Prologue

Madison

Three years ago…

“Adele, I already asked you if you could assign this presentation to someone else” I vocalize my frustration towards my department head.

The first thing is that I didn’t make the slides and don’t understand what is the point of half of them and the second is this is not my area of expertise. Which returns us to the point number one - how can I present something I have no knowledge about.

“ Madison, we all have to chip in,” she snorts at me looking down her little pointy nose.

Wow I’m impressed, I actually got a look from her. Usually she just rolls her eyes and continues looking at her screen while talking to me. No talking to her, either you do it as she demands it the first time, or you just keep re-doing it until she is satisfied.

I kind of have mixed feelings about her. There is the admiration for how she is capable of verbalizing little she knows into a philosophical thesis actually sounding smart and knowledgeable. I was bedazzled with it when we started working together, however after you hear her speak a few times… A little light turns on.

Bullshit light.

And then there is the frustration with the micromanaging control freak who regularly declares others work as her own. Skilled enforcer of the “divide and conquer” maxima. That one is capable of walking on dead bodies in order to achieve her goal.

“All of you got assignments and you are the only one complaining. That agenda is approved by our management and it cannot be changed.”

Yes I am, I’m the only one complaining, aren’t I.

It is funny how her pets got to present their own projects and I got assigned to something I know nothing about.

I don’t tell her that. I just nod my head, and return to my desk. Moment I sit down Selena’s head popps behind her monitor. She wiggles her eyebrows, signaling for “lets go to the kitchen”.

No Selena, not now.

I message her over our internal chat. I don’t want to draw the attention of any of my colleagues, I know that the detailed report will be submitted to Adele, later on. She will get all the details on how I entered our cubicle, did I sit down nervously, throw down my notebook, breath or sigh loudly… God forbid that I comment on anything...

Here goes nothing…. Let me try to prepare for this presentation.

I look at my email, it is packed. My phone rings, I recognize the number and know that if I take the call it will cost me 45 minutes at least.

My clients come first…. I’ll do the presentation later at home… as always.

*******

Meeting reminder pops out.

I know, I know. I’ll be late again and be the lucky winner of Adele’s tormented sigh.

But I just have to finish the sentence and hit send on this email. Tony from the customer support is working the morning shift today and if I don’t send it now, I’m not going to get an answer till tomorrow afternoon… And Adele just told me that she needs it today.

I finish it, hit send without even looking if there are spelling mistakes to be corrected, unplug my laptop and run in the direction of the meeting room. I’m the last one to arrive and everybody turns to me. One thick eyebrow cocks at me from across the table.

Ou shit, Liam is here.

Why is Liam here!!!

Doesn’t a billionaire CEO have more important things to do?

I sit myself at the first, closest, available seat. Trying not to produce a sound because Adele is already doing the intro to the meeting part.

“Now that all of us are finally here…” I hear from the bottom of the meeting room, “we can start with the presentation walkthrough for the quarterly business review meeting”.

The meeting is in three days and didn’t have any time to rehearse my presentation. At this moment, it is just a a script composed of the backup materials and notes that I got. I managed to pull together a good story, now I just need to polish it. It’s not something I can speak from experience.

In the light of Liams presence, something becomes painfully clear to me. All of my colleagues who present at this meeting, actually booked time yesterday and today to do their preparations while Adele just kept pumping assignments at me. Did she tell them that Liam will join us on this walkthrough?

Thirty minutes later it is my turn to go through my presentation. The number of papers and notes around me clearly shows the level of preparation is not in the “done” range. I sigh and decide not to go into the apologetic mode.

No use, whatever I say it will look only worse. If I say that the week was crazy, she will say it was the same for everybody. Well clearly not if they managed to book half a day to do the presentations. If I say I took other work home and did this also in the evening, she will say I’m slow, unorganized...

I arranged all of the other tasks so that I’m prepared in time for the client meeting, not for today. Not for Liam.

I start the presentation and read off my notes. There is a small discussion on each slide taking us off in tangents as Adele asks me questions or somebody comments something. I note everything we were saying because those are valid questions some of the clients may ask.

Next slide shows a pie chart of the market segmentation for the product. I go through the three major segments and skip to the next one.

“Can you go back?” Liam's voice jolts me to attention.

Just when I thought I’ll be able to slide through this and continue being a wallflower…

I flip back to the previous slide.

“What is represented in the zero percent segment?” he asks me.

Time stops at that moment, blood rushes to my cheeks and I can physically feel that I’m turning red. I look at him, fiercely concentrating on keeping my face clear of any expressions. A long moment pases and I already hear Adele clicking on her keyboard, probably trying to dig up the materials she forwarded me in a fyi manner - here are the materials you will do the presentation.

I wave my head no and shrug.

“I don’t know…” I tell him and by this moment the utmost urge to start laughing floods me. I kill it because that is not professional.

Liam sits across the table in a staring contest with me, expression unreadable. There is a glint of a spark in his eyes. Is he amused or is he pissed off? I would be pissed off.

“The other category …” Adele croaks from her position still obviously trying to find the information.

He ignores her.

“Know the facts behind everything that is put on the slides,” he tells me shortly and looks at his watch.

“I will.” I respond.

“Let us continue, there are still two more presentations to look at,” he answers.