Chapter One

He sat there waiting patiently. Despite all the practice that he’d had it still wasn’t easy. He swept the room with a practiced gaze, one calculated to take in the entire area. It was full of understated luxury. The largest single piece of blood-wood that he had ever seen fronted the receptionist’s area. The blood-red color and silky smooth texture was fitting in the head office of Delphi Inc., the world’s largest biotech company. The paintings on the wall looked real, but he had been here long enough to see them cycle through several images. Based on the high resolution and verisimilitude of the images, he knew the display was one of the latest organic LED panels or OLEDs. Flexible OLEDs wrapped the frame as well, allowing it to change to suit the image displayed. The customized frames and the high quality images were rare, a sign of Delphi’s prestige. Overall, the whole room exuded a distinct yet subtle air of wealth and power.

Of course that wasn’t what interested him. It was important to notice the general environment, but more important to him was the security layout, and he’d had more than enough time to analyze it. The standard security sensors were right where he expected them to be and that still puzzled him. The circumstances leading up to his interview pointed to problems, but this was bordering on the ridiculous. Although there was a possibility they had hidden the real security system, he doubted it. Admittedly, he hadn’t had the opportunity to sweep the room as well as he would have liked, so he couldn’t rule it out completely.

However he had been working with bleeding edge security systems for most of his official life, which gave him an edge. Given Delphi's recent rumored security breach, it was unlikely they would have a system that he wouldn’t be able to detect. If he had been able to bring his equipment with him, he would have been able to say so with complete certainty, but for this, his own internal scans were more than enough.

Based on the layout of the room and what he had been able to detect, he was able to narrow it down to only a few possible installations. He had passed close enough to two probable locations, narrowing the alternatives still further. There was only one real choice and it was surprising to say the least. He snorted mentally. If their security was this loose, then if the job didn’t pan out, he could always break into the place to get what he wanted.

He sighed as he recognized the direction in which his thoughts were turning. It never failed with him. He’d had dozens of job interviews in his lifetime, and he always got more and more nervous the further the interview progressed. It didn’t help that he had never had so much riding on an interview, and he was beginning to second and third guess himself. Of course, the main weakness against him was his gender. There was simply no way his experience could match any of the other candidates, all of whom were female. Not in years at least. What he did have to counter that was his experience with modern security systems.

He stopped cataloging all of his flaws and virtues and forced his thoughts in another direction. He checked the time, resisting the automatic urge to look at his watch. His neural feed provided instant access to Pubnets, but he had developed the habit of wearing a watch. It started as protective camouflage to avoid flaunting his neural linkage. Not that he needed to check the time to be aware that only five more minutes had passed. He had already been kept waiting for more than two hours. He knew that she was playing a little game with him by making him wait but that was okay—he was playing it right back at her. He had been sitting patiently, not reading or fidgeting. He was so quiet and still that most people had come and gone without noticing him. The ones who did notice him would assume that he wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on. In reality, he had been tracking every single detail and had been applying his well-honed intellect to make sense of it all.

As if that was the cue that she had been waiting for, Olivia Morgan, CEO of Delphi Inc., finally came out of her office. Despite being a true Californian, Olivia looked more like she belonged out east in New York. She was tall—six foot two—and leggy, with brunette hair so dark that it almost seemed black sometimes. His fondest memories were of that hair loose, cascading over her shoulders and framing her face. At the moment she had her hair piled high atop her head, held there in a tight bun by two dark sticks. If she recognized him there was no outward sign of it.

“Mr. Peters. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Not at all,” he answered, rising smoothly. “And please, call me Ryan.”

She nodded, accepting the courtesy as her due. “Please walk with me. I had intended to have a discussion with you first in my office, but I’m already running way behind schedule. I’m preparing for the board meeting later today, so we can chat on my way to the boardroom. It will also give me the opportunity to show you around the place.”

She didn’t give him any time to respond but immediately began walking away, assuming he would follow. For a moment he was tempted not to, but this was too critical a juncture for him to mess it up on a whim. He hurried to catch up, as her long strides outdistanced him and he finally caught up with her at the drop shaft. She glanced over at him as they arrived and somehow he knew that he had passed another test.

“Executive Level,” she said, and after a moment the drop computer beeped, signaling that it had recognized the destination and verified that Olivia had access to that level. “So,” she said as they began to rise, seemingly floating in midair, “tell me a little about yourself.”

