Risky Business

Chapter 1

Dear Miss Cole,

Thank you for your application to Pioneer Lending’s business grant scheme. While your proposal is impressive, investing in

the FemTech space can be unpredictable compared to other ventures. Consequently, we have decided not to move forward with

your application.

We wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

Pioneer Lending Ltd.

I blink rapidly at my phone screen. This is fine.

Everything will be absolutely fine. The pit in my stomach screams otherwise, but I roll my shoulders and let the bitterly cold London air bring me back to the task at hand: meeting a potential new investor for my fledgling company, Wyst. At first, this process was a fun adventure, figuring out what kind of investment firms, angel investors, and venture capitalists could be interested in FemTech or a women-led business.

Then one of life’s greatest pleasures: adding all their minute details to a comprehensive spreadsheet to research who would be a good fit.

Little did I know it would become the spreadsheet of desperation and doom.

Finally, individually tailoring my introductory letters to each recipient.

Adding personalized touches and flairs to my pitch deck.

How investing in my company would expand their portfolios or grow their already vast investment streak even further, stroking their egos by promising to help make them a trailblazer of the FemTech industry.

A hero to women everywhere for the low, low price of a few quarterly cash injections.

So far, the process has been hit-and-miss.

The intrusive thoughts tell me it’s because they recognize me, my name a cautionary tale echoing down the halls of every investment company in London.

As I approach the Withering Vine, a wine bar chain the investor recommended for our meeting, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

“Hey, I’m about to go in. What’s up?” I say to Cecily, Wyst’s PR and marketing manager and my general partner in crime.

“Yeah, sorry, you just got another call from Greg Holmes? He asked if you are free this afternoon to go to the bank to . . .”

She begins to read in a monotone voice, “Discuss the necessary steps to rectify your recent overdraft debt.”

My cheeks blaze red-hot against the icy wind.

“Jess?” Cecily says. “Are you still there?”

After a pause, I clear my throat. “Yeah, it’s fine.

Just a mix-up. I’ll call him when I get back to the office.

” I have zero intention of actually doing that, but I’m hoping my most recent excuse of having a very sick imaginary dog will hold for at least a few more weeks.

Why is he chasing me this early in the year anyway?

Surely there is a legal emotional buffer of at least a month after Christmas to start collecting on debts owed.

“Exactly, maybe this guy today will be a good lead,” Cecily chirps, and I imagine her nonchalantly tossing her glossy black

hair over her shoulder.

“He was enthusiastic to connect, so fingers crossed!” I say, swallowing the tiny tingle of doubt back down.

“Good luck! I just know you’re going to smash it!”

Cecily has the instinctual ability to see the best in everyone and everything. Her sunshine attitude has been the definitive

thing that has kept me going in between the emotional turmoil of rejections. She’s my best friend, but sometimes, when the

pessimism creeps in, I wonder how she would react to the truth. If I showed her under the hood and revealed that this business

is a ticking time bomb. While, in a way, it would be nice to have someone wade through the mud with me, this is a mess I’ve

made and need to deal with myself.

I step through the door, the frigid January air melting away under the heat of thirty bodies packed into a tiny wine bar.

Spotting a man matching the headshot, I hold out my hand, preparing for a firm handshake. “Hi, Will? I’m Jess, lovely to meet

you.”

He looks up from his phone with a blank stare.

“Jess Cole, from Wyst?” My megawatt smile starts to fizzle out, making room for the rising panic.

He blinks. “Right, hello,” he says, finally putting me out of my social anxiety and taking my hand in his. The shake isn’t hard, barely a squeeze as he stands up and kisses me on the cheek. Electricity singes my skin like a tiny Taser.

“What are you drinking?” he asks as I slide off my coat and sit in the uncomfortable wooden chair opposite him. The tables

are so tightly packed my legs instantly press against his. I fold my body uncomfortably, contorting myself like a depressed

accordion.

We’re in a wine bar, but maybe this is a test. “Oh, well. It’s lunchtime so—”

“We’ll take a bottle of the Chateau Batailley 2005,” Will says to the waitress before glancing at me. “That good with you?”

“Sure.” I smile, smoothing down my one “fancy meeting” outfit, a black dress with room for a shirt and tights underneath and

a blazer on top. It makes me feel like I’m playing dress-up.

