Her hair was pulled back. Her heels hit the marble with a precision that sounded like punctuation, each step, a period at the end of a sentence nobody else had started. She was 39 years old and looked like a woman who had long since decided that the world would operate on her terms or it would wait. Two assistants flanked her, both of them speaking simultaneously from tablets they held at chest level. Behind them, two men in dark suits who Damian recognized from photographs as senior vice presidents.
Behind them, a communications director who was already on her phone. Victoria Caldwell did not slow down when she entered a room. She processed it and then her eyes landed on Damian. She stopped. It wasn't a long pause, maybe 2 seconds, but Damian felt it.
Everyone nearby felt it. The assistant stopped speaking. The senior vice presidents looked up. Victoria tilted her head slightly and studied him. E person study something they weren't expecting to find in a place it doesn't belong.
She walked toward him. Can I help you? She said. The words were polite. The tone was not Damian met her eyes.
He'd spent enough time in rooms like this and rooms nothing like this to understand exactly what was happening in her mind. He could read it in the fractional downturn of her mouth. In the way her chin had lifted precisely 1 cm, in the weight she'd placed on the word help, which in this context was not an offer, but a verdict. She had looked at him and decided who he was before he opened his mouth. He'd seen it before.
He'd lived inside that look most of his adult life. It didn't make him angry anymore. It made him sad in a way that had grown so familiar it no longer had sharp edges. My name is Damen Brooks, he said. I have a 2:00 with your legal team.
Her expression didn't change with my legal team. That's right. She looked at his folder. She looked at his shirt. She looked at his shoes.
He watched her do it. Watched her take the inventory. Add up the numbers and reach a conclusion. All in the span of about 4 seconds. What firm?
She said, I'm not with a firm. Then who sent you? Nobody sent me. Damian said, I'm here on my own behalf. Something shifted in her face.