Page 19 of Stolen Sun

We walk down the short hallway to my office and step inside.

“Please have a seat,” I gesture to one of the chairs across from my desk.

He sets a packet on my desk and takes his seat. “You will find that Mr. Williams has marked the necessary places for you to sign. I’m able to explain any of the documents to you. Please take your time,” he explains.

I open the folder to find four pages tucked inside. Reading over the first, I find I’m to vote against a merger with a smaller finance company whose name I recognize from pieces of conversations with Nate. Based on those past conversations, I have no doubt he would have voted against this merger, so I sign it.

The next is in favor of staff salary increases, and the third is mostly gibberish to me about percentages of earnings.The fourth catches my attention. Grant has it marked that I am voting in favor of an NDA requirement for all staff and clients.

I look up to see the man is typing on his phone. He stops when he feels my gaze on him. “All done?” He asks.

I realize he didn’t give his name. “Almost, Mister?”

“Please, call me James,” he says.

“James,” I say and nod. “I do have a question about what all of these percentages represent, and I’m curious as to why clients would need to sign NDAs to invest their money.”

He smiles as though I’m a child asking an adult question.Asshole. I sit up straighter.

He clears his throat and explains, “The board often re-evaluates the amount to charge clients from their investment earnings. Those are the new percentages that have been proposed to take effect next quarter. As for the NDAs, we represent high-profile clients who prefer discretion. Some of them can be well-known to the public. All of the employees at Grant Holdings sign NDAs to keep our clients’ personal information confidential; this is very common with all financial institutions. However, we have recently experienced some of our clients leaking information about who they’ve seen in our offices and when, which has not been received well. In essence, NDAs will keep our clients from using our offices as a place to pick up gossip.”

Well, that makes sense.Satisfied, I sign the last two papers. After placing the documents back in the folder, I hand it over to James.

“Have a good day, Mrs. Williams,” he says andleaves my office.

I power up my laptop and open my emails to find a few that need answers. Then I focus on preparing for the meetings I have scheduled later this week.

My phone beeps. I expect to see Kate’s name on the screen since I haven’t heard back from her since last night. She exchanged numbers with someone at the event on Saturday night, and I thought for sure she’d be full of juicy details about a new fling by now.

However, I’m surprised to see it’s a text from Declan.

Good morning. Do you prefer pink or purple?

Pink or purple what?

The colors…

He avoids the question. I doubt this man is sitting in his office curious about my favorite color.

Purple

I’m almost finished with Velocity’s new logo and will need his approval to move forward, so I pull up the file and add the final touches that I thought about over the weekend. Then I type out an email to send him the logo, letterhead, and slogan idea.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Logo First Draft

DATE: July 21, 2024

Good morning Mr. Adams,

Please review the files attached. If you are satisfied with the design, I will order business cards and begin working on your website. Please let me know if you’d like any changes made.

Noel Williams

I press send on the email and check my phone. He never responded to my text, so I’m in the dark as to why he asked about the colors.

---