Page 3 of Tell Me What you Think

Sometimes Olga envies her friend's position, because it lets Silvia interact with Marina on a professional level and see her in meetings where Ricard has no role and therefore neither does Olga. She sighs, resigns herself to it, and picks up her pen, quietly hoping that whatever the regional director needs to cover doesn't require her to walk to the front of the room and stand in front of the large screen to present data — because if it does, Olga won't be able to look away, and the flush will creep back up her chest and across her cheeks until she looks like she's running a fever.

Chapter 2

Marina yawns and stretches until her shoulders crack the moment her alarm goes off. She turns on the nightstand lamp and lies there on her back, staring at some point on the ceiling while she lets her mind slowly wake up. She does this every morning — nearly jumping out of her skin to shut off the damn alarm, then staying put, awake, giving herself a few minutes to let her heart rate settle while her brain comes online.

She finally sits up and sets her bare feet on the rug. She stays like that for another minute, palms pressed against the mattress, becoming aware of the distant sound of traffic filtering through the windows of her Eixample apartment.

She gets up, walks to the window to raise the blind, and pulls back the curtains to take a look at the street below.

She loves this apartment. She bought it four years ago after the divorce, and even though it sometimes feels too big for just her, she doesn't regret the investment.

She heads to the bathroom, brushes her teeth, and undresses to shower. Half an hour later she steps out of her bedroom wearing a charcoal gray blazer and slacks, carrying the heels she's chosen for today in her hand — she knows all too well that the click of her footsteps at seven in the morning is enough to put her neighbors in a bad mood. She leaves the shoes by the front door and goes to the kitchen to make coffee, drinking it leaned against the counter while she scrolls through her notifications. These are the five minutes she enjoys most all day: a few slow sips, letting the caffeine finish waking her up, with no one hunting her down to ask, request, or inform her that she's been called into six meetings before noon.

The first message she opens is from her mother, who moved to Tenerife six years ago after her husband died — a father Marina doesn't miss, because she never felt close to him. It was as if, from the day she was born, there had been a wall between them that kept them from ever connecting.

When she opens the thread, she finds a video of kittens wishing her good morning. Marina smiles, because Cristina Albeol sends her one of these every single day, morning and night, on top of the two calls they have each week. She replies with a heart emoji and moves on to the next conversation. That one shows up as just a phone number, because Marina never bothered to save the name — though the guy's name is Álex, he's five years younger than her, works at a sporting goods store, and has been divorced for almost a year. Marina can't say much else about him, except that he's good enough in bed to leave her satisfied when she needs it.

I'll be in Barcelona until tomorrow for a sporting event. Want to meet up?

She might also add that Álex is from Tarragona, which was one of the reasons she agreed to go out with him when they matched on Tinder. Marina doesn't like seeing people from the city — because even though Barcelona is enormous and has two million people in it, the possibility of running into a lover makes her uncomfortable. Having Álex in her city bothers her too, but she decides to let it go.

Depends on how work goes. I'll text you later.

That's it — no greetings, no pleasantries. Another one of her rules. She had more than enough of that for years with her ex-husband, and after twelve years of marriage they had turned into two strangers who talked to each other out of affection but no longer gave each other anything.

She locks her phone, finishes her coffee, grabs her trench coat, and finally puts on her shoes before heading out.

Alcyone Consulting, the international strategy firm where she works, occupies three floors in the building. Her office is on the twenty-second — the executive floor.

Marina starts her day the way she always does: analyzing, managing, and above all leading, because one of her greatest strengths is her ability to command a team. But the morning goes sideways in the second meeting when one of the analysts on her team slides a sheet of paper across the table with a figure that doesn't add up.

"There's a discrepancy," the young man explains, pushing his glasses up with one finger. "The cash flow figures the target company submitted last week don't match the ones in their latest quarterly report. It's not a huge difference, but—"

Marina, seated at the head of the table with a team of seven people, lifts her eyes from her laptop and levels them on him. He loosens his tie knot as if it has a life of its own and is trying to strangle him.

She'll never get used to this reaction. She's not someone people should be afraid of, in spite of her title — she's the kind of person who listens, who spots strengths in people to encourage them, who points out mistakes in private so no one gets humiliated. But her presence commands a room, and that's something she has no fix for.

"Let me see it."

The analyst hands over the laptop with both hands, as if presenting a gold crown on a velvet cushion.

Marina reviews it in silence, feeling everyone's eyes on her, but it doesn't make her nervous. Something else she's learned over the years here is to stay calm — because if she shows any agitation, it'll spread to the whole team, and that only leads to mistakes throughout the day.

"This isn't your error." Marina turns the laptop and pushes it back toward the analyst, who deflates with relief as he reaches out to take it. "The gap is in the consolidation criteria, not the numbers. They booked a line item under cash that we account for separately," she explains calmly, moving her gaze around the table before it lands on the analyst who caught the discrepancy. "Don't let a number that doesn't add up scare you." She addresses the full room. "The only thing that should scare us is not finding out why."

Everyone nods in unison, focused.

"Find out where that line item comes from and show me this afternoon."

The analyst nods, and she stands up, closing the meeting. But when she leaves the room, she doesn't go straight to her office — she heads to the office of her colleague and friend, Jordi Puig.

They both started at the firm at nearly the same time, and although for the first four years they were essentially competing for the same positions, it never threatened the friendship that formed between them almost immediately.

"Coming to take me to lunch?" he asks the moment she walks in and closes the door behind her.

"Actually, I'm here to borrow five minutes of your brain." Marina sits down, crosses one leg over the other, and takes a mint candy from the bowl Jordi always keeps on his desk.

She unwraps it unhurriedly and pops it in her mouth, and he stares for a few seconds, a little dazed watching her. He's always felt something for her — though he can't call it love, and it's never kept him up at night. He's never acted on it either, because he knows how it would go. After all these years, he knows her well enough to know she'd never make the mistake of sleeping with a friend.