She always loved that moment. “Hi, I’m Anna Gardiner,” she said. “Are you the rest of Ben’s team?” The guy in charge obviously did not enjoy being characterized as on Ben’s team. She wondered if Ben would have done the presentation if they hadn’t been delayed. If this was his understudy in the spotlight moment, he was taking full advantage of it. “We’re the rest of the team from Legendary. Wonderful to meet you, Ms. Gardiner. I didn’t . . . We didn’t . . .” “I decided to come along today at the last minute. Nice to meet you, too.” There was a flurry of introductions, and then the rest of the Legendary team sat down on the other side of the table. The guy in charge started to stand up, but the woman whispered to him, then nodded at Ben. Ben smiled at everyone in the room again and kept going. “One thing we really noticed as we watched the ads of your competitors was how often women are an afterthought—they’re around in the ads, but so many of their concerns aren’t.” Mr. Guy in Charge couldn’t keep quiet for even a full minute. “What Ben means to say is that we’ve seen a real gap that we can fill here, and we think Ms. Gardiner—as relatable and . . . confident as she is—is the person to fill it.” That long pause, that look he’d given the tech dudes—by “confident” he’d clearly meant “fat.” Did he realize she was still in the room? “Ben, what do you mean by ‘so many of their concerns aren’t’ around in the ads?” she asked. She preferred to just pretend she hadn’t heard that dude talk. Ben looked right at her. “I’m so glad you asked that, Anna.” He smiled at her, a little crinkle in his eyes. She could tell he knew she’d cut his boss off on purpose. “I did a lot of research about how and why women feel like they’re being ignored by phone companies, and there was a lot they had to say.” He’d been so careful to say “we” the whole time, but she noticed that “I” slip out just then. It made her like him even more. She smiled back at him. She had to flirt with this guy a little. She needed to have some fun with this, after all. “Thanks so much, Ben,” she said when he’d finished answering her question. “That was very thorough. I can tell you’ve done your research on the concerns of women.” He shot her a grin before he turned back to his PowerPoint. For the rest of the time they had, the company people peppered Ben with questions, and he answered them all well, though his annoying boss felt the need to jump in repeatedly, too. When they were done, they all passed around their business cards. “Thank you all,” Chad—or whatever his name was—from the tech company, said. “We’ll be in touch.” “Thank you, it was great to meet all of you,” Anna said. Ben and Vanessa both smiled at her—the one friendly, the other shy—on their way out the door. She didn’t pay attention to what anyone else on Ben’s team did. She sat through the rest of the presentations, and they were all fine, but none impressed her as much as the first one. However. She looked around at the group from the tech company. “I liked the plan from Legendary the best. But if they get it, I want that first guy . . .” She flipped through the stack of business cards in front of her. “Ben Stephens, I want him to take the lead.” They all nodded at her, but she couldn’t tell if they were nods just to pacify her or if they actually agreed with her. “I liked him the best, too,” the guy who hadn’t said a word so far piped up. “We have to take this upstairs for them to make the call,” Chad said, “but we want to make this decision quickly, because we know you have a relatively short window for filming.” She nodded and stood up. “Excellent. Please let my reps know as soon as possible. It was lovely to meet you all today.” She stood up to go, leaving the stack of business cards on the table. On second thought . . . She slipped the top card into her purse.
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