Just One Night 1_ The Stranger(7)

I have something to prove.

“I take it I’ll be part of the team handling this account?” I ask as I watch Tom claim the chair opposite me and idly look through my appointment calendar on my desk. I’ve learned to record my personal appointments exclusively on my phone and to keep my phone out of Tom’s reach.

“No,” he says as he thumbs through the weeks and months of my professional life. “You’re leading the team.”

There’s a shift in the room’s atmosphere. His eyes are still on the calendar but I can see he’s not reading it. He’s waiting for my reaction. I’ve wanted to lead a team since I got here but have long since accepted that I have a few more years to wait before the honor’s granted. And yet here is Tom, handing me this gift . . . why?

“It’s a small account?” I ask, trying to make sense of the nonsensical.

“No. It’s Maned Wolf Security Systems.”

Now the atmosphere isn’t so much shifting as it is deconstructing into a swirl of confusion. Maned Wolf Security Systems. It provides security for the biggest corporations on the globe, produces the highest tech surveillance systems, firewall protections, and even has an armed guard division that operates in some of the more volatile parts of the world. It has government contracts and politicians who vie for their support.

I have no right to lead this team. There shouldn’t even be a team. Maned Wolf is as insular as it is powerful. A billion-dollar operation that has yet to go public. It’s Apple meets Blackwater meets Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Secrets are kept; outsiders, unwelcome.

I haven’t earned the right to break them out of their shell.

But I really want to.

“Why me?”

Tom raises his eyes from my calendar. “He asked for you.”

And now the atmosphere has weight. I feel its pressure on my shoulders and against my chest. Tom looks at me with an expression laced with curiosity and suspicion.

“Who’s He?” I ask.

“The CEO.”

I should know his name, but I don’t. I know their contracts, their marketing, their strength. Their people have never been of much interest to me.

And yet, as I wait for Tom to say more, I sense that the focus of my interest is about to be irrevocably altered.

“His name is Robert . . . Robert Dade. He says he met with you in Vegas.”

People say there is nothing more wonderful than having your dreams come true. But some dreams were meant to stay dreams. Sometimes when our dream life sneaks into our waking world, it causes a chemical reaction.

And when that happens, everything explodes.

* * *

I’M GIVEN ONLY a few days to prepare for the meeting. I put together a team, but, per Mr. Dade’s request, the first meeting will be private. Just the two of us.

When Tom had told me that, I once again saw the suspicion in his eyes. It was easy to attack Tom’s mannerisms, even his management style, but not his intelligence. I made up a story as to how I had met Mr. Dade. How I had told him what I did for a living and boasted of professional successes as we stood in a painfully long airport security line. I said I had given Mr. Dade my card but been separated from him before getting the name of his company.

Even as I utter my explanations and excuses, I can see their transparency. But I so want Tom to suspend disbelief. I want him to accept the ridiculous idea that I inadvertently and unknowingly gave a powerful CEO the pitch of a lifetime. I want him to put away that curious smile he’s been sharing with me these days. I want him to stop looking at me like he suddenly realizes that I might be hiding something under my boxy blazers and wide-legged pantsuits. I want him to stop treating me like I’m as unscrupulously ambitious as he is.

Tom now stops to talk to me on a daily basis.

But right now I’m not in the office. It’s Friday morning. I take extra care with my appearance. I pull my hair back into a severe twist. My navy blazer falls in a straight line to my hips without so much as a hint of femininity. I pair it with a matching straight skirt. There is no invitation whispered within the folds of this fabric. There’s nothing here to entice.

As I stare at my reflection in my pale blue bathroom, I debate the problem of make-up. Without it I look softer, younger, more vulnerable.

I always wear make-up.

I drag a moist sponge across my skin, spreading foundation over my little imperfections; a small pimple along my hairline, the few freckles I earned while bicycling through those childhood days of summer . . . covering up all the tiny details that make me human. I darken my cheeks with bronzer and press a gray pencil against the tender flesh beneath my lower lashes.

This is the version of me that I’m allowed to show the world. This is not the woman Mr. Dade met in Vegas.