The office was quieter than usual, but the weight of anticipation hung in the air. Reports had been submitted, strategies cross-checked, and yet, I could feel the pulse of something bigger—something that went beyond contracts and projections.
It wasn’t just another closing cycle.
It wasn’t just another corporate maneuver.
It was movement.
Subtle. Strategic. Unfolding beneath the surface where only a few of us could feel it.
Charles Laurent had escalated his presence subtly. His polite, measured smiles never reached his eyes. Every step he took seemed designed to unsettle, to remind me that he was watching, calculating, waiting for an opportunity.
Waiting for a fracture.
Waiting for weakness.
And I knew—instinctively—that he believed I could be that weakness.
But he was wrong.
Or
