Page 140 of Dial F for Finance

My smile holds.

At least, I think it does. But something cold slides under my ribs.

Maybe it’s the years of stereotype, maybe it’s the fact that the phrase has been weaponized in corporate settings by men who can’t stand being corrected by a woman who does her job. Maybe it’s the ripple in the room—the way even the judge on my left throws me a sympathy glance like we’re all in on the joke—but it tightens the smile on my face, and my knuckles go pale on my coffee cup.

Dominic doesn’t see it. Of course he doesn’t. He’s looking at the room, and the room is his. He knows exactly when to pause, when to let the laughter land, when to step on it before it becomes too much.

“I’ll admit something unflattering about myself,” he says. “Before I met Jenna, I thought there wasn’t a woman in this world I couldn’t charm in ten seconds flat.”

Another laugh.

A woman near the front murmurs, “I believe that.”

Dominic puts a hand over his heart. “Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate being recognized for my gifts.”

The room laughs again.

I don’t this time. I’m frozen in my smile.

What the fuck?

“Then Jenna looked at me like my entire personality was a compliance violation,” he says, “and I realized I had encountered something rare. A woman immune to my best material.”

Bennett laughs at that. So does Layla. So does half the room.

The sound washes across me, and suddenly I’m not sitting in the ballroom anymore.

I’m not on the terrace.

I’m not in Tokyo.

I am seventeen, standing outside in a dress I was stupid enough to love, listening to beautiful people laughing—at me.

Forcing myself back into the room, trying to calm my racing heart as Dominic continues, smiling, oblivious.

“She was, without question, the challenge of a lifetime.”

Challenge.

Sweat pricks my brow as laughter rolls around the room and a voice from my past pushes its way to the surface.

“It was a challenge, Jenna. The guys didn’t believe me when I said I could get you to believe I wanted to date you.”

I remember the boy’s smile, the way he’d memorized my quirks, and the sick, hot sweep of humiliation as I realized every word he’d ever said to me was part of a private dare. He told me later, in the parking lot after school, that I shouldn’t be so mad about a game everyone played. But it wasn’t a game for me. I was a person, not a challenge. And he humiliated me.

The ballroom is blurry for a second, my breath caught in the pressure of unshed tears. My fingernails gouge half-moons into my palm. I have fifty thousand hours of composure banked for situations just like this. Still, it’s shockingly hard to remember how to use it.

“—there are deals I’ve chased for less time than I chased Jenna Pemberton’s real smile,” Dominic says. “Three years, ladies and gentlemen. Three years of dedicated pursuit where I was ignored, corrected, dismissed, and occasionally threatened with regulatory action.”

Laughter again.

Bigger now.

“He loved every second of it,” someone says near the back.

Dominic laughs too.

My stomach turns.