He started into the standard spiel about his job history and qualifications, but she cut him off. “I’m not interested in your curriculum vitae. You wouldn’t have made it this far if you were not qualified. Tell me a little about your life. What interests you, do you have any hobbies, a family, that sort of thing.”

He smiled humorlessly. “Well there’s not that much to tell. The only family that I have is my aunt on my father’s side. I’m not currently involved with anyone, partially from choice, and partially because I'm not ‘hunky’ enough to be someone's ‘boy-toy’. Ditto for marriage—I don’t have much to recommend me to women who could have their pick of any guy. At the moment, my job is everything to me. I need to spend all my time at it, otherwise I won’t be able to keep up. Even at that, it’s hard to prove that I’m as capable as a woman, particularly one that is two or three times my age.”

“So prove it to me.” They had reached the executive level and she walked over to the nearest meeting room. Accessing the whiteboard, she pulled up a diagram of her office and the reception area.

“Talk to me about my security.”

Ryan smiled briefly. It was all part of the game. He stepped up to the whiteboard without hesitation, and with quick taps of his index finger he marked the security points. He paused for a moment in concentration, as he used his neural feed to have the whiteboard show the probable make and model of the installation. Seconds later the info appeared.

Olivia studied the layout that he had diagrammed and then looked at him. “Are you guessing?”

Ryan smiled confidently and looked directly at her.

“Am I right?” he countered boldly, and after a moment she nodded. “Then I’m not guessing, am I?” He thought that she suppressed a quick grin at his self-assurance, but he couldn't be sure.

“So, what do you think?” She gazed at him coolly, almost daring him to speak his mind.

“Frankly, your security system has several weaknesses. I don’t know how much is real and how much you staged for my benefit, but regardless, I noticed several problems.”

“Such as?” She might have been discussing the weather and not the security layout for a multi-billion dollar company, and he had to admire her. He couldn’t tell from her reaction whether she wasn’t upset because she had already made up her mind about him or because she accepted his professionalism. After a moment, he decided that it didn’t matter.

“Your security system is seriously out-of-date. Even at that, you could use it more effectively. A security system should free up time to allow security staff to focus on the exceptions and important areas. I'm not a fan of this system, especially since the units get out of tune easily. This doesn’t affect their performance, per se, as it still provides the coverage needed. Unfortunately, the out-of-tune units emit an annoying high-pitched whine. That’s how I was able to detect the units in your reception area. I was able to hear the whine for two of the units. As for the third, there are only a few possible layouts that would work for that system in that space. I made an educated guess by watching people as they entered your office.”

Her raised eyebrow was the only acknowledgment that he was admitting he had been guessing when he diagrammed the layout earlier, but it was enough for him to continue.

“The whine is below the normal range of human hearing, but it is still detectable enough to irritate people without them understanding why. Visitors walked straight towards your office, but staff members detoured slightly to avoid the wall with the unit.”

“Impressive.”

“I’m only getting started. While I could have guessed who was a visitor and who was a staff member, I didn’t have to. Each person who comes to see you checks in with the receptionist. I was able to hear their discussions, many of which were confidential, by the way. I don’t know if your reception desk doesn’t have a hush field or if your receptionist wasn’t using it. Either way, it’s a major oversight.”

“That may be true, but most people who come to see me are not enhanced.”

“True,” he admitted, “but they don’t have to be. A simple electronic device could easily pick up those sounds.” He held up his left wrist, forestalling her objections. “I know that you scan all visitors, but something as small as a watch could easily hide such a device.

“The next point that struck me related to the drop computer. It took both of us to the executive level without querying who I was or needing additional authorization. Obviously, my badge wouldn’t allow me to do that on my own, but it’s possible that I could be forcing you to take me there. There should be a security code or check, before you permit unauthorized people into a secure area.

“That’s just a sample of some of the problems that I detected. Given that I’ve only been here for a few hours, and seen a fraction of the grounds, it would surprise me if there weren’t more.” He stopped talking and she looked at him briefly, as if checking to see if he had finished.

“Very impressive,” she repeated and this time he could tell that she meant it. “So it sounds like you have a negative view of marriage.”

