The call came at 11:47 PM on a Thursday.
I was already in bed, reading through the latest projections for the Castellano bid, when my phone lit up with David Chen's name. David was the CFO at Meridian Technologies—my first major client, the company that had helped put Chen Consulting on the map.
He never called this late.
"David?" I answered, already sitting up. "What's wrong?"
"Sophia." His voice was tight, controlled in the way people get when they're trying not to panic. "We have a problem. A big one."
My heart kicked against my ribs. "Tell me."
"Our audit team found discrepancies in the Q3 financials. Significant discrepancies. The restructuring we implemented based on your recommendations—someone on our team misapplied the framework. They consolidated the wrong divisions, and now the numbers we reported to our board and our investors are off by almost twelve million dollars."
I was already out of bed, pulling on jeans. "How off? Overstated or understated?"
"Overstated. We reported twelve million more in revenue than we actually generated. The board is meeting tomorrow at nine AM. If we can't explain this and present a correction plan, they're talking about reversing the entire restructuring. And Sophia—" He paused. "They're questioning whether your firm's recommendations were sound."
My blood went cold. "The recommendations were sound. If someone misapplied them—"
"I know. I know they were. But the board doesn't care about intent right now. They care about results, and the results are that we're facing a potential SEC inquiry and our stock is going to tank when this goes public." His voice cracked slightly. "I need you here. Tonight. We have to fix this before that meeting."
I was already grabbing my laptop bag, shoving my feet into shoes. "I'm on my way. Send me everything—the original implementation plan, what they actually did, all the financial data. I need to see where the deviation happened."
"Sending it now. Sophia—thank you. I know it's late—"
"Don't thank me yet. We have work to do."
The Meridian Technologies headquarters were in Midtown, a sleek glass tower that looked almost sinister at midnight, most of its windows dark. David met me in the lobby, looking like he'd aged five years since our last meeting. His tie was loosened, his shirt wrinkled, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
"The team is upstairs," he said as we rode the elevator to the fourteenth floor. "I pulled in everyone who worked on the implementation. We've been trying to trace where it went wrong, but—"
"But you're too close to it," I finished. "You need fresh eyes. That's why I'm here."
The conference room was chaos. Six people sat around the table, surrounded by laptops, printouts, empty coffee cups, and the particular kind of tension that comes from knowing your jobs might be on the line. They all looked up when I walked in, and I saw the mixture of hope and fear in their faces.
"Okay," I said, setting down my bag and pulling out my laptop. "Everyone take a breath. We're going to fix this, but I need you all thinking clearly. David, walk me through the original plan versus what was actually implemented."
For the next two hours, we dissected every decision, every number, every assumption. The problem became clear around 2 AM: when they'd consolidated the divisions, someone had double-counted revenue from shared contracts. It was a technical error, the kind that could happen when you're moving fast, but it had cascading effects throughout the entire financial structure.
"We need to restate the earnings," I said, pulling up a new spreadsheet. "But more than that, we need to show the board exactly how this happened, why the underlying strategy is still sound, and what controls we're putting in place to prevent it from happening again."
"Can we do all that by nine AM?" David asked.
I looked at the clock. Seven hours. "We're going to try."
By 4 AM, my eyes were burning and I'd consumed enough coffee to fuel a small army. We'd rebuilt the financial model, identified every point where the error had propagated, and started drafting the correction plan. But we were still missing something—a way to present this to the board that didn't make everyone in the room look incompetent.
I was staring at the spreadsheet, trying to see the pattern I knew was there, when there was a knock on the conference room door.
Everyone looked up. Through the glass, I could see Marcus Webb standing in the hallway, holding a large paper bag and a carrier with multiple coffee cups.
My heart did something complicated as it now tended to do in his presence.
David stood up. "Is that—"
"Marcus Webb," I said, already moving toward the door. I stepped into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind me. "What are you doing here?"
"I heard." He held up the bag. "Brought reinforcements. Real food, not vending machine garbage. And coffee from that place in Brooklyn you said you liked."
"How did you hear?"
"I have a friend on Meridian's board. He called me around midnight, asking if I knew anything about the situation. Said they were questioning Chen Consulting's work." His eyes were serious. "I know we're competing on Castellano, but Sophia—your reputation doesn't deserve to take a hit because someone misapplied your framework."
I wanted to be annoyed that he'd shown up. Wanted to tell him I didn't need his help, that I could handle this myself. But I was exhausted, and scared, and the smell of real food was making my stomach growl.
"We're trying to fix it before the board meeting at nine," I said. "It's a mess."
"Can I help?"
"Marcus—"
"I know supply chain and operational restructuring. If this is about division consolidation, I might be able to see something you're missing. Not because you're not brilliant," he added quickly, "but because you've been staring at it for hours and sometimes you just need fresh eyes."
He was right. I hated that he was right, but he was.
"Okay," I said. "But this is my client, my project. You're consulting, not taking over."
"Wouldn't dream of it." He handed me the coffee carrier. "I'm just here to help."
The team's reaction when I walked back in with Marcus Webb was almost comical. David's eyebrows shot up. Jennifer, one of the analysts, actually gasped.
"Everyone, this is Marcus Webb. He's offered to take a look at our consolidation structure with fresh eyes. Marcus, this is the team." I set down the coffee and opened the bag of food—bagels, fruit, real sandwiches. "Eat something. All of you. We're going to need energy for the next few hours."
Marcus pulled up a chair next to me and I walked him through what we'd found. He listened intently, occasionally asking questions, his eyes moving across the spreadsheet with the kind of focus I recognized in myself.
