His Naughty Lessons

** Eli **

As far as unannounced and likely unwanted surprises go, Harper seemed to have handled it pretty well. At least, much better than the three dozen different ways Eli had imagined she might. The uncertainty gnawing at him all morning eased a little, and he finally managed to smile somewhat sincerely as the tour of the company continued.

"So the one back there is your friend?" Someone sidled up to him as the group filed through a conference room door, leaving space for private whispers. "Local connections are handy indeed, must be nice to run into college friends everywhere you go in town."

Eli paused, glaring back at the source of those words and finding his bettering mood immediately spoiled. Sterling Trust's co-founder and CFO, Stephen Hob, smiled back at him. The two of them had never got along — mostly due to the different sides they took when it came to Eli's father — and no doubt the annoying old grump was already thinking up a thousand possibilities of what could be hidden behind the earlier run-in.

Eli snorted under his breath. Stephen was not the one he felt most concerned about today though, and definitely not the reason why he played this charade with Harper, so he didn't bother explaining. "Not a college friend," he said curtly, "but do remember to at least get her name right when you brandish the news to my father."

He turned his attention back to the group, ignoring Stephen's skeptical look.

~ ~

The day was a long bombard of meetings. State of the Company, sales and business development, financial projections … The same things that Eli had been hearing for two weeks in a row. But somehow, maybe because this was Harper's company, he didn't find it nearly as boring. The marketing strategies presentation was even engaging in places, and for the first time on this partner hunt, he blessed the presenting manager with a few questions out of genuine interest.

At the end of the afternoon, however, when the final meeting for portfolio demonstration rolled around, he started feeling a little nervous. The moment he walked into the crowded conference room, he immediately spotted Harper sitting in the far front corner, her eyes somewhat suspicious when they met his, clearly still confused about the whole encounter.

He fought back a wince and took his seat. Just a little longer — and hopefully he'd be able to play this game right.

"… we are excited to share that we'll be anticipating a major expansion to our portfolio in the next fiscal year." The blonde at the podium had already started the presentation as Eli's thoughts wandered. Smiling brightly, she clicked past the cover slide filled with a mosaic of product pictures. "The first proposal of note is the Deep Space tactical RPG currently under review …"

Oh, that just made everything so much easier than he expected.

The slides omitted names of the specific employees behind the designs, but it took Eli only one glance to know that this very first proposal must be Harper's. Space exploration, alien wars, interstellar diplomatic missions … Basically an ensemble of everything the two of them loved as kids. He almost couldn't help grinning right in front of all the people packed inside the conference room — this girl really hadn't changed at all over all these years, had she? Did she even realize that the anti-colonial battle quest she included as an example was the same one she had blurted out years ago, when she heatedly disapproved of a campaign they were playing at the time?

She must've taken his "pretend the presentation is for me" advice to heart. Every slide had an iron grip of his attention, intriguing him with the vast variety of adventures. But at the same time, the more he paid attention, the more he was truly impressed by how brilliant she was. The sheer scale of this proposal was breathtaking, yet the details were so fleshed out that it gave not the slightest impression of a big empty talk. How did she manage to pull all that off within a week?

This was far more than he needed to run his show.

Eli waited patiently until the presenter was done going through all the selected examples. Then he signaled for a question. "When are your estimates for putting these projects out on the market?"

From within the audience, Harper's head whipped in his direction. He pretended not to notice.

"It will be a gradual process done in multiple phases." The woman at the podium clicked back a few slides. "Nothing is set in stone yet, but since our current products are heavily focused on kingdom-building and FPS, we'll likely start by tapping into our existing market and expanding from there, which means this lost civilization game might go first. Then" — she flipped through a few more slides — "this strategy platformer, then …"

"Have you considered a more transformative approach?" Eli took the opportunity to speak as she navigated the powerpoint. "A new market means risk, yes, but I do see some highly revolutionary proposals here that could open up a lot of possibilities for your company, if you choose to focus on them instead."

"I agree." The technical advisor on his team, Malcolm, chimed in. "The proposal on the first slide, for example, is a good one. Why start with the smaller, more generic games when you have something with this much potential on the table?"

Ah. Eli couldn't have asked for things to turn out any better. He needed to draw attention to Harper's project, to make her boss realize how stupid an idea it was to kill her brilliant work just because they were afraid of the risk. Who better to voice the same thoughts than Malcolm, Sterling Trust's chief technical advisor? He was famous for a pair of sharp eyes on spotting the most promising project ideas, and all their potential partners knew that.

"You're referring to … This proposal?" The blonde clicked the presentation back to the beginning, landing on Harper's project. "Of course … We do have plans for implementing it soon. It's a high priority item as well."

… Marketing was really good at lies.

"That's good, because I also have some followup questions about it." The advisor straightened in his chair. "Will you be able to discuss in-depth designs, or is that out of the scope of this meeting?"

"Oh, we certainly can." The blonde put on another bright smile and gestured to a section within the audience. "Our product designers are right here to answer any questions you might have."

With that, every pair of eyes in the room turned toward Harper.