Will leisurely scans the edges of my face before leaning back in his chair, the loud creak like a crack of lightning. “You

look a lot older than your profile picture.”

I should be shocked by the comment, but after business school and working at a finance company, I’ve had much, much worse

said to me. The photo was taken last year, which feels like it’s within the boundaries of acceptable LinkedIn photography.

I’ve been in meetings with men who still use their university graduation photos, fresh-faced and taut jawed, when in reality,

they arrive balding, bearded, and beer-bellied.

“It’s been a very, very long day,” I joke. He doesn’t laugh. His downward-facing mouth only reaffirming his lack of amusement.

“Uh-huh,” he replies, half listening, half watching the pretty blond waitress heading straight for us with a bottle and corkscrew. “I always find it’s best to keep that sort of thing up to date, so as not to hinder expectations. You don’t want to come across as a catfish.”

I agree to an extent, but it’s still a weird thing to say. I play it off. Like his choice in wine, maybe his humor is just

a bit dry.

“I would have thought my experience would be more important than the image on my profile.”

One eyebrow raises. “Depends what type of experience.” He chortles and I follow suit, forcing a laugh despite a rising sense

of discomfort like my future self is elbowing me in the stomach.

Between the sounds of clinking glasses, roaring laughter, and raucous conversation at the other tables, I watch him swirl

the red wine he selected so it licks against the side of the glass, sniffing it, then taking a slow gurgling sip to let the

flavor penetrate every taste bud. It’s early in the week, I suppose, for serious drinking. But London, whether in the heat

or the cold, makes everyone thirstier.

“How do you find it, sir?” the doe-eyed waitress inquires.

He unabashedly looks her up and down, still mid-slurp, then finally announces, “Delicious.”

She shoots back a forced smile and fills my glass, then his. When she turns to leave, I raise my glass by the stem. “To the

passage of time.”

He hesitates, the wine sloshing up the side of his glass. “What?”

I falter. “What we were just talking about? My profile picture?”

His shoulders tense. “Oh, I’d prefer to cheers to something else.”

“Sure, what do you want to cheers to?” I ask, pulling my glass back.

“My Christmas bonus just came through.” His posture lifts like a proud kid who just won the egg and spoon race on sports day.

“Congratulations,” I choke out, suddenly desperate to down my wine.

He offers his first genuine smile since we sat down, clinks his glass into mine, and takes a laborious sip. The wine isn’t

great, but now I know he’s flush with cash and clearly getting commission on investments, I’ll play ball to try to put some

gas in this engine.

“Mmmm, good choice.” I smile sweetly.

He winks at me. “I’m a bit of a grape head.”

My cringeometer ratchets up a few points, genuinely debating whether just to call this meeting now. But Cecily’s words of

encouragement ring in my head: Just try and feign interest and eventually something will click. Fake it till you make it, baby! Investors like to be wined and dined a bit first; getting straight to it reeks of desperation. You need to act like you don’t

need their money, that you’re doing them a favor.

But we do need the money. Really, really need it.

Swallowing my pride, I place my chin in my hand, open my eyes really wide, and nod. “So how did you get to be so knowledgeable

about wine?”

He clears his throat. “From the boss, a lot of after-work drinks.”

“Your job must be really stressful,” I speculate.

He stretches like Superman ready to save a child from traffic . . . “Nothing I can’t handle.”

Searching for a way to steer this ship back to Wyst, I ask, “Do you have a lot of clients right now?”

He shifts awkwardly.

Shit, was that a weird question to ask? “What I mean to say is, you seem really important at work.”

My leg bounces under the table as he continues to talk about himself. Listening to this guy brag about his six-figure-job-before-bonuses,

I feel my soul and bank account draining. I could be reaching out to investors right now or researching new grant applications.

Instead, I am listening to this man talk about his favorite films (Pulp Fiction and Fight Club, obviously), how Jack Kerouac inspired the post-university travels he is still hoping to relive despite hurtling toward his

mid-thirties, and informing me that Tame Impala is “actually just one guy.”

I down the last of my drink, glancing at the waiter in the hopes that she will either bring the bill or drop an anvil on my

head.

“So what do you do at that company again?” He looks at the table, running a finger over the wood grain.

The question halts me; we’re twenty-five minutes into this meeting and this is the first question he’s asked that didn’t directly