-POV Derby
The fluorescent lights of the fourteenth-floor conference room flickered with a cold, relentless hum that made my temples throb. It was barely nine in the morning, but the table was already buried under three different drafts of the joint-venture prospectus, the paper smelling faintly of cheap ink and corporate anxiety. I kept my head down, my fingers moving across the laptop keyboard with a steady, mechanical rhythm, inputting the updated valuation data from the regional bank without looking up at the empty chairs across from me.
The door clicked open, the heavy glass panel sliding back into the frame with a sharp, expensive thud that caused the junior accountants near the whiteboard to instantly straighten their posture.
Jordan walked in, his presence immediately flattening
