Lily had no intention of underestimating her sister badly enough to make that mistake twice.
She folded her hands neatly atop the table.
Something thing bothered Lily more; a detail her mind kept circling with disciplined persistence. After all she was someone who disliked unresolved variables and that thing was Stan's composure.
Age she could account for. Wealth could eventually be traced with sufficient research.
Industry knowledge could be explained away through preparation, intelligence, or access to exceptional advisors.
But composure was different. That was harder.
She had experience, she've spent twelve years in rooms like this.
Rooms full of people far more powerful than they initially appeared...
Rooms where the real negotiations happened in the three seconds of eye contact before anyone spoke.
Rooms where even experienced executives eventually betrayed themselves through some microscopic fracture in their control.
