Chapter 47: Why Is Your Voice Hoarse?
** Harper **
Harper had just typed up an ecstatic text when she felt someone inching up behind her. She whipped around and found Naomi — the marketing girl who did the presentation yesterday — smiling at her.
"Did I catch you at a bad time?" Naomi pointed her chin at Harper's phone.
"Oh, no, not at all." Harper hastily locked the screen and slid the phone back into her pocket, hoping that her colleague didn't get a chance to read the text itself. Not that it would raise any issues, professional business wise, but she liked to keep this — whatever relationship it was that she had with Eli — private, for reasons that she herself didn't always understand.
Naomi's unfaltering smile suggested that she hadn't picked up anything suspicious. "I just wanted to say thanks for the meeting yesterday," she said. "You handled the questions really well. Honestly, I was a little worried at first that they might've gone too much into details that you haven't thought of, but I'm so glad you nailed it. That was definitely one of the best highlights of the day."
Harper hadn't expected such a sincere compliment. Naomi might be only a few years older than Harper herself, but given her position as one of the senior leads of the marketing strategy team, her praises mattered and were not casually given. "Oh ... thanks," Harper replied with no small surprise. "Well, you were the one who did the amazing presentation, so I should really be thanking you for selling my slides so well in the first place."
Naomi chuckled. "Ah, on that note — I actually went back and forth thinking about your slides just before the meeting ... When we realized you knew Eli Sterling, I was quite tempted to add a note in the presentation to point out which proposal was yours, in the hope that he might give it a more favorable opinion. But then I thought better of it ... Since you guys barely talked when you ran into each other, and I couldn't quite tell if your relationship with him was a good one or not."
Oh. Harper didn't know that so many subtle twists and turns had occurred without her knowing, and she was thankful the presentation didn't get tweaked in the end. Otherwise, the remark from Eli's technical advisor wouldn't have worked nearly as well in her project's favor.
Naomi studied Harper's expression curiously. "So ... I don't mean to pry, but just for future reference, you are on good terms with Sterling, right? He did seem to like your project a lot, same as the rest of his team."