The weekend was over, and I was back behind my desk, half-buried in a mountain of spreadsheets and financial briefs for the Meridian Development Initiative. The transition from Naomi's cheerful home to the quiet, faintly humming air-conditioning of Gray & Milton's Finance Division felt… abrupt, to say the least.
I leaned back in my chair, eyes narrowing at the screen. It had been a month since we kicked off Phase II, though if I was being precise, three weeks would be more accurate— one week had gone down the drain thanks to those misplaced Phase I performance files. Even now, the memory of everyone frantically searching through the server archives made my temples throb.
At least we'd found them eventually, thanks to Val.
