Ivy read the message three times before it fully landed, something warm and disbelieving spreading through her chest despite the heaviness of the hospital room around her.

"What is it," Sterling asked, noticing the shift in her expression.

"A job interview. A real one." Ivy held the phone out, still slightly stunned. "The firm my instructor mentioned. They saw the presentation deck somehow, the one from the shareholder meeting, and they want to talk to me about a junior design position."

Something genuine and proud broke through the exhaustion on Sterling's face, the first real lightness Ivy had seen from him since the meeting that morning. "That deck saved my...