MoonBound by Fate

2

I'm going to preserve your actual plot: Isla's meeting, Northbridge suddenly terminating the contract, the suspicious document carrying her name, and the unexplained approval. I'll also keep the thicker paragraphs you prefer, while improving the pacing and making the ending much stronger for g*******l.

By some miracle, I made it to the office at 8:57.

I was out of breath by the time I pushed through the glass doors, and I had to force myself to slow down before reaching the reception desk because running through the lobby in heels was probably not the professional image I wanted to project five minutes before an important meeting. My hair had already started coming loose around my face, my blouse was slightly wrinkled from the frantic taxi ride, and I was beginning to regret every decision that had led me to believe I could sleep through my alarm and somehow still have a normal morning.

The receptionist looked up as I approached and smiled. “Morning, Isla.”

“Please don't tell me they're waiting for me.”

She glanced at the clock on her computer before looking back at me. “You have three minutes.”

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. “I could kiss you.”

She laughed. “I'd rather you make your meeting.”

“That too.”

I hurried toward the elevators, pressing the button twice even though I knew perfectly well it wouldn't make the elevator arrive any faster. When the doors finally opened, I stepped inside and immediately caught my reflection in the mirrored wall. I looked awful. Not terrible enough for anyone else to notice, probably, but terrible enough for me to notice every single thing that was wrong. One side of my hair was flatter than the other, my mascara had smudged slightly beneath one eye, and I had the unmistakable expression of a woman who had been awake for less than twenty minutes and was already regretting the day.

I tried fixing my hair with my fingers.

It only made it worse.

“Leave it,” I muttered.

The elevator doors opened on the twenty-first floor, and I stepped out to find Maya waiting outside the conference room with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked at me, then at the clock, then back at me.

“Don't.”

“I haven't said anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was thinking about it.”

“Maya.”

She smiled. “You look like you ran here.”

“I practically did.”

“I can tell.”

I dropped my bag beside one of the chairs and reached for the bottle of water sitting on the table. “I overslept.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You overslept?”

“Don't make it sound like I committed a crime.”

“You never oversleep before an important meeting.”

“Apparently I do now.”

She watched me take a long drink before lowering her voice. “Are you nervous?”

“Not anymore.”

That wasn't entirely true. I'd been nervous since Monday, but the kind of nervousness that came with preparation didn't bother me. I knew my numbers. I'd researched the accounts, reviewed the reports, rewritten my proposal twice and spent an embarrassing amount of time practicing what I wanted to say in front of my bathroom mirror. This morning's panic was different. This was the panic of someone who had spent the last thirty minutes trying not to miss a meeting she couldn't afford to mess up.

Maya reached over and straightened the collar of my blouse. “There. You look like a functioning adult again.”

“I was hoping for competent professional.”

“Let's not get ambitious.”

I laughed quietly, and for a second, I felt like myself again.

Then the conference room door opened.

Mr. Bennett stepped out.

He didn't look at either of us at first. His attention was fixed on the papers in his hand, but there was something about the way he was holding them that made the small amount of calm I'd managed to find disappear.

“Isla, could you come here for a second?”

Maya looked at me.

I followed him a few steps down the corridor.

“What happened?”

He glanced toward the conference room before lowering his voice. “There's been a change to the meeting.”

I frowned. “What kind of change?”

“The regional director has added something to the agenda.”

“What?”

“Northbridge.”

The name alone was enough to make my stomach tighten.

“Why?”

He hesitated.

That hesitation bothered me more than the answer probably would have.

“Something happened with the account last night.”

I waited.

He sighed. “They terminated the contract.”

For a moment, I couldn't process it.

“Northbridge?”

He nodded.

“That can't be right. We were supposed to have the renewal discussion next month.”

“The renewal isn't happening.”

I looked toward the conference room. “How did that happen overnight?”

“We're still trying to work that out.”

“Then why is it part of my meeting?”

“Because the regional director wants to know what happened.”

I stared at him. “Mr. Bennett, I wasn't handling Northbridge.”

“I know.”

The words came out too quickly, almost automatically, and I noticed the slight shift in his expression afterward.

I folded my arms. “Then why would he ask me?”

“Because your proposal is about client retention, and Northbridge is now a very convenient example of what happens when retention fails.”

“That sounds like a convenient way of putting someone on the spot.”

He didn't disagree.

Instead, he glanced at his watch. “You don't need to explain something you don't know. If they ask you about the account, be honest.”

“I always am.”

“I know.”

There was a pause.

Then he added, “Just be careful.”

That caught my attention.

“Careful about what?”

He looked as though he wanted to say something else, but the conference room door opened behind us and one of the executives stepped out.

“Mr. Bennett, we're ready.”

He straightened immediately.

“Right.”

He looked at me once more. “We'll talk after.”

Then he walked away.

I stood there for a second, watching him disappear down the corridor.

We'll talk after.

I hated those words.

Maya came over as soon as he disappeared. “What was that?”

“Apparently Northbridge cancelled their contract.”

