvement of forty percent.”

I paused and looked around the table before continuing. “That number is wrong.”

A man near the end of the table adjusted his glasses. “Those models are the industry standard.”

“They were,” I said. “But the Scandinavian data is already several years ahead of them.”

I clicked to the next slide, bringing up the comparison between the North American projections and the results recorded in Oslo.

“Zenith's core technology has been operating in Oslo for two years. Their published figures show a seventy-two percent improvement in efficiency.”

The man with the glasses leaned back. “Published figures can be manipulated.”

“They can,” I agreed. “Which is why I didn't use the headline numbers.”

I moved to the next page. “I cross-referenced their reported output against energy consumption, maintenance costs, and the operating hours recorded by the facility. The numbers still come out significantly higher than the projections you're using.”

Harrington leaned forward.

I could feel the room beginning to change. A few moments earlier, they had been looking at me as though I were an interruption to a meeting that had already been decided. Now they were looking at the screen.

I pointed toward the cost curve. “This is where the current proposal becomes misleading. You're looking at the initial investment and assuming the expense continues at roughly the same rate. It doesn't. The installation cost happens once. After that, the operating costs begin dropping.”

I clicked again. The final graph appeared.

“The payback period isn't seven years,” I said. “Based on the Scandinavian data, it's approximately eighteen months. After that, the reduction in operating costs continues to compound.”

Nobody interrupted. Harrington's eyes remained fixed on the screen.

“Show me the supplier details,” he said. “The Oslo installation.”

My stomach tightened. I hadn't prepared that page for the presentation. The information was in another file on my laptop, but it wasn't part of the deck I had brought into the room. For the first time since I had started speaking, I felt the certainty in my voice threaten to disappear.

I opened my mouth, already trying to work out how to answer without exposing the gap.

“Page seventeen,” Vance said from near the window.

I turned toward him.

“The supplier plan is included in the packet in front of you, Mr. Harrington. Ms. Sullivan flagged it during her initial analysis. It's one of the reasons we brought this meeting forward.”

I stared at him for half a second. I had never flagged it for Harrington.

But the packet was already in front of them, and when Harrington turned to page seventeen, I saw several sections highlighted in yellow. Vance's assistant must have prepared it while I was getting upstairs.

Harrington studied the figures for several seconds before looking back at me. “You aren't afraid of the size of the initial investment, are you, Ms. Sullivan?”

I shook my head. “No, sir. I'm more concerned with making a decision based on the wrong timeline. If we only look at what it costs to install, then it looks expensive. If we look at what it costs to operate over the next five years, the numbers tell a very different story.”

Harrington stared at me for another moment before a slow smile appeared across his face. Then he laughed. “You were right, Blackwood.”

He closed the packet and looked back at me. “She gets it.”

My fingers tightened slightly around the presentation remote.

“The board meets Monday,” Harrington continued. “I want her on the call.”

He pointed toward me. “Not the CFO. Her. If we're going to move forward with this, I want the person who understands the numbers explaining them.”

I thanked him, but my voice sounded strangely distant to my own ears.

The meeting moved on to a few final questions, but the decision had already been made. When the executives finally began gathering their papers, I remained where I was for a moment, staring at the presentation on the screen.

An hour ago, I had been sitting in the back of a taxi trying to keep myself from falling apart because my husband had chosen another woman.

Now a room full of executives had changed a multimillion-dollar decision because they trusted what I had shown them. The contrast was almost difficult to comprehend.

For five years, I had allowed Zane's love—or the absence of it—to become the measure I used for myself. I had spent so much time wondering why I wasn't enough for him that I had forgotten there were parts of me he had never been qualified to judge.

I closed my laptop. “Thank you, sir.”

Harrington gave me a final nod before turning to Vance.

Vance was already watching me. “Ms. Sullivan. My office.”

I gathered my things and followed him out.

Neither of us spoke as we walked down the corridor. The silence didn't feel uncomfortable, but I found myself unusually aware of him beside me, perhaps because the last time we had been alone together, I had been drunk enough to kiss him and sober enough the next morning to regret it.

His office was cool and quiet, the glass walls overlooking the city. Vance walked behind his desk while I remained near the door, unsure whether I was supposed to sit.

He looked at me for a moment. “That was well done.”

Coming from him, the simple acknowledgment meant more than I expected. A small smile touched my lips before I could stop it. “Thank you.”

His gaze remained on me.

“And thank you for the additional packet.”

“It was necessary.”

“You prepared it after I left the elevator?”

“I had Lydia pull the supplier information while you were on your way up.”

I nodded.

“Harrington's approval means the Zenith merger will be announced next Friday,” he continued. “There will be a press event afterward. You'll attend.”

I looked up. “As the project lead?”

“As the project lead.”

Something shifted inside me. “In public?”

“Yes.” His answer came without hesitation.

“As a professional, Ms. Sullivan. You're going to be the person presenting the project to the people who will be watching it.”

I understood what he wasn't saying. The industry would be watching. The press would be watching. And eventually, there was a good chance Zane and Jovi would hear about it.

The thought should have frightened me. Instead, something warmer and sharper moved through the exhaustion I had been carrying all morning.

“Why are you doing this?”

Vance didn't answer immediately. He turned toward the windows, looking out over the city below.

“Because skill shouldn't be wasted.”

I remained silent.

After a moment, he continued. “People often confuse being overlooked with being ordinary.”

His reflection appeared faintly in the glass. “They aren't the same thing.”

I watched him for a moment, trying to understand why the words felt more personal than a conversation about work should have.

Then he turned back toward me. “And because I'm tired of losing good people to bad choices.”