“Not really,” he answered, adjusting to the non sequitur. “Just realistic. Given that women live three or four times as long as men, it makes a successful marriage that much more difficult. Women are by nature more emotionally mature than men, a factor only increased by the experience and wisdom that comes with age. Therefore, the best time for men and women to marry is when they are similar in age or if the men are slightly older. There are very few women strong enough to be able to do that, knowing that they will outlive their spouse. It’s a difficult concept to grapple with and the reality is even harder. As women get older, their remaining life expectancies converge with those of men. By that time, most women have lived two or three times as long as the man has. This gives women a completely different frame of reference, not to mention how living that long alters what they expect from a relationship, and what they are willing to put up with. Women are used to being in control and they won’t tolerate the idiosyncrasies that most couples have to deal with on a daily basis.”

He paused and shrugged. “It’s not insurmountable. People in love have been overcoming even more difficult barriers since Adam and Eve. It does, however, make it more challenging.”

He hesitated briefly again, wondering whether to risk mentioning his past with her, and then decided that it was better to do it now rather than later.

“It must have been different for my father. Back then, the artificial embryogenesis machine was relatively new.

Only a few of the first generation of men born using the AEM had reached legal age yet and the ratio of women to eligible men was still almost five to one. It was easy for men to get their physical needs satisfied. Even marriage was a possibility. That’s all changed now. Increased use of the AEM has swung the ratio the other way. Now men outnumber women two to one and women can afford to be picky. After all, they can take the time to be sure.”

“I used to know your father. Did you know that?”

He smiled mentally as she acknowledged the past they had once shared. It seemed like he wasn't the only one who remembered their relationship.

“No, I didn’t.” He looked at her curiously. “This must be confusing for you, my having the same name. My dad died shortly after I was born but he wanted me to take his name. His sister took me in and raised me. She didn’t talk about my dad very much. I think she found it confusing, as well. She wasn’t all that happy that he had used an AEM for me. She feels that it’s degrading to force men to use this machine if they want a son. She also feels that it was unfair of him to bring me into the world.”

“What do you think?” she asked softly and he shrugged again.

“Well, I'm here now and I happen to like it that way, so I have no complaints. And realistically it was the only way to address the demographic imbalance. After all, what woman wants to have a son only to know that she’s going to outlive him? As a result, most women choose to have daughters, which given the difference in life expectancies, only aggravated the problem. The AEM gave men the chance to take control of their own reproduction and have a son. Mind you, there are many men who would still prefer a daughter. It's unfortunate the regulations surrounding AEMs only allow their use for male embryos.”

She looked at him oddly, but just then the whiteboard cleared and the face of the receptionist appeared.

“Excuse me ma’am, but Brooke asked me to remind you of your meeting.”

“Thank you, Charles. Would you mind asking someone in security to come and escort Mr. Peters out?” She turned to Ryan. “I have to go. Someone will be along shortly and I will be in touch with you, one way or another.”

He nodded. “Thank you for the opportunity. It was a pleasure meeting you.” He shook her hand and a moment later she was gone.

He resisted the urge to wipe his brow, knowing that he was still under surveillance. He was certain that he had fooled her, but it had been tough. He hadn’t expected all the old feelings to be so strong, but the sight of her brought them back in a rush. He forced his attention back to the present and a moment later a security guard appeared. The woman was surprisingly professional. She escorted him from the building, answering all his questions with the polite, but standard response of, “I wouldn’t know about that sir.” She also displayed a remarkable lack of curiosity about the man who could potentially be her boss’s boss. He hoped that it was just self-control rather than indifference. Self-control he could work with. Indifference was a little harder. He thanked her once they reached the waiting limo. He noticed that she waited until the limo had lifted off the ground and was moving before leaving, and his hopes rose. Perhaps it was the self-control of professionalism and not the indifference of apathy. If that were the case, then at least he would have something to work with. Assuming he was hired that is. He sat back and activated the privacy shield.

Assured of his privacy at last, he buried his face in his hands and groaned. The momentum of the interview and the need to present a confident façade had kept his thoughts occupied. He dropped the façade and started to shake. He had known what he was getting into, but he thought that he could handle it. Now he wasn’t so sure. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a choice. This opportunity had come at an awkward time, but he couldn’t afford to miss it. He had spent most of his second life developing the skills for this position, only the opening had occurred earlier than expected. He was almost too young for such a senior role, even for a male. The bitter corollary was that in less than a decade he would be too old for such a position.

