CHAPTER 1
STEPHANIE
“Ms. Vincent?”
Stephanie Vincent looked up from the pitch notes she had been reviewing. The man behind the reception desk was setting down his phone, and he beckoned her forward. She rose from the chair where she had been sitting for the past quarter of an hour and smoothed her skirt, hoping she still looked professional. She approached the desk.
“Mr. Norcross is ready for you now,” the receptionist said. He pointed down a hall that led past his desk and toward an imposing-looking oak door. “You can go straight in; he’s expecting you.”
Stephanie nodded, though her nerves prickled at the thought of just walking up to that door like she belonged and opening it. Oliver Norcross was one of the most influential and powerful bankers in all of California, and certainly here in the San Valentino area. Today’s pitch was a big deal. If she was successful, it might change the trajectory of her company.
She was going to open that door even if it killed her. But she wished he was opening it for her. That would certainly have felt more welcoming.
“Thank you,” she told the receptionist, and started down the hall. The thick carpet silenced her footsteps, adding to the impression that her presence here was completely invisible.
She wished she had taken the time to go to the bathroom and check her reflection in the mirror.
As an ambassador for SilkSoft Skincare, Stephanie’s looks were more than just vanity. They were marketing. She needed to have perfectly clear skin in a meeting like this one to prove that her products did what they said on the label. She was tempted to run her hands over her cheeks and make sure they were smooth, a nervous habit that had taken her years to break. She balled her hands into fists instead, slightly crumpling the pitch notes she had prepared.
She walked up to the door, squared her shoulders, and pushed it open.
Oliver Norcross looked smaller in person than she had expected. When she had seen his picture in the news, he had seemed like a horribly imposing figure, but the man before her was probably less than six feet tall. He greeted her with a smile. “You’re Stephanie Vincent,” he said. “Thank you for coming to meet with me today.”
“Thank you for taking the time to see me. I know you must be very busy.”
“Oh, I am, but I still look forward to taking meetings like this one,” he said. “I get to meet the most interesting characters. Why don’t you sit down—or would you prefer to stand?”
“No, this is good.” She sank into the chair on the far side of the desk, already feeling more at ease.
Norcross sat down too. “So your company is about… makeup? Is that right?”
“Skincare,” she clarified. “Related, but not exactly the same.”
“Tell me about the difference.” He folded his hands on his desk.
“Well, makeup is more about appearances,” Stephanie said, wondering if he truly didn’t know. It was more likely he was trying to get the measure of SilkSoft’s mission. “Good skincare will impact your appearance, of course, but there’s more to it than that. The skin is the body’s largest organ, you know, but we forget to think of it that way sometimes. It deserves to be well taken care of.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle of lotion. “If you’d like, give that a try,” she said. “This is one that does well with men. It’s unscented, and it’s great for cracked and callused hands. If you use it every day, your hands will be soft and comfortable in no time.”
Norcross squirted a little bit out into his palms and rubbed it in. “It does feel nice,” he agreed. “And I like that it doesn’t leave my hands feeling sticky, like some lotions do.”
She nodded. “That’s a special formula I’ve been developing with my research team for a while now. We’ve perfected it with this hand lotion, but one thing we want to work on if you give us this grant is taking that formula to our line of facial creams and serums. We want it to feel like you’re wearing nothing, like your skin is just naturally soft and smooth.”
“How are you going to do it?” Norcross asked. “Is it a simple matter of converting the formula?”
“Well, no, it isn’t simple,” Stephanie admitted, shifting in her chair. “If it was, we wouldn’t need financial backing. We’re still in the early days of making that product, and there’s a lot of testing left to be done.”
“Testing?” He frowned. “What kind of testing?”
“Nothing unethical. We don’t test on animals.” She grinned. “My team and I patch test the products on ourselves, both to see what works and to see if they cause any adverse effects. When we were developing our vitamin B serum last year, we all broke out in hives.”
“That’s adventurous,” Norcross chuckled. “But you must be pretty courageous, I suppose, since you’ve gone into business for yourself like this.”
“Well, I try to be,” Stephanie said. “I always say that if you’re not going to do something yourself, nobody is going to do it for you.”
“Very wise.”
“But that being said, I do have to ask you for this loan,” she went on. “I simply don’t have the funding to keep going as I have been, and it means so much to me to continue the work I’m doing. I believe in this brand. It’s going to be the next big thing, I’m sure of it.”
