Page 10 of Ansel

TWO PLUS TWO EQUALS IDIOT

ANSEL

Iwas three minutes into a presentation when I realized the numbers were wrong.

Not just wrong—disastrouslywrong.

The graph on the slide in front of me showed a projected return that didn’t match the report I’d read that morning. I flipped through the hard copy of the presentation, my pulse ticking faster as I saw the discrepancy. If I kept talking, I’d be selling an impossible forecast. If I backtracked, I’d look unprepared.

I wasneverunprepared.

“Excuse me.” I glanced at the junior analyst fumbling with his laptop. “These figures—are they final?”

Across the table, the client frowned.

“Uh—” The analyst’s face turned red. “That’s what I was given.”

I blew out a breath, my jaw tightening. This wouldn’t have happened if Neha were here. She would have double-checked the numbers, anticipated my questions, and flagged the error before I stepped into this room.

But Neha wasn’t with me. I’d fucked that up good.

In the past two weeks, I’d discovered how much I relied on her and all the bravado of how I was king of the fucking word had evaporated.

I confronted Vanessa, who insisted that she wasn’t lying. I didn’t believe her, but I also couldn’t do anything about it. No one put a gun to my head. I let Neha go of my own free will and after careful consideration because I was obviously not as smart as I thought I was.

I apologized to the client, whom I’d worked with for several years, and I knew he’d give me grace by letting me reschedule our meeting.

“What happened to your other assistant?” he asked when I walked him to the elevator. “You know, the Indian woman.”

“She got an MBA and couldn’t be my assistant any longer,” I lied.

“Moving on to bigger and better things. Good for her,” he said approvingly. “She was a smart one.”

“Yes.” She fucking was while I was a grade-A idiot.

Back in my newly outfitted Vice President office, I closed the door shut and pinched the bridge of my nose.

Since Neha left, I had nothing but chaos. Lori had worked for me for two weeks, and then, with my new job, I got a new assistant. Joanna, who came highly recommended. She wasn’t bad, but she wasjustan assistant.

When I asked her to go through my presentation, she looked at me like I’d asked her to dance naked on my table.

“I…you mean to make sure everything is spelled right?” She gave me a confused look.

Right! Assistants usually didn’t share their insights on strategy and client presentations. They took care of your calendar, got you coffee, and ensured that your inbox only contained emails that you needed to see.

Joanna was a decent assistant, I had to give her that, but I found her slow, easily flustered, and utterly unfamiliar with how I worked.

She did her job and nothing more.

I couldn’t send her a market report and ask her to give me a summary I could use in a meeting. I couldn’t forward a financial model at the last minute and expect her to catch discrepancies my analysts had missed. I couldn’t rely on her to refine my pitch decks, pulling out key insights to strengthen my arguments.

Too little too late as they said!

I now knew that Neha had been more thanjust an assistant—she had been my safety net. She kept me ahead of the game, tracking industry trends and competitor moves before they even hit my radar. She made sure I walked into every meeting armed with sharp, airtight numbers, anticipating potential counterarguments before they even came up. She caught mistakes, smoothed over team conflicts, and ensured that I was never unprepared.

I didn’t have any of that now, and I was feeling the impact intensely. I felt helpless—because I wasn’t used to struggling. For years, I’d thought I was hot shit, never stopping to appreciate just how much she did for me.

And it wasn’t just the work.

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