“You look like you’re negotiating with gravity.”
She pointed somewhere in my direction. “Don’t be charming. It’s off-brand.”
Here is the thing about Natalie in the office: Navy blazers. Low ponytail. Black coffee she never let go cold. Arguments so airtight they might as well have come with footnotes and exhibit tabs.
But that night, her hair had escaped around her face. Her lipstick had worn down to almost nothing. And there was something in her eyes I had never once seen inside a conference room — something soft and undefended — and it hit me with the force of an inconvenient truth.
She was stunning when she wasn’t trying to win.
Maybe even more stunning when she was.
“You need water,” I said.
“I need everyone to stop congratulating Thomas for my pitch.”
That pulled me up short. Thomas Beck, our creative director, had given the toast that night — five full minutes during which he’d managed to mention “the team’s collaborative energy” while somehow spending most of the speech reflecting on his own leadership journey. Natalie had smiled through every second of it. The smile of a woman who has already tried and convicted you in her head and is simply waiting on sentencing.
“It was your pitch,” I said.
