22. Luther
Luther
Idon’t text or call Anouk after that awful conversation with her, even though I desperately want to connect and reassure myself that we’re fine, we’re still together, still a couple.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her face—the hope, the hurt, the hollowed-out look she tried so hard to hide. I tell myself it’s just a work presentation, that she won’t end us over business.
I tell myself that I need to focus on the presentation now and deal with the situation with Anouk later.
It’s a lie.
There will be no dealing with anything later, and I know it, which is why I don’t text or call her. I know it’s over. I know it’s done, no matter how much I don’t want it to be.
“All okay?” Erin asks.
“Yes,” I snap. “Why do you keep asking?”
“Because you look angry, Luther,” she says coolly.
I inhale slowly and tug at the cuffs of my dress shirt. I’m wearing a suit—something I almost never do. I want to look ready. I want my father and my Godfather to see a CEO, not a kid playing dress-up.
The boardroom hums with the kind of energy that only power creates.
The polished table. The aligned water bottles. Screens lit and waiting. The team assembled.
Vijay.
Erin.
Benjamin.
Dot.
Pallavi.
But no Anouk.
My stomach drops.
“Dot,” I ask, my voice low, “where’s Anouk?”
Dot’s head snaps toward me. If looks could bruise, I’d already be in traction. “She’s not presenting.”
“I know she’s not presenting.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “But why isn’t she here?”
“She was uninvited from the meeting,” Pallavi grits out. From how she’s looking at me, it’s obvious I’m not her favorite person, either.
“She was first removed from presenting,” Dot adds flatly, “and then disinvited from a project review that would not exist without her. And this was done without consulting me, her direct supervisor.”
For a moment, my brain refuses to catch up.
Then it does.
I turn slowly to Erin. “Did you do that?”
She straightens, unbothered. “Let’s talk about it after the meeting.”
I nearly say, “No. We’re talking about this now.”
But the door opens.
My executive assistant steps in, followed by my father, Jacob Grant, and Martin Ericksen, CEO of Novagene.
Hands are shaken. Polite smiles are exchanged.
Dad pulls Dot into a brief hug. “Hannah and I are looking forward to having you and Neil for dinner this weekend.”
“Us, too,” Dot replies.
My father takes his seat at the head of the table, and Martin settles beside him, fingers steepled.
I should feel energized. This is the moment I’ve been training for—the six-month inflection point, the proof that I belong here.
Instead, I am off-balance.
I realize, with a jolt, how much I’ve relied on Anouk’s steady presence throughout this project. Her quiet competence. Her certainty.
I push those thoughts aside. She isn’t here. Period.
I stand. “Thank you for coming, Martin. Dad. We’re excited to walk you through the Novagene project and where we are.”
My father smiles. “We’re looking forward to it.”
The room narrows. I force myself into focus.
Erin begins.
The slides are Anouk’s—clean, elegant, deceptively simple. Every chart is doing the heavy lifting. Every assumption has been documented.
But Erin talks to them like she’s reading a language she learned phonetically. Essentially, she’s just reading whatever is on the slide, not telling the story as Anouk does.
My jaw tightens.
She’s not prepared.
She said she was, and she usually is—but not today.
The audience understands data. They’re not here for buzzwords. They’re here to interrogate the model.
“She’s not stuttering, though,” a traitorous part of my brain offers. “That’s a plus, right?”
Fuck!
“So, as you can see,” Erin says, “we’ve looked at the—”
Martin lifts a hand. “Can you explain why the volatility curve flattens after Q3?”
Erin hesitates. Clears her throat. “That’s due to anticipated supplier stabilization.”
No. It isn’t.
Anouk explained this meticulously. The flattening wasn’t optimism; it was math.
“That’s vague,” my father says mildly. “What assumptions drive that stabilization?”
Erin glances at the slide and reads out from it. “The model accounts for renegotiated procurement terms.”
“How?” Martin presses. “Which levers?”
Silence.
It’s a blow to the sternum.
Anouk had walked us through this in detail—the Istanbul supplier, the renegotiated MOQ thresholds, the downstream inventory shift that reduced holding costs and dampened volatility. Erin doesn’t know any of that. She never listened closely enough to internalize it.
Vijay clears his throat. “If I may—”
Erin cuts him off with a sharp look. “I’ve got it.”
She doesn’t.
She fills the space with polished nothing. My father leans back, pen tapping once against the table. Martin scribbles a note and hands it to my father, who nods.
This is unraveling fast.
Dad glances at me and then back at Erin. “Let’s talk about the Monte Carlo simulation.” He knows that she isn’t prepared, which means I’m not prepared. Now, he’s going to go for blood. “Tell me what confidence interval you used, and why?”
Erin opens her mouth. Closes it.
That’s when it crystallizes—the difference between presenting data you own and data you’re borrowing. Erin understands the narrative arc, but she doesn’t live inside the numbers the way Anouk does.
Vijay looks at me, asking for permission to save this shitshow.
I nod.
Yep, we’re now in damage control, which means we need to support Erin and look like idiots who put an amateur as the lead presenter.
He stands. “The simulations were run at a ninety-five percent confidence interval to meet Novagene’s rejection threshold—”
My father turns to him. “Were you involved in building the model?”
“Yes, Jacob, I was.”
Dad’s gaze sweeps the room, then lands on me. “Where is the data analyst who led the architecture?”
I swallow. “That would be Anouk Starling.”
Dad nods, then looks directly at Dot.
Fuck. He knows something is off….
And he knows what it is. I don’t have my star employee here, and whatever the reason, the fault is mine.
After all, as the cliché goes, the buck stops with me.
Martin glances around. “So, where is Ms. Starling?”
“Mr. Ericksen,” Erin begins smoothly, “Anouk wasn’t feeling well and—”
“Anouk was asked not to present,” I cut in.
Nope. We’re not going to lie. That shit isn’t happening. I’ve sacrificed enough of my integrity in the name of my career, not gonna add to it with blatant mendacity.
“Why?” Martin asks, genuinely perplexed.
“There were reasons,” I say, owning my fuck up. “I’d like to discuss them with you after the meeting.”
Neither of them presses. They’re seasoned leaders. They’ll trust me to tell them how and why this presentation, the one I prepared so hard for, got so derailed.
Well, Luther, at least you got to see the catastrophe. Anouk didn’t even have that because Erin decided to be the bitch you know she is.
The rest of the meeting limps along.
Vijay and I patch holes Erin can’t explain. Questions go unanswered. Promises are made to follow up.
My father thanks everyone politely at the end. I recognize disappointment on his face instantly. I’ve known it my whole life.
People file out quietly.
I stop Dot before she leaves. “I didn’t disinvite her.”
“That’s true.” Dot crosses her arms. Yeah, she’s not going to forgive me for this. “But you gave Erin the space to do it. And that’s on you.”
She walks away.
I remain standing, staring at the empty chair where Anouk should have been.
I see it now.
The arrogance in thinking I could manage perception instead of trusting the truth—the cowardice in choosing comfort over conviction.
Anouk should have been here. She would have answered every question—stutter and all. She would’ve done a great job—stutter and all.
I know that now.
What do they say about twenty-twenty hindsight?
Luther, they say that you’re an idiot to have not had the foresight.