Billion Dollar Chance - Linnea May Page 0,4

to carry a song with its steady rhythm.

Are they hearing it, too? Can everyone in this room hear my heartbeat right now?

“Miss Whitt, is everything okay?”

It’s a different voice this time; Mrs. Glenn’s voice, I believe. I turn to her with a robotic nod, while my mind is still roaming in the dark.

“Yes,” I hurry to reply, my voice so low that it embarrasses me. I sound like a shy mouse, the exact thing I shouldn’t be.

Mrs. Glenn regards me for a few moments, her face stoic, sprinkled with a hint of concern—or annoyance. Both are adequate, I presume.

Only now do I realize that all eyes are on me. More than a dozen people, local government officials, attorney advisors, Mrs. Glenn and three colleagues from our Climate department are gathered around the large oval table—and they are all staring at me.

All but him.

I wish I hadn’t noticed that part, because Gabe’s ongoing disregard unsettles me more than all those anticipating looks from everyone else.

I can feel the heat rising to my cheeks, coloring them a treacherous red. My eyes flit back and forth from one face to another, always skipping Gabe’s. He is sitting diagonally across from me, pretty far away, but right in the center of my field of vision.

“Miss Whitt, if you would...” Mrs. Glenn prods from the side, nodding toward the folder in front of me.

Fuck. She wants me to start. Of course she does, because that’s the plan. I begin with a few introductory words and provide an overview of our project, introducing the major bullet points and the ideas behind them, before Mrs. Glenn will carry on to elaborate on the specifics.

I’ve practiced for this. A lot. I know exactly what to say, in what order to say it, and where to leave little pauses to breathe and let my words sink in, before I eventually pass the mic to her.

I know what I’m supposed to do. But I can’t do it.

My lips remain sealed, seemingly glued together while hysteric voices are screaming from the abyss of my consciousness, pushing me to speak and to do my fucking job.

But I can’t.

Why is he not looking at me? Does he really hate me that much? Or is he just shocked to see me? Did he not know I would be here? Should I have told him? A normal person probably would have told him, right?

But what if I had told him? Would it be easier for me now? Would it be even harder? What if—

“Miss Whitt, we don’t have all day,” Mr. Kent, one of the senior policy analysts, chimes in. He’s one of the men we need to impress today, and judging by the way he raises his bushy eyebrow at me, he is anything but.

Shit, shit, shit.

My pulse speeds up even faster, and I can feel the sweat running down my spine while my fingers start to tremble out of control as I try to reach for the folder.

How dare he ruin this for me! How can he just fucking sit there and do nothing while I make a fool of myself? He must know it’s all his fault!

Crunching my brows in anger, I manage to open the folder, despite the agonizing tremors that have now taken hold of my entire body. I feel like I’m about to burst, or melt into the floor. This is not me. I’m stronger than this.

But before I can prove that I’m perfectly capable of doing my job, the chance to do so is taken from me. Just as I open the folder to the first page of carefully prepared notes for my introduction, Mrs. Glenn places her hand on top of mine in a quick, barely there gesture, casting me a quick look before she speaks the words that were meant for my lips.

I freeze in horror and defeat while a harrowing sense of failure washes over me.

Chapter 4

Gabe

There she goes again. Running from an unpleasant situation that she created all by herself.

Classic Ella.

I watch her rush out of the room from the corner of my eye, while I languidly rise from my chair, determined to give the impression that I'm nowhere near as flustered as she appears to be by our surprise encounter.

How was this even a surprise to her? Knowing Ella, I'd assume that she knew exactly who'd be sitting around the table at this meeting. She's part of the division that created this draft and while she may not have known that I advise