The virtual meetings with the CEOs in Sydney and Tokyo went as well as they could, considering Ryann was nearly stammering with fatigue by the end of the second. She’d always done well in one-on-ones with powerful people. Ted told her she could charm them better in person (by which he meant flirt with them), but she got the job done. By the end of both calls, she’d gotten both companies to confirm a start the last week of February—almost two weeks later than their original agreement. She sent a quick email to her board with the new dates and a longer one to Ted with more details before dropping, deathlike, on her heart-shaped bed, still fully dressed in her work clothes.

She woke the next morning with a stiff neck, the room blazing with sunlight. She’d forgotten to close the blinds. She sat up, a crust of drool at the corner of her mouth, her eyes still sandy. She rotated her neck a couple of times, wincing, and made herself crawl over to the edge of her bed. She got up, staggering slightly before stumbling into the bathroom. It was blessedly dark in here with only one window, and she kept the lights off while she showered with water as hot as she could get it, her skin lobstering in the heat.

She spent the next hour in her bathrobe, checking in with a couple of her board members over the phone before they flew home. Things seemed better on the London end now, too. They had agreed to the first week of March, but her CFO thought they might be able to bump that back to the last week of February with a little more needling.

Nothing more could be done over the weekend, though she wanted to run the numbers one more time and set up a conference call with London. She got Ted and his team on it before wrapping up her morning.

She still had an hour before she was supposed to be at the dress shop, and she had no idea who was taking her there, or if she was supposed to get there herself. No one had texted her all morning, and Stuart didn’t pick up when she called. Still, she needed to be dressed at least, and she started rooting through her only suitcase for something easy to take on and off.

A knock at the door startled her. She walked closer.

“Yes?”

“Hi, honey. It’s Ethel,” she said from the other side of the door. “The hotel manager?”

“Hi, Ethel. What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay. You weren’t down for breakfast again, so I’m checking to see if you’d like another German muffin.”

She closed her eyes. Clearly the woman was trying to be nice, but she also didn’t like people keeping tabs on her, especially strangers.