I’d studied it. Learned it. Memorized the language of this organization like it was a test I couldn’t afford to fail.
My heels clicked softly against the polished floor, the sound echoing just enough to remind me I was alone in my movement, even if I wasn’t alone in the building.
Voices drifted from somewhere ahead—low, overlapping, not quite contained. There was an edge to them I couldn’t place. Not loud. Not chaotic.
Tense.
I slowed slightly, my senses sharpening, cataloging details the way I always did when I walked into something new.
A man in a team jacket passed me going the opposite direction, a phone pressed to his ear, his voice low, like whatever he was dealing with didn’t have room to spill into the hallway. He glanced at me once—quick, assessing, not unkind but not welcoming either—before continuing on without slowing.
My stomach tightened.
I hadn’t been here before. I didn’t recognize anyone. No one had stopped me. No one had asked who I was or where I was supposed to be, and for a split second, standing in the middle of a hallway that felt too quiet for a building this size, I wondered if I had already done something wrong.
Why isn’t anyone talking to me?
The thought pressed in sharper than I expected, but I pushed it aside just as quickly, straightening my shoulders as I adjusted the strap of my bag and kept moving.
Keep moving,I told myself.You gave yourself extra time for a reason.
Relief flickered low in my chest as I walked, small butsteady. I wasn’t late. I wasn’t rushing. I had done exactly what I always did—planned, prepared, controlled the one thing I could—and even if something felt off, even if this wasn’t unfolding the way I had pictured it, I still had time to figure it out.
The conference room door was already open.
That had to be where I was supposed to meet the head of the public relations team, just like Ezra had explained when he convinced me into this situation—just a conversation, an initial meeting, a chance to prove that I belonged in a room like this before anyone had the chance to decide that I didn’t.
Light spilled out into the hallway, too bright compared to the rest of the building, fluorescent and clinical, washing the edges of everything in a pale, overexposed glow. As I got closer, the voices I had only half-noticed before sharpened into something more defined—one clipped and irritated, another calm and measured, a third somewhere in between, threaded with a tension that didn’t match the idea of a simple morning meeting.
I slowed without meaning to, just slightly, my steps quieter as I reached the doorway.
Then I stepped inside.
And stopped.
The room was full.
Not crowded, but full in a way that made the air feel thinner, like there wasn’t enough space for all of the energy pressing into it. A long table dominated the center, laptops open, papers scattered, coffee cups in varying states of abandonment as if no one had time to finish anything they started. The smell hit me first—burnt espresso, stale sugar, and something sharper underneath it all, the faint bite of stress-sweat hidden under expensive cologne.
At the far end stood a woman who didn’t need to speak tobe in charge of the room—imposing, tightly wound, her irritation held just beneath the surface like something sharpened instead of hidden.
I didn’t recognize her, but I didn’t need to.
That had to be who I was there to meet, Charlotte Anderson.
Her hair was pulled back into a tight knot that emphasized the sharpness of her features, her posture rigid in a way that read as power rather than tension. A blazer the color of deep charcoal fit her like armor, the sleeves pushed up just enough to suggest she had been there for hours already, working through something that clearly hadn’t gone the way she wanted it to. Her gaze flicked up as I entered, landing on me for half a second before moving on as if I were just another item added to an already overloaded list.
No warmth.
No hesitation.
Just assessment.
“Beatriz Ribeiro,” she snapped, her voice cutting cleanly through the room without raising in volume. “Communications.”
That was it. No introduction. No welcome.
Just a label.