Page 40 of Spring Break Fling

I clicked to the next slide, except—oops—it wasn’t the next slide. It was the one three slides later.

“Whoops!” I chirped, trying to play it off as intentional. “I meant to show you this one. It’s… foreshadowing.”

I was losing it. The fucking night out was catching up with me. I was twenty-nine, not twenty-one anymore. I couldn’t party all night and be totally present and my usual focused self. Especially not for the biggest pitch of my career.

I took a deep breath, trying to center myself. “As you can see from this graph…”

My eyes widened as I realized the graph was upside down. How did that even happen? I’d checked everything a dozen times.

“The, uh, inverted nature of this chart represents the paradigm shift we’re proposing,” I said, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. “It’s a visual metaphor for how we’ll turn the industry on its head.”

I could tell by their expressions I was not pulling it off. They weren’t impressed by my clumsiness. I dug deep, reaching into my very soul and silently praying to the gods of speeches and presentations. This was my chance to make it big. This was a huge run on the ladder to the top. I couldn’t afford to slip and fall.

I took a deep breath and forced myself to slow down. “Let me back up a moment,” I said, clicking back to an earlier slide. “The core of our strategy is about creating an emotional connection with your audience.”

I launched into the meat of the pitch, the part I knew backward and forward. As I spoke, I felt my confidence returning. The fog in my brain started to lift as I hit my stride. It wasn’t quite as polished as I imagined it being, but it didn’t seem like a complete failure.

After what felt like an eternity, I wrapped up my pitch and smiled at the room. “So, any questions?”

They had questions.

Oh, did they have questions.

Tobias leaned forward, steepling his fingers. “Ms. Coleman, let me ask you this: How do you intend to maintain brand cohesion across such a diverse demographic spread?”

I blinked. “Great question, Mr. Wexler. We’ll, um, implement a phased approach that⁠—”

“And what about the color palette?” interrupted the woman who for some reason reminded me of a parrot. “I think chartreuse speaks to the heart of the brand.”

Chartreuse? Really?

Another executive chimed in about budget constraints, and suddenly I was fielding questions from all directions, a one-woman tennis match with the world’s most eccentric doubles team.

But I held my ground. Sort of.

Maybe not.

By the end of the meeting, I felt like I’d gone ten rounds in a boxing ring. And I didn’t win. It wasn’t a TKO, but I was not the one with the ref raising my arm. The best way I could describe this fiasco was a draw.

“Ms. Coleman, your enthusiasm is commendable. We’ll expect the revised materials by week’s end. Monday’s meeting will determine whether this project proceeds.”

I could feel my big opportunity slipping through my fingers. I had to get my shit together.

“I’ll send the documents for your review, and when we meet again on Monday, we can assess the strategy. I’ll be happy to continue addressing any concerns when I’m back in Idaho and you’re back in New York.”

“Sounds like a great plan,” he said with a smile. “Just a little fine-tuning. I think we’re on the right track.”

I nodded, plastering on my best professional smile. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Wexler. I won’t let you down.”

As soon as I was out of the conference room, I exhaled so hard I might’ve deflated. I kept my chin high as I walked out of the building and quickly hailed a cab. My mind was spinning. They had asked for a lot of revisions.

These weren’t the type of people who hired us and let us do our thing. Oh no. They wanted to be very involved. They wanted details. They were far more demanding than Clarke suggested. My pitch could have been better, but the concept was good. If I had known more of the details about what they wanted, I could have done better. I couldn’t exactly tell them my boss dropped the ball.

As soon as I was back in my hotel room, I kicked off my heels and collapsed onto the bed. My head was pounding, a combination of stress and lingering effects from last night. I groaned, burying my face in a pillow.

“What the hell was I thinking?” I muttered to myself.

I had let Nikko distract me from what was really important. This account could make or break my career, and I’d nearly blown it because I was too busy playing games with a tattooed bad boy.