In the end, it was determined that he had enough experience and his handlers had decided to risk it. They were aware of the relationship that Ryan had had with Olivia—it was why he was here after all—but they had reasoned that it had only been a brief six-month affair. Six months was nothing in the face of Olivia’s eighty plus years of experience, not to mention that it had all happened over forty years ago. All of that made perfect sense, but since when did love have to make sense?

He had no idea what her feelings were, but for him it was like those forty years had never happened, and just being in her presence again was like a knife in his heart. That was why he had referred to his past. He had to know if she at least remembered him and plainly she had.

Unfortunately, he still had to figure out if that was a good thing or not.

Olivia collapsed in her chair and waited for Brooke, who had been monitoring the interview from the security center. Knowing it would take Brooke a few minutes to arrive, Olivia hoped she would be able to hold herself together for that long. She thought she had known what she was getting into but she had been fooling herself. She had played the same waiting game with all the applicants, but with them it had all been part of the process. With Ryan, she suddenly felt like the tables had been turned and it had taken all of her willpower to make herself go out and meet him. He reminded her too much of his father and as fate would have it Ryan was exactly the same age that his father had been when she had dated him. The mannerisms were different but physically they looked almost identical. Ryan’s dark brown hair was cut short in contrast to his father’s but he had the same piercing blue eyes, the same firm jaw line that she used to run her fingers over.

She had met with all the applicants in her office briefly, before putting them to the test, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to do that with Ryan. Instinctively, she felt if she could just keep moving she would be able to retain control. She had managed for a while, and then to her horror, she heard herself asking him personal questions, about marriage, and about his father. She recognized Brooke’s hand behind the interruption from the receptionist. She was glad that it was Brooke who had been monitoring them, and not one of the regular security personnel. She had barely managed to keep it together long enough to make it back to her office.

Just recalling the interview made her hands shake, and she held them up in front of her as a more detached part of her watched them tremble. Her office door hissed open and Brooke strolled in.

Brooke took in the sight of Olivia’s trembling hands and shook her head. “That bad?” she asked sympathetically and Olivia nodded.

“Worse,” Olivia said and Brooke grimaced. “I know that you warned me, but the physical resemblance caught me off guard. He looked exactly like the Ryan I knew forty years ago and it threw me for a loop. I mean, I expected a certain degree of resemblance, something generational, but he looked exactly like his father and I mean exactly.”

She looked up at Brooke, as a silent tear ran down her cheek. She wiped her face angrily, ashamed somehow.

“Ryan, the Ryan that I knew, was the first and only man that I’ve ever loved. I know that’s irrational, that it was just a brief affair that happened decades ago, but I was seriously considering marrying him. In the end, I just couldn’t face the prospect of losing him. And so I left him. I thought that if I controlled the circumstances under which we parted that it would make me feel better.” She laughed bitterly. “The truth is I was just lying to myself. I didn’t even tell him why. I just couldn’t. I knew if I told him why, he would make all of my fears disappear, and that scared me even more—that someone could exert that degree of control over me. And now here he is again, like a ghost from my past, looking exactly like he did forty years ago.”

Olivia was grateful that Brooke knew enough to just listen quietly as she expressed herself, that Brooke could recognize her need for a cathartic release. Brooke already knew all of this. It was why they were such good friends. They were friends before the breakup, but afterwards, they became inseparable. She was also glad Brooke had the perspicacity not to bring up what she wasn’t saying, about how Olivia’s mother mishandled a similar predicament. While Olivia didn’t exactly deny the impact of her mother’s suicide, she also didn’t like to talk about it.

“Listen to me. I’m eighty years old. I’m the CEO of the world’s largest biotech company. I’ve got an admittedly intimidating vocabulary, and I’ve just said the word ‘exactly’ four times in less than a minute.” Olivia pressed her hands to her head and groaned. “I’ve also got a headache that could kill a small animal.” Her eyes watered and she fought to keep from crying again. “God, talk about irrational.”

“Stop beating yourself up,” Brooke said as she smiled at Olivia and handed her a tissue. “You can’t help what you feel. You can use it sometimes, but that’s about it.”

