Kiara and Rafe's Guide to Dating

iii. Kiara

There's a special place in hell for whatever corporate man who pioneered that the acceptable temperature for offices should be nothing less than the middle of Antarctica. It would serve them right to end up in the fiery depth of hell and finally feel discomfort at the climate and reflect upon how they made countless people suffer at the hands of their own incompetence.

She's just about done her presentation, answering the questions her colleagues and the business partners (that she's meant to woo right now) have for her but thanks to the freezing temperature of the conference room, her hands are shaking, and her teeth are clattering.

Kiara looks absolutely nervous. Underprepared even.

The kind of nervousness that makes other people nervous because they can smell it on you and empathize. But she isn't nervous, she knows her shit and she's mad that this stupid air conditioning system is getting in the way of her credibility.

The vibrant canary yellow two-piece blazer and open-leg pants looks amazing on her, Kiara's hair is pin straight and pushed back behind her ears and her make-up is fresh and no-nonsense. She looks good, she feels good, but the gentle whirr of the AC is making her lose her mind.

She's been preparing for this presentation for the last four months and having such a stupid thing like climate control get in the way of nailing it really is a hate crime. So yeah, fuck whatever white man decided this should be the regulated temperature.

Not that she ever doubted herself but at the end of her presentation the guests applaud, and she closes the deal.

"You sounded like a woodpecker up there," Rhea slides beside her and hands her a new bottle of water which Kiara accepts gratefully gulping it down.

"Still closed though," She says with a triumphant smile.

Rhea snorts, "No one ever doubted you, babe." She leans in and beckons for Kiara to do the same, "They liked what you had to say about the annual report and on top of that, I heard them talking just now about your Amazon case; they want to financially support your project too."

Kiara is surprised. It's one thing for an oil conglomerate to make time out of the day to entertain the ramblings of an environmental preservation NGO and get on board with being a sponsor as a whole, but it was an entirely separate thing for them to want to support a specific project that works against them.

"What?" Kiara frowns, "Why would they do that?"

Rhea laughs and pulls out her compact to adjust her lipstick, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Carrera."

With that, Rhea brushes her raven locks off her shoulders and heads towards the group of people discussing the ventures for Kiara's project.

Kiara moves to join them when a voice calls out, "Miss Carrera."

The director of Winston Inc. stands outside the glass doors with a cup of coffee in his hand, he waves her over.

"You gave a good presentation," he says. She grabs a cup of coffee too just so she has something to do with her hands.

"Thank you, sir." While she's giving presentations, it's easy for her to disconnect from the audience in a sense and not panic over who she's talking in front of but right now she's acutely aware that she's standing in front of the head of a billion-dollar oil enterprise that makes her annual salary in the span of their two-minute conversation.

She's aware of all this but still can't help her curiosity.

"I know you have an obligation to go to these NGO meetings to keep up appearances," Kiara starts, and she can already hear Rhea's shrill voice at the back of her head to stop, "but funding my project is very..."