Once they were gone, I turned back to the Bradfords. “Sit down.”
They sat.
“I’m not angry,” I said, settling back into my own chair. “I expected exactly this. That’s precisely why I dressed the way I did today. I wanted to see who you really were, underneath all the manners, when you believed I had nothing to offer you.”
“We failed that test spectacularly,” Patricia said quietly, staring down at her folded hands.
“You did. But here’s the thing you should know.” I paused, letting myself go back, just for a moment, to a version of my own life I hadn’t thought about in years. “I’ve been exactly where you are, looking down at someone I assumed had nothing worth my attention. When I started Warren Capital, I was thirty years old, with fifty thousand dollars I’d scraped together from an accounting job, and a business plan half the room laughed at outright. I wore cheap suits I’d bought two sizes too big so they’d last me longer. I drove a used car with a hundred and forty thousand miles on it. I ate ramen most nights of the week, standing over my own kitchen sink because I didn’t own a table yet.”
