I’m sitting in the conference room, chugging coffee as I chew on my fingernails, when Jed Cofield and his minions arrive. I’m worried Cofield is going to be cool to me after I missed answering several of his emails, but he comes right over to me and shakes my hand. Although I notice he doesn’t hang onto my hand any longer than necessary.

“Good to see you again, Abby,” he says. He flashes his teeth at me. “I expect you’re going to dazzle me yet again today.”

I do my best to return his smile. “Naturally.”

Confident. Act confident.

I usually don’t even have to tell myself that. It’s become automatic to follow Denise’s lessons to project an image of complete confidence. Even when I start to suspect I’m wrong about something, I’ll plow forward with my shoulders squared, and you would be amazed how often that’s effective. But today I’m not sure I have it in me.

“I always tell everyone,” Cofield says, “that Abby Adler—she’s the best. You want to sell your product, she’s the one.”

“I appreciate that, Jed,” I say.

And I smile confidently. I should be confident—I have an excellent track record. There’s no reason to doubt myself.

My confidence doesn’t waver again until Denise enters the room. She strides right up to me, her ice-blue eyes regarding me with barely repressed disdain. She’s been witness to every single one of my screw-ups lately, and she’s not impressed.

“Abigail,” she says. “I’ll be in the back to lend my expertise if needed.”

The subtext is painfully obvious: I’m going to stay in the room in case you mess up.

The last person to enter the room is Monica, carrying a plate of gourmet sandwiches. She’s wearing a vivid red blouse paired with a black skirt that shows off what are some really very nice legs. Between her boobs and her legs, every red-blooded male in the room swivels around to stare at her. Cofield’s mouth is hanging open. I wonder if Sam were here, he’d be staring too.

Monica is now close to six months pregnant, but she’s still able to hide it with creative clothes pairings. For example, her red blouse hugs her breasts, but is loose around her midsection. I expect in another couple of weeks, she won’t be able to hide it anymore at all. Which means that as painful as it will be, I’m going to have to give up Monica. Nobody at work can know about our arrangement.