The next seventy-two hours became a blur of spreadsheets, coffee fumes, and sleepless nights. Elena lived and breathed the Baxter presentation. She learned the rhythm of the 27th floor—the hushed tones, the sudden flurries of activity when Damon emerged from his office, the way Jenna Carter's lips pursed into a thin line whenever Elena asked a question.
Aiden from Marketing became a familiar, welcome sight. He'd stop by her desk with a conspiratorial grin and a much-needed coffee. "Still breathing, new girl?"
"Barely," she'd reply, but his easy camaraderie was a lifeline in the sea of corporate ice.
It was on the morning of the fourth day that it happened. Elena had finally perfected the financial projections slide, a complex chart that clearly illustrated the ROI Blackwood Enterprises could offer Baxter Corp. She saved it, attached it to the master presentation file stored on the company server, and allowed herself a moment of pride. It was good. Damn good.
At 10:15 AM, Damon's voice cut through the office quiet, not loud, but absolute. "Elena. My office. Now."
Her heart jumped into her throat. This was it. The pre-meeting review. She grabbed her notebook and walked in, her posture straight.
He was standing by his desk, his tablet in hand. The Baxter presentation was displayed on the large screen behind him. His expression was granite.
"The Baxter executives will be here in forty-five minutes," he began, his voice deceptively calm. "I expect precision. I expect perfection." His eyes narrowed at the tablet. "This is not perfection. This is a disgrace."
He turned the screen toward her. It was her financial projections slide. But the numbers were wrong. Catastrophically wrong. A decimal point had been moved, turning a multi-million dollar profit into a staggering loss.
Elena's blood ran cold. "That's… that's not what I made. The numbers in my original file were correct. I triple-checked them."
"Your original file?" he repeated, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "This is the file from the server. The only file. The one you are responsible for." He took a step closer, and the air left the room. "Is this your idea of proving yourself, Elena? Sabotaging the most important deal of this quarter?"
Tears of frustration and panic threatened to surface, but she forced them down. The strong-willed woman beneath the surface roared to life. "I didn't sabotage anything. Someone must have altered the file after I uploaded it."
Damon let out a short, cold laugh. "Convenient. The classic 'someone else's fault' defense. I thought you were stronger than that." The comment was a direct hit, meant to wound the girl he once knew.
Elena flinched but held her ground. "Check the server logs. It will show who accessed the file last and when."
For a long moment, he just stared at her, his gaze searching hers, looking for a lie, for a crack in her resolve. The silent office outside felt like a waiting audience. She could see the war in his eyes—the ruthless CEO who should fire her on the spot, and the man who once knew her well enough to recognize honest defiance.
"The meeting is in forty minutes," he said finally, his voice still tight. "You have thirty to fix this. If the numbers aren't perfect, you're finished. Not just at this company, but I'll make sure no firm in this city touches you. Do you understand?"
It was an impossible task. Recreating that complex slide would take an hour, minimum.
"Yes, sir," she said, her voice trembling only slightly.
She turned and walked out, feeling the weight of every stare. She didn't look at anyone, just sat at her computer, her mind racing. She had a backup. A desperate, unlikely backup. The night before, working from her apartment, her laptop had crashed. She'd emailed the most recent version of the slide to her work email as a precaution.
With shaking hands, she logged into her email. There it was. The attachment, timestamped at 1:17 AM. The correct version.
She worked faster than she ever had in her life, deleting the corrupted slide and replacing it with the pristine one. She printed a copy of the email timestamp and the correct slide, her hands trembling not with fear now, but with fury.
At the ten-minute mark, she walked back into Damon's office without being summoned. She placed the printed slides on his desk.
"The presentation is correct. And this," she said, pointing to the email timestamp, "is proof that the slide was perfect last night. Someone altered it on the server this morning."
Damon looked from the paper to her face. The anger in his eyes had been replaced by something else—calculating, intense. He believed her.
The intercom on his phone buzzed. "Mr. Blackwood, the Baxter team has arrived early. They're in Conference Room A."
He stood, straightening his cufflinks. "Sit in the back of the room. Don't speak unless spoken to."
The presentation was a masterclass. Damon was captivating, sharp, and persuasive. When the correct financial slide appeared, he didn't miss a beat. Elena watched, her heart still pounding, but now with a dawning sense of vindication.
As the meeting concluded and the Baxter team left, looking impressed, Damon turned to Jenna. "Jenna, pull the server access logs for the Baxter presentation file from 8 PM last night to 10 AM this morning. Send them directly to me."
Jenna's face, for the first time, lost its composed coolness. A flicker of panic crossed her features. "Of course, sir."
Damon's eyes met Elena's across the room. He gave a single, curt nod. It wasn't an apology. It wasn't warmth. But it was an acknowledgment. He knew.
Back at her desk, Aiden slid into the chair next to her. "Heard you almost got fed to the wolves. Looks like you survived."
"Barely," Elena whispered, the adrenaline finally receding, leaving her exhausted.
Aiden leaned in closer. "Watch your back, Elena. Jenna's been gunning for a promotion to a junior executive role for a year. You, the new favorite reporting directly to the CEO? You're a threat."
As he walked away, Elena's phone vibrated with a new email. The sender was Damon Blackwood. The subject line was blank. The body contained only three words:
My office. 7 PM.
The workday was over. Whatever happened next had nothing to do with business, and everything to do with the past.