"Here," he said after about twenty minutes, pointing to a cell in the middle of the model. "This allocation formula—it's treating the shared services as a separate revenue stream instead of a cost center. That's why the double-counting is happening. If you restructure it like this—" He pulled up a blank sheet and started building a new formula. "You isolate the shared costs, allocate them proportionally, and the revenue recognition becomes clean."
I stared at what he'd built. It was elegant. Simple. Exactly what we needed.
"That's—" I looked at him. "That's perfect."
"Your framework was sound," he said. "This was just an implementation error. If you present it this way to the board, they'll see that."
For the next three hours, we worked side by side. Marcus rebuilt the allocation model while I drafted the presentation for the board. David and his team verified every number, double and triple-checking our work. Slowly, the chaos resolved into clarity.
By 7:30 AM, we had it. A complete restatement of the earnings, a clear explanation of what had gone wrong, and a revised implementation plan that included the controls needed to prevent it from happening again. More than that, we had a presentation that showed the board exactly why the underlying strategy was still sound—and why Meridian would be making a mistake to reverse course.
"This is good," David said, reading through the final deck. "This is really good. Sophia, I don't know how to thank you."
"Thank me after the board approves it," I said, but I was smiling. We'd done it. We'd actually done it.
The team started packing up, heading home to shower and change before the nine AM meeting. David shook Marcus's hand, thanking him profusely, and then it was just the two of us in the conference room, surrounded by empty coffee cups and the particular kind of exhaustion that comes after an all-nighter.
"You didn't have to do this," I said.
Marcus was leaning against the table, his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled up. He looked as tired as I felt. "Yes, I did."
"We're competing—"
"I don't care." He straightened, taking a step closer. "Sophia, I don't care about Castellano right now. I care that someone was trying to damage your reputation over an implementation error that wasn't your fault. I care that you've been up all night fixing someone else's mistake. I care about you."
The words hung in the air between us. The conference room suddenly felt very small, very quiet. The sun was starting to rise outside the windows, painting the city in shades of gold and pink.
"Marcus—"
"I know. I know we said we'd pause. I know you're not ready. But Sophia, working with you tonight—" He shook his head. "You're extraordinary. The way you think, the way you lead, the way you don't give up even when everything's falling apart. I've never met anyone like you."
He was close enough now that I could see the flecks of gold in his eyes, could smell his cologne mixed with coffee and exhaustion. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it.
"I'm scared," I heard myself say. "I'm scared of wanting this. Of wanting you. Because the last time I let myself want someone, the last time I made someone the center of my world—"
"I'm not asking to be the center of your world." His voice was soft. "Your work is the center of your world. Your ambition, your company, everything you're building—that's the center. I'm just asking to be part of it. To stand beside you, not in front of you. To build something together that makes us both better."
He reached up, slowly, giving me time to pull away. When I didn't, his hand cupped my cheek, his thumb brushing across my cheekbone. The touch was gentle, reverent, and it made something in my chest crack open.
"I want to kiss you," he said. "I've wanted to kiss you since that first conversation at the summit. But I'm not going to. Not until you're ready. Not until you're sure."
I was leaning into his touch without meaning to, my eyes starting to close. It would be so easy. So easy to close the distance between us, to let myself have this, to stop being so careful and controlled and just feel something good.
But I'd spent two years building myself back up. Two years learning to stand on my own, to trust my own judgment, to not need anyone else to feel complete. And I wasn't ready to risk that. Not yet. Not when we were still competing for Castellano, not when everything was still so complicated.
I stepped back. His hand fell away.
"I can't," I said, and my voice was rough. "Marcus, I want to. But we agreed to pause, and I need—I need to honor that. I need to know I can do this without losing myself again."
Something flickered across his face—disappointment, maybe, or understanding. But he nodded. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay." He stepped back, giving me space. "You're right. We agreed to pause, and I'm not going to push you. When you're ready—if you're ready—you'll let me know."
The sun was fully up now, flooding the conference room with light. In a few hours, David would present our work to the board. Meridian would be saved. My reputation would be intact. And Marcus and I would go back to competing for Castellano, to the professional distance we'd agreed to maintain.
But something had shifted. Something had changed in the hours we'd spent working side by side, in the way he'd shown up when I needed help, in the moment when he'd almost kissed me and then respected my boundary without question.
"Thank you," I said. "For coming. For helping. For—" I gestured vaguely at the space between us. "For understanding."
"Always." He picked up his jacket, shrugged it on. At the door, he paused and looked back. "For what it's worth? I think you're worth waiting for."
Then he was gone, and I was alone in the conference room with the sunrise and the ghost of his touch on my cheek and the knowledge that I'd just made the right choice for all the wrong reasons.
Or maybe the wrong choice for all the right reasons.
I wasn't sure anymore.
What I was sure of was that Marcus Webb was dangerous. Not because he wanted to control me or diminish me or make me smaller. But because he made me want to risk everything I'd built. Made me want to believe that maybe, just maybe, I could have both—the empire and the partnership, the independence and the connection, the life I'd built and someone to share it with.
And that was the most terrifying thing of all.
I gathered my things and headed for the elevator. I had two hours to go home, shower, change, and get back here for the board meeting. Two hours to pull myself together and remember who I was.
Sophia Chen. Founder and CEO of Chen Consulting. The woman who'd built an empire from nothing. The woman who didn't need anyone to complete her.
But maybe—just maybe—the woman who was learning that not needing someone and not wanting someone were two very different things.
And that wanting someone who saw you, really saw you, and still gave you space to be everything you were?
That might be worth the risk after all.