Page 4 of Vamp CEO Bit You Where?

"Houseplants don't get fired." She straightens as a door clicks down the hall. "He's coming. Don't flinch. He can smell flinching." She's already drifting off. "And Jasmine? When he says no, he means it. The trick is making him say it about the right thing."

She's three desks away before I can delve more into her opinions of him.

Sebastian doesn't enter a space so much as take possession of it. He's reading something on a tablet and doesn't acknowledge me as he reaches my desk, which gives me the opening I want.

"The Halloran server contract expired," I say.

His silver-gray eyes meet mine, piercing. "I've seen it."

"Then you're aware we're paying month-to-month at a forty percent premium because it sat in your queue for thirty-three days."

"I read every external agreement before it's signed."

"You read this one in February. It hasn't changed since. It expired waiting for your second read."

His focus sharpens. Not flustered—recalibrating. "Vendors are the most common vector for information leaving a company. I sign personally because I want to know what enters, and leaves this building."

"Then you don't have a signature problem. You have a sorting problem." I turn my screen toward him. "Same-vendor renewals, same terms, no scope change—route those to a same-day track that still comes to your desk. Flagged. Reversible. One line of summary. You'd read what actually needs you. As it stands, you read everything, which means nothing gets read thoroughly."

"You assume the routine renewals are routine."

"I assume nothing. That's why each one still hits you. I'm not asking you to trust the vendors. I'm requesting you trust that I can tell a renewal from a risk. If I can't, fire me Friday."

The entire level turns to watch. He lowers the tablet to my desk—a small thing, but I get the sense he doesn't set things down often.

"Show me the Halloran summary," he says. "One line."

I've already written it. "Same provider, same service level, price locked, auto-renew removed so it can't trap us twice. Recommend signing today, backdate the rate dispute."

He scans the line, then returns to the start. I don't fill the quiet; the person who talks first in these moments loses, and I learned that lesson at full price.

"Sign it under my delegated authority," he says. "Build the track. Bring me the rules before the results."

"I'll have both by end of day."

"Rules first." Not louder. Just absolute.

He doesn't leave. I find that strange—executives deliver a verdict and move, but he stays at the edge of my desk while I pull up the approval design, as if he's curious how I'll organize it. I work because I know I'm good at working while observed.

But when I glance up to ask about signature thresholds, I catch it: his attention is on me, not the screen. Not the once-over men give that I learned to ignore and forget. This is steadier, more deliberate—the focus of someone deciding whether a problem is worth solving, and not yet sure of the answer. It holds a half second past where anyone else would look away. Instead of him diverting his gaze, I do, back to the monitor, my heartbeat picking up for no reason I'd put in a status report.

"Was there something else?" I ask.

"No." He lifts the tablet. "People usually bring me solutions that make more work for me. You brought one that makes less and asked me to trust you more. I haven't decided which is the risk."

He's inside his office before I answer. I came braced for arrogance—built my whole first day around surviving it. What I got was a CEO pushing back, and then conceded when I was right. Even told me that competence makes me harder to read, not easier.

Penny slides back into view, coffee number two in hand, eyebrows raised.

"Still alive," she says. "And the door's open. He never does that."

I look. The office door stands a few inches ajar—not enough to see in, enough to mean something I don't understand yet.

"He's not what I expected," I say.

"Nobody's first guess about him is right." She toasts me with the cup. "The fun part is finding out how wrong you were."

I turn back to the approval backlog. I should feel like I succeeded this morning, but I feel like I've been handed the first page of an unfinished book.