Her expression changed. “You're joking.”

“I wish I were.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

“And nobody thought that was worth mentioning before you walked into a meeting where you're presenting a client retention strategy?”

I gave her a look. “Apparently not.”

Maya glanced through the glass wall of the conference room. “Who's asking about it?”

“Regional director.”

She winced. “That's not ideal.”

“No.”

“Do you know why they cancelled?”

“Not really.”

She studied my face for a moment. “Then don't let them make you feel like you have to give them an answer you don't have.”

I nodded, but my attention had already shifted toward the conference room.

Five people sat around the table.

At the head was Mr. Calloway, the regional director, whose reputation had somehow reached our office long before he had. He wasn't loud or openly aggressive. That would have been easier to deal with. Instead, he had a habit of listening without reacting, as though he were constantly deciding whether the person speaking to him was worth taking seriously. Two senior executives from the regional office sat beside him, while Mr. Bennett and our department director occupied the other side of the table.

I suddenly wished I'd had time for breakfast.

Maya touched my arm.

“Go.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don't.”

“I might by the end of this.”

She smiled. “Good luck.”

I walked into the room.

The first part of the meeting went better than I'd expected. Once I started speaking, the nerves faded into the background. I knew the material, and for the next twenty minutes, I was able to focus on what I'd prepared instead of worrying about everything that could go wrong. I explained the changes I'd recommend to our client retention process, walked them through the numbers from the previous quarter and discussed several areas where I believed we were losing clients unnecessarily. Mr. Calloway asked questions throughout, but most of them were reasonable, and by the time I reached the final slide, I was beginning to think I might actually get through the meeting without embarrassing myself.

Then I turned away from the screen.

Mr. Calloway had closed the folder in front of him.

“Thank you, Ms. Hale.”

I nodded and returned to my seat.

He rested his hands on the table.

“There's one other matter I'd like to discuss.”

I already knew what it was.

“Northbridge.”

My fingers tightened around the pen I'd been holding.

Mr. Bennett shifted slightly in his chair.

Mr. Calloway looked directly at me. “You're aware that Northbridge terminated its contract with us yesterday?”

“I heard about it this morning.”

“From whom?”

“Mr. Bennett.”

“And before this morning, you had no indication that the account was in difficulty?”

I paused.

“I knew there had been some concerns about the renewal, but I wasn't involved in the account directly. My understanding was that the account team was working through them.”

Mr. Calloway studied me.

“What concerns?”

“I wouldn't want to speculate.”

“I'm not asking you to speculate. I'm asking what you knew.”

I glanced briefly at Mr. Bennett.

He gave me nothing.

I turned back to the regional director. “There had been some discussion about their expectations for the next contract. Beyond that, I wasn't given any details.”

He leaned back in his chair.

“And yet your name appears in the internal documentation connected to the account.”

My stomach dropped.

I looked at him properly. “My name?”

He opened the folder again and removed a printed document.

“Yes.”

He slid it across the table.

I didn't touch it immediately.

There was something deeply uncomfortable about seeing my name on a document I had never seen before. Eventually, I reached for it and scanned the first few lines.

Then I stopped.

ISLA HALE.

My name was printed clearly at the top.

Underneath it was a recommendation regarding Northbridge's renewal strategy.

I read it once.

Then again.

I hadn't written it.

But it sounded like me.

The structure of the recommendation, the way the information had been arranged, even the terminology used throughout the document was similar to the way I usually wrote my reports. Whoever had written it had either studied my work very carefully or knew exactly how I thought.

“I didn't submit this.”

Mr. Calloway's expression didn't change.

“The document says otherwise.”

I looked at Mr. Bennett.

He was staring at the page now, his brows drawn together.

“That is my name,” I said, more quietly this time. “But I didn't write this.”

One of the executives leaned forward. “Are you saying someone used your credentials?”

“I don't know.”

The answer came out before I could stop it. I looked down at the document again, searching for something that might explain how it had ended up there.

A date.

A file number.

Anything.

Instead, my eyes caught the approval section at the bottom.

My stomach tightened.

I knew the approval process. I knew whose signatures belonged there. I knew which managers were authorized to approve a recommendation like this.

And the name beneath my recommendation wasn't any of them.

I've never seen this approval.

Mr. Calloway's eyes narrowed slightly.

“You're certain?”

I looked up at him.

“Yes.”

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

Then Mr. Calloway reached for the document and turned it toward himself.

His expression changed.

It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but I saw it.

He looked at the signature again.

Then at me.

“That's interesting.”

My pulse quickened.

“What is?”

He didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he turned the document around and pushed it back toward me.

“Because according to our system, this was approved using your credentials.”

The room seemed to go very still.

I stared at the page.

“I don't understand.”

“You're telling me you didn't write it.”

“I didn't.”

“You're also telling me you didn't approve it.”

“I didn't.”

Mr. Calloway held my gaze.

“Then, Ms. Hale, I think we have a much bigger problem than a cancelled contract.”

My fingers tightened around the edge of the document.