Olivia dabbed at her eyes with the tissue as Brooke turned away to give her a moment of privacy. She folded the tissue and blew her nose, a large unladylike honk, and studied Brooke. In almost every way she and Brooke were complete opposites. She was unusually tall and Brooke was short. She was quiet and conservative where Brooke was outgoing and flamboyant. At the moment, she and Brooke had the same hair color, but given how often Brooke changed hair color, that was only a temporary coincidence. It was hard to believe that someone so outrageous could be a Senior VP of Human Resources, but Brooke excelled at her job and was careful to keep her personal life just that.

She cleared her throat and Brooke turned back to her with a smile. She was holding a glass of water and two pain relief pills. Olivia eyed them hesitantly. It was ironic—and a private secret—that the head of the world’s largest biotech company was reluctant to take her own products. The pounding in her head made the decision for her and she gulped down the pills. Within seconds she began to feel better as the biological nanites swept through her bloodstream, multiplying as they scavenged waste products, and diminishing as they dispensed themselves in the form of relief to swollen pain nerves.

She closed her eyes as her headache disappeared and she began to relax. Even as she did, she had to admire the elegant design of the pills. They had a limited supply of reaction mass and their success depended on being able to find waste products to allow the reaction to continue. The euphoric feeling that they produced made them highly addictive, or would have, but since they cleared out waste products so effectively, the feeling produced by subsequent doses was substantially lessened. Even at that, she knew of people who took them daily. She supposed that she should be grateful, since it generated substantial profits, but the quasi-addictive nature of the pills made her uncomfortable.

A minute later she felt like a new person and she smiled gratefully at Brooke.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I did warn you that it would be weird. Of course, you would be a lot better prepared for this, in more ways than one, if you’d taken my advice and dated more often during the last forty years.”

“I know you did, and for the first time I’m actually thinking that your advice in that regard had merit.”

Brooke’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. She blinked and then grinned at her friend.

“Wow, you must be really rattled to say that,” she teased and her grin just broadened when Olivia glared at her. After a moment Olivia relented, grinning sheepishly back at her.

“Okay, I guess I deserved that.”

“That you did. Mind you, I can understand your reluctance to date someone else. I didn't meet Ryan's dad when you guys were dating, but if Ryan looks like him then all I can say is wow.”

“That's really helping me, thanks.”

Brooke grinned again. “Hey, what are friends for?” After a moment she cleared her throat, wisely turning the conversation to business before she irritated Olivia. “So, what did you think?”

Olivia glanced at her and shook her head. “No, you tell me what you thought first. I’m afraid that I won’t be objective.”

Brooke gave her a penetrating stare. “Are you sure that you’d be okay with him working here? After all, there’s no point to this if you won’t be comfortable working with him.”

Olivia thought about it for a moment. “Yes, I believe so,” she finally responded. “I think that it was just the shock of seeing him for the first time. Besides, he’s not his father, so it’s my problem, not his.” She grinned as Brooke started to frown at her. “I know, I know, that doesn’t make it any less of a problem, but I honestly think I can deal with it.”

Brooke leaned over and gave her a quick hug. It was the kind of hug that men usually misunderstood. There was a lot of talk of lesbianism, due to the constantly shifting demographic ratios, and Olivia had to admit there was a great deal of truth to it. Women turned to one another for emotional and spiritual comfort naturally, and this was even more true now given the age and experience differential that existed between men and women. From there, it was only a small step to physical intimacy. However, that did not mean that every woman was a lesbian, or that every little touch or gesture meant more than it did. Most men read too much into such small gestures; she suspected that Ryan wouldn’t. The thought startled her and she missed what Brooke was saying.

“Sorry, I tuned out there for a moment. What were you saying?”

Brooke smiled and raised an eyebrow, causing Olivia to blush.

“Stop that. I was just thinking about—stuff,” she finished weakly and Brooke nodded knowingly.

“I was just saying that you’re not going to like what I have to say,” she repeated, and now it was Olivia’s turn to raise a questioning eyebrow.

“He’s good, very good.”

Olivia smiled. “Do I sense a bit of reluctance in that admission?”

