She didn’t know any venture capitalists, but she certainly hadn’t expected one to dress like this. Sporting track pants and a faded T-shirt with Greek letters printed across the front, he looked more like someone heading to a kegger than a business meeting.
Maybe this man was an assistant.
She glanced past the guy in leisure-frat attire. Two other men sat at a long conference table in giant overstuffed chairs. A few sheets of paper were strewn haphazardly across the table where one man sat snapping selfies and another focused on his phone. Both men were clad in outfits mirroring the guy at the door. Across from the imposing table, a lone chair sat in the center of the room like an island divorced from the mainland.
“Are you coming in or not?” the guy asked.
Libby touched the jade beads at her wrist for luck. “Yes, I’m coming in. I’m prepared to present to your group,” she replied, all business.
The guy shrugged, then plopped onto a third overstuffed chair as she scrambled in behind him. The door caught halfway, and she tried to pull it closed but to no avail. And she sure didn’t want her first impression to be one of breaking their office space. That was no way to make an entrance.
“Don’t worry about the door. I told my dad about it,” the man who’d met her outside the conference room offered.
“You told your dad?” she stammered, scanning the room before heading toward the chair that had to be a good twenty feet from the conference table. Something had been off with her energy for weeks, but even her discombobulated chi was aware of the psychic alarm bells going off left and right. Neither of the men at the table even registered her presence. No matter. She was there to wow and impress. Pulling the little gong from her bag, she set it on the chair and rested the mallet beside it.
“My dad owns this building,” the guy answered, then pulled his phone out and joined the other men in obsessing over the internet.
She took in the not-so-corporate lay of the land. These guys were probably rich, but they’d have to be. That was the whole point of venture capitalism, right? She mustered a grin. Did her frazzled chi make her want to march up to them and rip their cells right out of their hands?
Yeah, it did.
The explosive anger that had been simmering in her belly the last seventy-five days was even okay with her taking the tiny mallet and smashing the hell out of their devices. But she couldn’t allow her unsteady energy to screw this up.
Don’t make snap judgments based on appearances.
Since she’d become a yoga instructor, she’d taught at senior living facilities, community rec centers, and pricy, high-end studios. And for the most part, it didn’t matter if she was leading a class of millionaires or folks popping in for a free stretch. Those who practiced yoga were good, kind people. She was teaching a restorative yoga class at an exclusive studio in the Crystal Creek neighborhood tonight.
The breath caught in her throat. This was the only studio where she still held a steady teaching gig. The simmering anger in her belly morphed into a slow boil at the thought of tonight’s class. The beefcake creep who’d wrecked her chi trained at an exclusive private boxing gym next door. Would he be there this evening to thwart her meditative practice, again, banging and crashing and hollering like he was the King of the Jungle?
“Libby?” the guy who’d led her into the conference room called, his voice snapping her back to this monumentally huge moment that she wasn’t about to let some beefcake ruin.
She straightened and clasped her hands in front of her.
Resonate peace and tranquility.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to share my vision and my business plan with you,” she began, projecting poise and serenity. “Where would you like me to start?”
So far, so good.
The young man lounging in the center overstuffed chair looked up from his phone, then raked his beady eyes over her body like she was a piece of meat. He leaned forward. “Well, Libby Lamb,” he began in a syrupy tone as a smarmy grin twisted his lips, “we’d like you to start by bending over.”
Two
Libby
Had this T-shirt-clad bro asked her to present her ass for the group to assess?
This had to be a joke.
“You want me to bend over?” Libby repeated, doing everything in her power to keep from unleashing a verbal tirade.
“Yeah,” the guy answered smugly before leaning back in his chair.
She pursed her lips, then peered down at the conference room’s faded black and gray checkerboard carpet.
Should she do it?
She studied a black square. As far as colors go, black was a tricky shade. It could promote deep meditation, but it could also signify an impasse—a mysterious, dark obstacle hindering one’s quest for balance. And then it hit her. This had to be a test. Yes, the venture capitalists must want to observe how she’d handle a professional hiccup.
If she remained calm, she’d be fine.
She picked up the mallet and struck the gong gently. She’d lost her cool with the poor instrument more than a few times over the last seventy-five days.
Stupid lopsided chi.
It freaked people out to see a yogi serene one minute, then wild-eyed and working the gong like a game of Whack-a-Mole the next.
But as hard as she’d tried, she couldn’t help it.
Anytime the beefcake invaded her mind, or an inconsiderate, beefcake-like guy wandered into her orbit, it dashed her communion with calmness. And the harder she’d tried to get the beefcake out of her head, the more frequently he’d pop up. The release of striking the metal wasn’t a substitute for the earth-shaking orgasm she so desperately needed. Still, it acted as a pressure valve, dispelling a portion of her grating agitation. And at this very moment, the unsettling energy inside her wanted to bang the hell out of that mini gong like she was one of those wind-up monkeys holding a pair of cymbals, but blessedly, she held back.
“What’s that for?” the guy who’d opened the door barked.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
At least she’d changed the topic from bending over.
It was go big or go home time—and she had to knock this out of the park. This presentation required a full-court positive karma press. And the gong, when she wasn’t banging it within an inch of its life, was the perfect place to start.
She surveyed the men who couldn’t be much older than she was. Three white guys with blond hair coiffed in the same GQ long, but not too long, stylish cut. They looked like they hit the gym—a good sign. Still, they might not be familiar with the benefits of yoga, but their interest in fitness had to be why they’d invited her here today. Somewhere beneath the faded Greek letters, they harbored the desire to learn. Experiencing a renewed sense of purpose, she went into instructor mode.
“I rang the gong to clear our minds and align our chakras,” she announced, exuding tranquility.
Ha! She could maintain her calm like a true professional and educate these guys on the benefits of yoga in the process.
The men stared at her, wide-eyed, before the guy at the far-right end of the table huffed, then went back to scrolling on his phone.
The gong could only do so much. She needed to change tack.
“Which one of you is Derrick?” she asked, hoping to build rapport—again, like a true professional.