His Naughty Lessons

** Harper ** If Harper had more time and mental bandwidth, she might have dwelled a little longer on the not-so-surprising yet still disheartening revelations from May, or the ill-timed invitation from Eli that sounded suspiciously like a date. But with the investors meeting drawing closer and closer, she had neither the time or the mental bandwidth, so all the whirlwind of events from the weekend were quickly behind her as the dreaded Wednesday finally arrived.

The marketing team had decided to pull another last-minute meeting just before the investors' arrival, so Harper found herself sitting in the conference room at 7am, groggily sipping her coffee, and watching the presenter walk through every single slide yet again. It had become increasingly clear over the week how important this meeting was for their company — from the amount of time and manpower pulled into the presentation, to the simple fact of how dressed up everyone was. She felt a little out of place wearing her typical work blouse and casual slacks, while all the other men and women were clad in sleek suits and black dresses.

But then again, unlike them, she was from the product development team. She wasn't officially part of the presentation anyway, only a sit-in just in case the investors ask tricky technical questions. In the end, no one would really pay her enough attention to notice what she was wearing.

"That should leave us about fifteen minutes for questions," the presenter, a partnership strategy specialist named Naomi, concluded at the end of the walkthrough. "From our past experience, potential partners are typically interested in topics such as market outlook or future product line strategies, and my team can easily answer those. But we did hear that one of the senior members on this board likes to go into technical details." Naomi gave a nod toward the corner where Harper was sitting. "So, product team, we'll be expecting help. Make sure to stay sharp."

Next to Harper, Wallace nudged her elbow. "Show time," he winked. "Excited?"

Harper smiled. The anxiousness building up all week collided with a tinge of pride and hope, and she wasn't sure if that could pass as "excited". This was the moment to test her work ... Would it manage to impress? Would she really be lucky enough to earn a chance for her proposal, like what Eli suggested?

"Alright, the bigshots are coming in any minute now. Everyone back to your posts." One of the program directors clapped his hand, and everyone rose in a clatter of chairs.

"I'm honestly a little nervous," Wallace declared on their way out of the conference room. "They said the investors are looking at six different companies across the northeast region. That's a lot of competition. Theoretically speaking, we should have some advantage being local, but rumor has it that they really hit it off with one of the startups last week." He sighed. "The pressure is so high."