Chapter 5
The private meeting room looked as though the rebrand had reproduced overnight.
Three laptops were open across the table.
Final presentation boards leaned against one wall.
Someone from the events team had appeared twice to confirm timing for the gala, and a tray of coffee and breakfast sat near the windows because apparently Al-Hadid employees considered starvation an unacceptable presentation strategy.
I stood at the screen in a structured cream dress, clicking through my section of the deck for what had to be the seventh time.
The airport car scheduled for tomorrow morning remained on my itinerary.
I kept not looking at it.
“Slide thirty-two.”
I clicked backward.
The accessibility sequence appeared.
“Good, it’s still there,” I murmured.
One of the Al-Hadid designers glanced at me. “Were you expecting it to escape?”
“At this point, I’m not ruling anything out.”
He smiled and returned to his laptop.
The door opened behind me.
I turned.
Amanda Emerson walked in carrying one slim leather bag and wearing a pale gray suit that had apparently defeated international travel through force of personality.
Relief hit first, followed by nerves and the uncomfortable realization that seeing my boss made Omaha feel suddenly close enough to touch.
Amanda crossed the room and gave me one quick look from my hair to my shoes.
“You look awake.”
“I’ve had coffee.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
“I’m choosing to accept it as praise.”
Her mouth twitched.
Then she turned to the screen.
“Show me where we are.”
And for the next twenty minutes, that was exactly what I gave her.
I took her through the final presentation from the beginning.
She stopped me on the arrival sequence.
“Who changed this?”
“I did, with the Al-Hadid creative team.”
“The guest used to be almost incidental.”
“That was the problem.”
Amanda nodded once.
“Keep going.”
I showed her the accessibility treatment, the anticipated-needs sequence, and the late-night-service language we’d narrowed after Elias’s operational review.
Then I pulled up the section we’d developed yesterday at the estate.
“The largest change is here.”
Amanda read the slide.
“This is yours?”
“The idea came out of the estate visit, but yes.”
I explained it the way I planned to explain it in the presentation.
Al-Hadid didn’t need to prove that it could provide beautiful things. The scale of the company should let it anticipate better, notice more, and remove more friction before the guest ever had to ask.
Amanda listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she leaned back in her chair.
“That’s the strongest part of the deck.”
My fingers tightened once around the clicker.
“Thank you.”
“I want you presenting it.”
I stared at her.
“You do?”
“I do. I’ll handle the partnership framing and the senior client discussion. You take the guest-experience section from the arrival sequence through this strategy.”
A warm rush spread through my chest.
“You’re sure?”
“Chrissy, you developed it. I’m not going to stand in front of the client and pretend I did.”
That was so thoroughly Amanda that I should’ve expected it.
She waited.
“You can do it?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Good, then stop asking whether I’m sure.”
I smiled.
“Also thoroughly you.”
“I’m glad international travel hasn’t damaged your powers of observation.”
We spent another hour tightening transitions.
Amanda changed two lines, cut an unnecessary slide, and made me explain one piece of research until I could do it without looking down.
By the time the Al-Hadid executives began arriving, my nerves had settled into something useful.
Then Tariq entered.
He wore a dark bespoke suit and a crisp white shirt, every inch of him controlled CEO instead of the man who had fucked me into a mattress at his desert estate the night before.
He saw me immediately.
His attention moved over my cream dress, paused on my face, and stayed there for one beat longer than professional courtesy required.
Heat moved beneath my skin.
Then he turned to Amanda.
“Ms. Emerson, welcome to Dubai.”
Amanda shook his hand.
“Your Highness. Thank you. I’m sorry I missed the beginning of the week.”
“Your team has represented you well.”
His attention flicked toward me.
I concentrated very hard on the presentation remote.
Amanda didn’t appear to notice anything.
If she did, she had the professional discipline not to show it.
The meeting began.
Amanda opened with the partnership goals and a concise recap of how the week’s review had changed the campaign direction.
Then she handed the presentation to me.
“Chrissy developed the guest-experience strategy you’ll see in the next section.”
I stood.
Tariq sat at the head of the table.
I didn’t look at his mouth.
That felt like an achievement deserving formal recognition.
I moved through the arrival sequence first.
“The earlier campaign asked the guest to admire Al-Hadid Grand Dubai,” I said. “The revised direction asks the guest to imagine what it feels like to arrive here.”
