Clara’s POV
The Meridian Global Summit occupied three floors of the waterfront conference center, its schedule dense with panels and keynotes and the particular social ritual of industries presenting their best version of themselves to each other and calling it collaboration.
I had been invited as a speaker on the second day—a thirty-minute panel on integration of spatial design principles in commercial environments, with two architects and a brand strategist whose work I admired. The invitation had arrived through my agency three months ago, and I had accepted it with the steady composure of Camille Ross, who accepted such things as the natural consequence of building something people wanted to hear about.
I had not thought about who else would be there.
That was the error.
Not a cat