“Maybe just a bit. I hadn’t realized it until now, but I guess I am biased towards females.” She paused and shook her head. “That’s a terrible thing for a Senior VP of Human Resources to realize, and if nothing else I’m grateful to him for that. I guess it’s just because females tend to be more thorough, not to mention more mature and self-assured. That’s why it surprised me how confident and competent Ryan was. He behaved more like a man twice his age. Maybe it’s his aunt’s influence, but he’s very observant and he carries himself well. Self-assured and confident but not cocky. He also knows what he’s talking about. I’ve been doing an okay job filling in for you, but from what he said, we’ve been slipping badly and have been for years.”

Olivia snorted in bitter amusement. “Well, if there were any doubts that a woman could be lazy and deceitful, Christina dispels them nicely.”

“You can say that again. Maybe she could get a job as a poster girl for slothfulness.” They both laughed and then Brooke sobered. “There’s still a part of me that feels sorry for her. After all, she worked for Delphi her entire life, starting as a guard almost a century ago, and working her way up to VP of Security. This is all she knows and now there’s no way she’s going to get a job in security, not after you told our suppliers that we would stop dealing with them if they hired her, or knowingly worked with a company that did.”

“Yes, well, her laxness cost us over a billion dollars, some of which I’m sure went to line her own pockets. Given the reaming I got from the Board of Directors—fully justifiable I might add—being charitable was not my first inclination.”

Brooke cleared her throat cautiously and then continued. “Getting back to the topic at hand, he caught everything that most of the others did, and more. There is only one woman candidate who matched his performance and quite frankly she scared me a little.”

Olivia frowned as she considered that. “Hmm.”

“Hmm, what?”

“I wonder if women are becoming so confident that they’ll get the job that they aren’t putting the same effort into it. Someone once said that if the Devil were to replace God, he’d have to assume the attributes of Divinity.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Brooke asked with a laugh.

“I just mean that women have replaced men as the top of the food chain. Now men are stuck under the glass ceiling and we’re the ones with the lucrative careers and high-paying jobs.”

“Whatever,” Brooke replied. “You’re the history buff, not me.”

“Please, I’d hardly consider myself to be a history buff. It’s actually very topical and a number of articles and opinion columns have been written about it. I used to dismiss them out of hand but now I wonder if they’ve struck on something.” She looked thoughtful and Brooke waited patiently, comfortable with her idiosyncrasies.

Just then a soft chime sounded and the Monet painting hanging on the far wall shifted to reveal Charles.

“Sorry for the interruption, but the Board meeting starts in ten minutes, Ma’am.”

“Thank you, Charles. Say Charles, what did you think of Ryan Peters?”

“Ma’am?”

“I’d like to know your thoughts and observations. You interacted with him, and technically, you spent more time with him than I did.”

“I liked him. He seemed capable. You’ve played this waiting game on several candidates and he was the most patient of the lot. He didn’t fuss or fidget, and he was polite but not distant.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s what you are looking for.”

“That’s perfect. Thank you, Charles. That’s all.”

The Monet reappeared and Olivia stared at it for a moment. The painting in her office was the same as those in the reception area. Like those, the image it displayed changed frequently, selecting from a number of different artists and their works. Olivia had always been partial to Monet, so his works appeared more often. This particular painting was entitled Nympheas Effet du Soir, and the flexible OLED fabric wrapped around the frame had changed color to frame it perfectly. It was simple and peaceful. It had been painted by a man at a time when men dominated the arts. Most women would see that as a reason to hire a woman rather than a man, as though someone somewhere was keeping score over the years. Olivia considered how it must have felt to be a female Renaissance artist, and how hard it must have been to succeed in a male-dominated world. Now women dominated most fields and it was the men that were struggling to succeed.

Olivia recalled how much she had hurt Ryan—her Ryan—years ago. She had been carrying that guilt around with her for a long time. Maybe this was finally the time to assuage it. She couldn’t do anything for her Ryan, but she could give his son a chance.

“All right, get in touch with him and let him know the job is his if he wants it.” When Brooke’s only comment was to arch an eyebrow, she went on, “Just do it. We’ll talk later. I’ve got to run or I’ll keep the entire Board waiting for me.”

“Okay, see you at the fitness center later?”

“You bet.” Olivia grinned as she left the office. With her decision, she felt as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Even the impending Board meeting couldn’t dampen her spirits.

 ~~~~~

Want more? Email me at david@davidboultbee.com and I will email you the link for Chapter 2.