Esther gripped her bag with more force than necessary to keep it in her hand. While Marshall had never said the office would be empty, she’d sort of assumed it would be. But activity buzzed everywhere she looked, and at least a dozen people worked at desks and stood at a water cooler when she walked in.
Marshall nodded to them, said hello, introduced her to a few people whose names she catalogued for later in case she needed them. They finally made it to the fourth floor, where a sprawling office housed an enormous desk in front of an entire wall of windows.
Marshall barely looked outside as he rounded the desk and set his briefcase on it. But Esther felt drawn to them as if they were a powerful magnet. “Your plantation,” she said, her voice full of awe.
The rows and rows of pineapple p
