“I won’t lose,” he said.
“Oh, Gunnar. You are going to lose. You’re gonna lose bad.” She smiled at him.
He curled his upper lip, almost as if in a sneer, and then tapped his blindingly white front tooth. “You have chocolate. Just there.”
“Of course I do, dumbass,” she said, closing her mouth and running her tongue quickly along her teeth. “I’m eating a chocolate cupcake.”
“Still. You might want to sort that out before the meeting starts.”
“I’ll just be a moment.”
She stopped in the bathroom and made sure that everything with her teeth looked good, and by the time she was finished it was time to step into the meeting.
Poor Gunnar. She almost felt sorry for him. Because she had seen his entire presentation. Months ago. And she had tailored her projected technology accordingly. He would simply never know what hit him.
And being so confident in her position allowed her to sit back during his presentation and focus on his hands. The way they caressed the different visuals. The prototypes. The sharpness in his consonants, the masculine set of his broad shoulders... Yes. It was so easy to imagine him as a Viking marauder.
She really didn’t understand how you can hate a person so much, and also have that same person exclusively be the one man you ever wanted to go to bed with. Olive wasn’t a prude. Her reading material proved that.
But she was busy, and she had decided a long time ago that there was no point pursuing anything with a man who didn’t make her half as excited as a new piece of technology... Or Gunnar Magnusson.
Because if a man she disliked could make her entire body ache in inappropriate places... A man she liked should be able to do just as much with one look. And she had never felt compelled to experiment physically. She had kissed a couple of men. And again, the issue was that one withering glare from Gunnar gave her weeks more fantasy fodder than any of those kisses had.
That moment in the hall at her family home...when she’d been able to breathe him in, when she’d been so close to him she could feel his heat...
It haunted her, even now as they pretended that evening of tenderness, of connection had never happened, it haunted her.
So what was the point?
What was the point.
If she couldn’t get away from him, there would never be anyone else.
Not ever.
And Gunnar was finished. And it was her turn.
“Thank you. That was very interesting, Mr. Magnusson. I think, though, Mr. Yamamoto, that you will find this to be the most compelling direction.” And she laid out a thorough a assassination for Gunnar’s system. She had identified every flaw in his design, and she had tweaked and reflected her own in response. She had set about making a system that annihilated his. And in her—not her words, but profiles that had been done on her—engaging and down-to-earth style that made technology so accessible anyone could understand, she laid out her plan for the fleet.
And in the end, she was the one who got the handshake.
“Congratulations, Miss Monroe. Ambient is the clear choice to be fulfilling the need for our fleet.”
Gunnar didn’t react. This wasn’t the first time he had lost to her. But it was his biggest loss. He shook Mr. Yamamoto’s hand gamely, and smiled. “Perhaps we could do work together in the future.”
“You never know,” said Mr. Yamamoto.
And after that, she and Gunnar left, at the same time. And began walking down the hall together quickly.
“It will be such a shame not to see you for the next ten years. But I’m booked.”
“It was a valiant win,” he said. “Your product is brilliant. Anyone can see that.”
“Even you. What an incredible, astonishing concession.”
“Fair is fair. Best is best. Do you have any plans while you’re here in Tokyo?”
“Not really.” Sushi in my hotel room and more of my book.