Chapter 6 #2
I turn, and every prepared thought shifts slightly out of place.
Julian is dressed in black trousers and a pale button-down shirt beneath a dark sport coat.
Without the formal suit, he looks less contained, though no less commanding.
His salt-and-pepper hair is swept back neatly, and his eyes catch mine with the same steady intensity I remember from New York.
“Good morning,” I say, standing.
He crosses the room and offers his hand.
“Did you sleep well?” Julian asks.
“Eventually,” I reply.
His mouth curves faintly.
“The hotel can be too quiet.”
“I didn’t expect that to be the problem.”
When I take his hand, he steps close enough that I catch the clean scent of aftershave beneath something warmer and more subtle. The fragrance is fresh, masculine, and far more distracting than it has any right to be.
“How was the flight?” he asks as he releases my hand.
“Short,” I tell him.
“The drive from the airport took longer than the flight felt.”
“That sounds about right,” Julian says.
“Boston likes to make arrivals feel earned.”
I smile despite myself. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
He takes the chair across from me rather than at the head of the table. The choice is small, but I notice it.
“We can start whenever you’re ready,” Julian says.
I turn on the recorder and begin with the anniversary campaign, then move quickly toward the Boston division.
His first answers are measured, but they change when I ask about the lab’s current work.
He leans forward, resting one forearm against the table as he explains the engineering rather than the company.
“The central problem isn’t whether the system can perform under controlled conditions,” Julian says.
“It can. The real challenge is maintaining reliability when the variables stop behaving. Heat, latency, inconsistent inputs, human error. A design can look elegant in a lab and fail the moment it meets the world.”
The difference in him is immediate. His voice gains speed, and the reserve I saw in Manhattan loosens as he describes the work.
He talks about testing thresholds, failure points, and the way the team rebuilds a design after discovering where it breaks.
There is no performance in it. He is not pretending modesty, and he is not reciting a polished founder’s narrative.
He knows the systems because he has lived inside the work.
I glance at my notes, then look back at him.
“If reliability depends on eliminating unpredictable variables,” I say, “aren’t you eventually designing for an environment that doesn’t exist?”
Julian goes still for a fraction of a second.
I continue before I can second-guess the question.
“You can model heat and latency,” I say, “but if the system’s most unstable input is human behavior, then the testing architecture has to account for misuse, not just failure. Otherwise, the more intuitive the product becomes, the less control you have over how people push it.”
His gaze sharpens.
“That’s exactly the problem,” Julian says.
The approval in his voice is restrained, but unmistakable.
“I read the technical filings,” I explain.
“I can tell,” he replies.
Something passes between us, too quick to name and too precise to ignore. I look down at my notebook before it can settle.
For the next half hour, the interview moves easily. Julian answers without retreating into company language, and I find myself asking fewer questions from my prepared list. The conversation becomes more specific, more technical, and more honest than I expected.
When the first segment ends, he stands and gestures toward the glass doors.
“You should see the testing floor,” Julian says.
“It’ll make more sense than listening to me explain it from here.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” I reply as I gather my notebook.
He glances at me. “Were you?”
“I didn’t come to Boston for the conference room.”
His smile is brief but real.
“No,” Julian says. “I suppose you didn’t.”
We step into the corridor together. He moves faster here than he does in Manhattan, greeting engineers by name and stopping without hesitation when someone asks him a question.
His posture is looser, his attention immediate.
He belongs in the space in a way that has nothing to do with the name on the building.
I follow him onto the testing floor while he explains the sequence of stations.
Several members of the staff give short presentations, and Julian adds context when necessary, never speaking over them or claiming credit for their work.
He listens closely, asks direct questions, and occasionally reaches for a component or schematic as though his hands remember the work before his mind catches up.
The tour requires us to move through narrow aisles and around crowded workstations.
More than once, Julian steps aside to let me pass, his hand hovering near the small of my back without touching me.
The restraint is somehow more noticeable than contact would have been.
I focus on the equipment. At least, I try to.
His shoulder brushes mine when we stop beside a display, and the faint trace of his scent returns. I keep my eyes on the screen while one of the engineers explains a testing sequence, though I am acutely aware of Julian standing close enough that the warmth of his body reaches me through my blazer.
“Does that answer your question?” the engineer asks.
“It does,” I say, hoping my voice sounds steadier than I feel.
Julian looks down at me, and his gaze lingers for a moment before he turns back to the display.
Forty-five minutes later, we leave the main floor and enter a smaller conference room near the rear of the facility. The space is less formal than the first, with a round table, four chairs, and a wide window overlooking the courtyard.
Julian closes the door behind us.
“Still glad you came?” he asks.
I place my notebook on the table and meet his eyes.
“Ask me after the next set of questions,” I reply.
His mouth shifts into the beginning of a smile as he takes the chair across from me.
“Go ahead, Sophie,” Julian says.
“I’m listening.”
I settle into the chair and glance down at my notes, but the questions I prepared feel less rigid now.
The tour has stripped away some of the distance between us, and Julian no longer looks like the man who sat across from me in Manhattan choosing every word before he spoke.
Here, he is easier in his body, more immediate, and far more difficult to reduce to the role I expected him to play.
“I want to go back to something you said earlier,” I tell him. “You said a design proves itself when it fails.”
Julian rests one hand against the table. “Not when it fails,” he says. “When you understand why it failed.”
“That sounds less like engineering and more like character assessment.”
His eyes hold mine. “The principles aren’t always that different.”
I should move to the next question, but I don’t. The silence between us stretches without becoming uncomfortable, and the steadiness of his gaze makes me feel as though he is waiting for an answer I haven’t given.
“Is that how you judge people?” I ask.
“Sometimes,” Julian replies. “People are usually most honest when something stops going according to plan.”
“That assumes they have room to fail.”
His expression shifts slightly. “You don’t think they do?”
“I think some people get to call failure a lesson,” I say. “Other people call it the end of their career.”
Julian studies me more closely. “Which one were you?”
The question is quiet enough that I could dismiss it, but something in his tone keeps me from doing so. I glance toward the courtyard beyond the window, where sunlight falls across the concrete in broad white bands.
“The kind who couldn’t afford to find out,” I answer.
He does not interrupt or soften the moment with reassurance. He simply waits, and that restraint makes it easier to continue.
“I learned early that preparation closes certain doors before people can shut them in your face,” I say. “If I knew more than they expected, asked better questions, and made it impossible to dismiss me, then I could stay in the room.”
Julian’s gaze remains fixed on me. “Does that still feel necessary?”
“Yes,” I reply, then add, “Most days.”
The admission sits between us, more personal than anything I intended to offer. I lower my eyes to the page and turn it, although I am not ready for the next question.
“You make it look effortless,” Julian says.
A faint laugh escapes me. “That’s because effort is rarely impressive when people can see it.”
His mouth lifts slightly. “I disagree.”