Arianne's desk had disappeared under the reports.
The year-end summaries had multiplied over the past week, breeding in the quiet hours when she wasn't looking. Quarterly assessments. Investor updates. Board meeting minutes. Her laptop was open to a spreadsheet she'd been staring at for twenty minutes, and her coffee had gone cold an hour ago.
Outside her office, Rochefort Group hummed with the particular energy of December. The year-end party was scheduled for the following week. Bonuses had been released that morning—substantial ones, the kind that made people check their accounts twice. Employee morale was high. Arianne had overheard someone in the hallway earlier that day refer to her as "the boss" instead of "the interim CEO," and she'd filed that away without comment.
