Marrying My Ex's Boss novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Heron

The boardroom on fifteen had a table the length of a bowling lane and a view of three rivers.

I sat in the back row, in a folding chair against the wall, between a projector cart and a potted fern.

Junior analysts are allowed to attend board presentations if they stand quietly and breathe through their noses.

Truman sat at the head of the table with his hands flat on the wood.

He hadn't spoken to me all week except in the kitchen, in short sentences, with his jaw tight.

Honoria sat at his right, in black, with the cane across her knee.

Eight board members filled the rest of the chairs, none of whom I'd ever heard speak.

"Our next item," said Truman, in a voice that gave me nothing, "is the Strategy 2027 forecast. Mr. Bierbaum."

Colin stood.

He had worn his best suit, the slim navy, and he'd had a haircut that morning.

His first slide came up, and it was my template, in my blue.

My little gull logo sat in the corner, the one I had drawn at three in the morning in April.

Underneath, in bold white letters: HERON, A PREDICTIVE SUPPLY FRAMEWORK, BY COLIN BIERBAUM.

I heard my own pulse in my ears.

"Hospitals don't run out of supplies," Colin began, warmly, pacing. "They run out of warning. Heron gives them three weeks."

He clicked through my slides.

He used my sentences.

He used the joke I'd written about the glove shortage, and one of the board members chuckled.

I sat very still with my hands pressed between my knees.

"As you can see," said Colin, "at Allegheny General, usage jumps forty percent on November fourteenth."

"Why?" I said.

Every head in the room turned.

I had not decided to say it.

My voice just came out, level and clear, from the back row.

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