I showed the family entering after a late flight, the accessible restaurant sequence, and a guest returning from a long day to find something anticipated before she had to request it.
Then I reached the estate concept.
“Al-Hadid’s scale is part of the fantasy,” I said. “But scale matters most when it lets the hotel pay closer attention.”
One of the executives leaned forward.
I continued.
“The guest shouldn’t have to see how many people, systems, or decisions were required to make an experience effortless.
She should simply reach for the water and find it there.
She should arrive at the room and discover the request has already been handled.
The luxury is enormous. The work underneath it doesn’t need to be. ”
Tariq’s expression barely changed.
I knew him well enough now to see the approval anyway.
The discussion lasted another forty minutes.
People challenged details.
Amanda answered some.
I answered others.
Tariq questioned the portfolio application, and I explained how the same idea could translate without making London, Cairo, Monaco, New York, and Dubai look interchangeable.
The strategy survived every question.
By the time the meeting ended, the revised direction had been approved for final development.
I sat down and realized my palms were damp.
Amanda closed her notebook.
“Well done.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding.
“That sounded almost enthusiastic.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Across the table, Tariq was speaking with two executives.
He didn’t come to congratulate me.
He didn’t turn my successful presentation into a private moment in front of everyone.
I loved him a little for that.
The thought arrived so cleanly that I almost dropped my pen.
I dropped my eyes to the tabletop.
I was absolutely not dealing with that in a meeting room.
Amanda touched my arm.
“Come with me.”
I followed her into the corridor.
She waited until the door shut behind us.
“You were excellent in there.”
I blinked.
Amanda was apparently determined to ruin my entire understanding of her praise economy.
“Thank you.”
“I knew you could handle the research. I knew you knew the account. I didn’t know you could take this much ambiguity, shape the strategy, and defend it at this level.”
I had to swallow before I answered.
“I didn’t know either.”
“Well, now we both do.”
She glanced at the time.
“We still have the gala tonight, and I want your notes cleaned up before we leave tomorrow.”
Amanda kept talking.
“We’ll finish the handoff in the morning before your car. You can sleep on the flight.”
I smiled because that was what I was supposed to do.
“Sounds luxurious.”
“You’ve been spoiled.”
“You have no idea.”
Her brows lifted.
For one terrifying second, I wondered if she did.
Then someone called her name from the meeting room.
Amanda turned back.
“Eat lunch before the gala. I’m serious.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Being spoiled doesn’t exempt you from basic human maintenance.”
I watched her walk away.
Tomorrow morning, I wasn’t going to live upstairs anymore.
I went to see Goblin.
***
I found her in the private residence twenty minutes later, sitting in the center of an upholstered chair as though she’d inherited it.
One small toy mouse lay beneath the coffee table.
Another had somehow ended up beside a decorative bowl that probably cost more than my monthly rent.
A member of the household staff stepped around a third toy without changing expression.
I pointed.
“How many of those does she have?”
The woman smiled.
“More than she had this morning, Ms. Campbell.”
“That sounds ominous.”
Goblin saw me.
Her ears lifted.
Then she launched herself off the chair and ran directly toward me.
“Oh, there’s my girl.”
I crouched and scooped her up.
She immediately climbed higher against my chest, put one paw on my shoulder, and shoved her face beneath my chin.
“You’re getting heavy.”
That was absolutely untrue.
She was still tiny.
She simply no longer felt frighteningly fragile.
Her fur was clean and soft beneath my fingers, and the hollows along her body had begun to fill out.
Goblin purred against my throat.
I pressed my cheek to her head.
“What am I supposed to do with you tomorrow?”
The question slipped out before I could stop it.
Goblin responded by hooking one claw lightly into my dress.
“That’s not an answer.”
I freed the fabric.
“You’re going to stay here and destroy His Highness’s furniture, aren’t you?”
She blinked.
“That does seem like your long-term plan.”
The residence surrounded us in pale stone and enormous windows, with the ridiculous chair Goblin had already claimed and the corridor leading toward Tariq’s private rooms.
I buried my face in Goblin’s fur.
“I’m going to miss you.”
Goblin licked my chin.
“That was disgusting.”
She did it again.
“Thank you. I feel much better.”
I held her for another minute before reluctantly handing her to the waiting staff member.
“Please tell her she isn’t allowed to forget me.”
“I’ll make certain she understands.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You’re humoring me.”
“Only a little, Ms. Campbell.”