I can see him in the reflection of my monitor glass more than I can see him directly.
Broad shoulders. Dark suit jacket pulled smoothly over his back. Head bent slightly as he checks the line between the shelves and the wall, then the camera dome in the upper corner; the one I had honestly stopped noticing almost immediately because it had become part of the room in the same way smoke detectors become part of a ceiling.
He notices everything.
I hate that too.
“Hm,” Harold says, peering down at the slide I’m currently sharing. “And the contingency reserve there. Is that still sufficient if your projected opening costs run five percent higher?”
“Yes,” I say again, because apparently today I am answering financial questions and resisting the urge to throw a stapler at my bodyguard at the same time. “That reserve already assumes variance. Five percent doesn’t break the model. Ten starts to annoy me. Fifteen becomes a real conversation.”
That gets a laugh out of Marissa.
Normal. Professional.
I cling to that and keep going.
Adrian moves to the wall of glass on the other side of the room and pauses there, looking out over the casino’s side access lane below.
He does not touch the glass. He just studies the angle, then the blinds, then the desk placement. Then he looks at me.
I feel it before I fully register it. The awareness of being observed not as a woman, not even really as a person in the usual sense, but as a principal in a room he is assessing. My position relative to the window. Relative to the door. Relative to the line of sight from outside.
It prickles anyway.
I keep my expression neutral and say, “If you all look at the supplementary tab, you’ll see the cash-flow assumptions broken out by month instead of quarter.”
Harold starts flipping through the materials.
Behind the screen, Adrian moves again.
This time toward the framed abstract by the side wall.
For one wild second, I think he is about to take it off the wall in the middle of my Zoom call.
He does not.
He leans slightly, studies the space behind it with his eyes, then moves on.
It should not be possible for somebody to be this invasive while actually staying completely out of my way. In searching my entire office, he hasn't appeared on camera even once. The three people on the screen have no idea there's even someone else in the room.
And yet here we are.
The consultant with the forgettable face asks, “Would you be open to an outside review of vendor leakage before the next board presentation?”
“Yes,” I say, though my patience with men who repackage my own ideas and hand them back to me as suggestions is almost gone. “Provided the scope is specific, and it doesn’t turn into six weeks of expensive redundancy.”
“Of course.”
Of course.
Adrian has reached the small lounge area at the far end of my office now. A loveseat and two chairs surround the low table. Another credenza with some choice liquors. He checks under the table, then the corner near the floor plant, then looks up at the vent placement.
I drag my eyes back to the screen.
This is absurd.
I am not distracted by men. I am especially not distracted by absurdly handsome men in suits doing their jobs with maddening competence. I am not one of those women who loses her head because a man with strong, broad shoulders starts rearranging the furniture of her life.
