Chapter 18
SABINE
SEVEN MONTHS LATER…
Sabine stood at the head of the conference table, calm in her body and sharp in her mind.
She was wearing her favorite blazer—the soft olive green one that hugged her waist just right—and a pair of gold studs that used to belong to her grandmother.
Her laptop was already connected to the monitor.
The prototype was queued. Her notecards, untouched. She honestly didn’t need them.
The room was full, but her focus stayed locked on the man seated at the center.
Harlan Creed.
CEO of Pillar Grove Solutions, one of the fastest-growing Black-owned consulting firms on the East Coast. Rumored to have turned down two corporate buyouts and a partnership with Bain because he didn’t want his name buried under someone else’s brand.
She’d pitched them cold six weeks ago. The VP of ops had replied in 28 minutes.
Said he was intrigued. Said if her software could really do what she claimed, they wanted first dibs.
She expected a delegate. A partner. Maybe a VP but Harlan Creed himself showed up. He was powerful, but quiet with it. His watch was understated. His voice low and firm. And the way he looked at her? Like she wasn’t just some promising young creator but something he recognized.
Malik sat a few chairs down, behind the laptop, watching her with that look again—equal parts proud, protective, and wanting.
Sabine clicked to the opening slide:
ADER?RA: Predictive Insight Made Human.
“Thank you all for your time,” she began, voice steady. “I promise I won’t waste it.”
Harlan leaned back slightly in his chair, one hand resting casually against his jaw, the other tracing the rim of his water glass. “Something tells me you won’t.”
There was no smirk. Just fact.
Sabine didn’t blush but her throat tightened for half a second before she reset.
“Aderra was built to solve a very specific problem: small businesses—especially Black-owned businesses—don’t always have access to high-level data tools nor do they have the capital to pay full-time analysts.
They get Excel. They get guesswork and they get left behind.
” Click. “Here’s how we change that…they need tools that help them make decisions in real time—tools that don’t require a PhD to use.
Aderra breaks complex data into real-world choices. ”
Another slide. A scenario simulation. The audience leaned forward.
“If a nonprofit wants to forecast the risk of a 10% funding cut across their programs, Aderra doesn’t just show them the loss, it offers three optimized responses based on impact weight. It doesn’t replace the human...it helps the human be better.”
She clicked again. This time, a live demo. She ran a scenario on employee turnover for a startup with under 50 staff. The software returned not just predictions but recommendations.
One of the executives whispered, “Damn.”
Sabine’s voice flowed like it had been waiting for this moment. She walked them through the dashboard, the live scenario testing, the adaptive model that recalibrated in real time based on updated inputs. No filler. No fluff. Just facts and vision.
Harlan never looked away.
Sabine finished strong and…honest. She closed the laptop, looked every person in the room in the eye—every man in the eye and then she said, with no tremble in her voice:
“I built this because I know what it feels like to be the only woman in the room. The only Black one. The one with the answers…but doubted into silence. Aderra was the thing I left behind when I gave everything to my family but I came back for her and she’s ready now.”
A pause.
Then applause.
“Where’d this come from?” Harlan’s question silencing the room.
Sabine tilted her chin up slightly. “I’ve been building it for a while. I let life pull me away from it but I came back and this time, I’m not letting it go.”
His eyes flicked across her—slow, not disrespectful, but definitely not neutral. “Good. You shouldn’t.”
Malik gave her a slick side-eye. He felt it too.
Harlan glanced down at his notes, then back at her. “You said this is functional but still in prototype stage?”
“Correct.”
“And you’re the sole owner?”
“Founder. Architect. Sole owner.”
“Impressive,” he responded without a smile.
Sabine gave a tight nod. “I’m not looking for hand-holding. I’m looking for partnership. Strategic rollout. Maybe license opportunities.”
Harlan stood as the room began to shift—laptops closed, voices rising into post-meeting chatter and everyone followed. He crossed the space toward her with an ease. Power.
“I want to set up a follow-up,” he said. “Not a ‘let’s touch base’ meeting. An actual follow-up. We can talk numbers, equity, rollout timelines.”
Sabine extended her hand.
Harlan looked down, then clasped it—warm, firm, respectful. Just a beat longer than necessary though.
“Well done, Ms. Knight,” he said low enough that only she could hear. “This is the kind of work that leaves room for more than just one conversation.”
Sabine met his eyes—steady, composed, unshaken.
“Then I suppose we’ll talk again.”
He allowed the barest hint of a smile. Not flirtatious. Just…interested.
“I look forward to it.”
And then he moved on.
Not a single word out of place.
The conference room emptied slowly. People moved like they didn’t want to leave too quickly, as if staying a little longer might make them look more connected, more important.
Sabine moved with intention—calm and collected but her breath still hadn’t fully returned to normal. Not because of the pitch. That had gone exactly how she’d envisioned.
It was him.
Harlan Creed.
She caught sight of him just outside the glass wall, standing with her department head in hushed conversation. His posture relaxed, his voice low. His body angled toward her boss. But his eyes?
Locked on her.
He wasn’t smiling. Wasn’t smirking. Just watching. Like she was a question he hadn’t fully formed yet but already wanted the answer to.
Sabine dropped her gaze quickly, pretending to double-check her laptop cord and flash drive.
Her hands moved faster than usual as she packed her bag, snapped her water bottle shut.
She didn’t wait for Malik to catch up. She left the conference room and walked briskly down the corridor toward her office, heels quiet but quick.
Inside, door closed, she let out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. She’d just pulled off the biggest moment in her professional career. Years of false starts, delays, grief, motherhood, failure and still, she built something.
Something beautiful.
Something hers.
She opened her phone. Thumb hovered over the name before she even realized what she was doing. Adair. That was the first name that came to mind.
Not Narri.
Not Pam.
Not her old professor who once told her she was too emotional for analytics.
Adair.
Because he’d known about Aderra when it was nothing. He’d listened to her dream out loud when it was just late-night scribbles and Google searches. He’d watched her lose it, then let her lose everything else.
And he was the one who took himself away. His actions took him away. Then removed himself from the version of her that had the nerve to start again. She swallowed the tightness rising in her throat, locked her screen, and walked to her desk reaching for the office phone.
Narri.
Instead of Adair, it would be Narri she chose.
“Hello?” came that loud, unfiltered voice. “Sabine? Girl you better not be calling to cancel this nail appointment—”
“I did it,” Sabine said, interrupting. “I just pitched Aderra to Pillar Grove. The CEO came. Harlan Creed was there…and it was...incredible.”
There was a pause. Then, “Bitch.”
Sabine laughed. Actually laughed. It shook some of the ache loose. “I’m serious,” she said. “I did it…and, Narri, I think the CEO might’ve been flirting with me?”
“Might’ve?” Narri gasped. “What he say? What he look like? How much money is the CEO worth?”
Sabine leaned back in her chair, one hand covering her eyes, smiling now. “He didn’t say anything direct. Just looked at me. Like...I was the whole meeting.”
“Good. He saw what the rest of us been knew. You a whole lot, Sabine Knight and if he act right? Maybe he can almost deserve you.”