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“It’s okay,” Violet said. “Hey, when did you graduate high school?”

“Fourteen.”

“What?”

“I skipped third through, well, sixth grade.”

“Damn. You’re smart, huh?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“And college?”

“Undergrad at eighteen and my MBA at twenty-one. I worked for a little and then started working on a Ph.D. in economics. I’mstillworking on it.” She shrugged.

“Economics?”

“I like studying the economy. It’s a lifeform all its own.”

“It is, yeah,” Violet agreed. “So, why did you want my job? It’s operations, not finance, and while there are numbers involved, it’s not all about that.”

“I wanted this company and, preferably, a leadership position in something related to my experience. Your company is sorely lacking in female leadership.”

“Tell me about it. I’m the only female executive here. We have a few female directors and one senior director, but that’s it.”

“And you were interviewing against me to replace a man. I wanted to work here and thought I had the experience and the brains to back up an SVP role at twenty-six, but it went to you, and I made some assumptions. Iamsorry.”

“And you’re okay with a VP role?”

“I’d still be a female executive here, and Idothink finance is more up my alley. At my current company, I found over two million dollars in savings for them this year alone.”

“Damn,” Violet said.

“We had a lot of redundancies we were able to get rid of.”

“I’d love to have another woman in a leadership role here, personally.”

Rachel nodded and asked, “So, you’re not going to hold what I thought about you against me?”

“Oh, I didn’t say that woman wasyou,” she teased.

Rachel looked worried. Then, Violet laughed.

“You’re teasing me?”

“Had to. Call us even now,” she replied.

“No, I think I’d need to buy you lunch for, like, a year or something to be even for what I assumed.”

“Maybe lunch your first week or something?” Violet suggested.

Rachel smiled at her and said, “Even if I don’t get it, I can at least buy you a cup of coffee sometime.”

Violet nodded and wiped the smile off her face because this was a job interview and not a damn meet-cute.

“Sure. Do you want to ask me any questions about the company or the role?”

“I have a few, but you don’t want to ask me anything first?”