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The questions that followed were practical. Timelines. Budgets. Which neighborhood partnerships would be secured first. Claire answered what she could and deferred to the appropriate team members when she could not.

She didn’t pretend to know everything. She didn’t need to.

When the meeting ended, Rachel shook her hand.

“You understood what I was trying to protect,” she said. “I want the shops to grow. I just don’t want them to lose what made people care about the first one.”

“Neither do we,” Claire said.

After the clients left, Claire remained beside the conference table while Avery collected the abandoned coffee cups.

“Well,” Avery said, “that was almost a disaster.”

Claire gave her a look.

“The screen,” Avery clarified. “Not you. You were annoyingly impressive.”

“I thought I was going to pass out.”

“You didn’t look like it.”

“I briefly considered fleeing through the emergency exit.”

“Also, not visible.”

Victoria closed the conference room door. Claire straightened automatically.

Her boss studied her for a moment. “You handled the interruption well.”

“Thank you.”

“You stopped presenting the slides and started presenting the campaign.”

Claire was not entirely sure whether that was praise or a carefully disguised critique.

Victoria’s expression softened enough to answer the question. “This is the most confident I’ve seen you in a room.”

Warmth spread through Claire’s chest. “I knew the material.”

“You always know the material,” Victoria said. “Today, you trusted yourself.”

Claire glanced at the darkened screen.

She had.

“I want you leading the client relationship through the openings,” Victoria continued. “You’ll still report to me, but you’ll be their primary point of contact.”

Claire blinked. “All three locations?”

“All three.”

The responsibility would be significant.

More meetings.

More decisions.

More opportunities to fail in increasingly visible ways.