Conference room A was large and corporate looking, like any conference room in any big hotel in any city anywhere in the world. The windows were hung with garish gold drapes, and fake potted plants decorated the room’s corners. A projector screen hung on one end of the room, next to a wooden podium. The panel of angel investors, seated behind a large burgundy-tablecloth-covered table on the opposite side, was all male—three of whom were white and one Latino. Lionel Wakefield sat in the center. He was a sixty-something-year-old white man, with a head full of woolly hair the color of snow, a mustache that was still mostly salt-and-pepper, and a known propensity for brightly colored ascots. Today, he was wearing a canary-colored striped number, at which Annika had a hard time not staring.

“Thank you, gentlemen, for taking the time to let me pitch you today. Mr. Wakefield, I’ve been a huge fan of your many philanthropic ventures for a long time now.” Annika forced herself to smile brightly and walked to the podium to set up her PowerPoint. It was cold in conference room A, as if to keep the contestants from sweating themselves into messy puddles.

No one said anything, but Lionel Wakefield nodded solemnly from behind the table. She’d been hoping for friendlier, but that was okay. She wasn’t feeling too bubbly herself right now. Maybe they’d be less apt to notice.

Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, Annika pulled up the first slide, which simply stated the name of the business and their slogan. “My name is Annika Dev, and I’m the founder and CEO of Make Up. Our motto is Happily Ever After, Redux because that’s what we believe in—second chances at true love.” She forwarded to the next slide, which was a picture of June and her in the Make Up office, in the middle of a discussion. “We are a woman-owned business that wants to do good in the world. We’re not about short, snappy solutions to problems. We want people to make meaningful, long-term connections. We want them to see that how they’ve been living—pining away for a relationship that doesn’t work anymore, sleeping in separate beds because they’re just so tired of fighting—doesn’t have to be the end of the story. We want them to see that happily ever after is within their reach.