Dangerous Play

28 » all in the presentation

"You know, Finn, there's still time to avoid embarrassing yourself," Seth greeted. "The elevator is right behind you. I'm sure you know your way to the lobby by now."

Finn and Eden ignored him. With a shrug, the other boy strode past them and headed for the aforementioned elevator.

Eden turned to him. "Remember, it's all in the presentation. You've got this."

He grinned. "Hell yeah, I do." Pulling open the door of the boardroom, he gestured for Eden to go through first. "After you."

Finn followed her into the room and watched as she took a seat at the round conference table, between Kamilah al-Haroun and Zara Rashid. The CFO of Sayed Atlantic gave him an unimpressed look, no doubt remembering their disastrous last encounter, when Finn hadn't known who she was.

There were three other board members in the room: two men and another woman. He couldn't tell if he was more relieved or disappointed that Qadir wasn't here, but he certainly wasn't surprised.

Kamilah cleared her throat. "Let's get started, shall we? Finn, this is—"

"Sir Paul Northington, Mohammed Youssef, and Michelle Rollins. It's a pleasure to meet you." Mr. Northington and Mr. Youssef were members of Capstone Energy's board, while Mrs. Rollins was part of Sayed Atlantic. Finn hadn't wanted a repeat of what happened with Ms. Rashid, so he'd done his research. "Ms. Rashid, Ms. al-Haroun, lovely to see you again."

Kamilah's surprise quickly morphed into a composed expression. "You certainly came prepared." He couldn't tell if there was a compliment in there or not—had Seth not known who someone was? Either way, he decided to take it as a good sign.

Had he been anywhere else, he might have made a joke about always being prepared. As it was, he didn't think that would leave the best impression on these stony-faced investors and business leaders. So he swallowed the comment and inclined his head with a gracious smile.

Someone had already set up his presentation, which saved him the trouble of scrambling around the wires and hoping the connection would hold. Finn picked up the clicker from the table and took a deep breath. This was it.

As he launched into his presentation, he kept a careful eye on his audience. There was a science to talking in front of an audience that he relished. Abby would claim he just liked the idea of a bunch of people being forced to stare at him for an extended period of time, but there was more to it than that.

When someone's eyes threatened to glaze over, he drew their attention to another figure on the screen. He pointed out each individual's area of expertise when the topic popped up and explained what he'd found in his and Eden's research.

By the time he reached the end of his slides, nearly half an hour later, his throat was parched and he was sure there were pit stains under his blazer. But all of that paled in comparison to the immense satisfaction he felt from a successful presentation. It was almost as great a feeling as scoring a winning goal.

Then came the interrogation. Each board member had questions for him, concerns about what he proposed. He backtracked through his slides, again showing the graphs and figures he and Eden spent hours working on, explaining his ideas and thoughts for the Capstone Energy-Sayed Atlantic merger.

Finally, they ran out of questions. Finn tried to calm his nerves as the board members glanced between each other, murmuring. Sir Paul Northington cleared his throat. "On behalf of my colleague and I," he said, "you've done a marvelous job with this presentation." It took Finn a moment to process his heavy Mancunian accent before he registered the compliment.

Finn nearly sighed in relief. "Thank you, sir."

The elderly man glanced at Kamilah. "You say he was hand-picked by Qadir for this project? Maybe the interns don't have maggots for brains after all."