Page 23 of Outlier

Vicky

Lottie squeezed my wrist lightly,which was my signal to stop, take a breath, and give someone else a chance to speak.

When I turned to her, she gave her head a very subtle shake. I tilted mine to the side with a small frown, but did manage to snap my mouth shut, which was annoying because I had way more to say on the economic principle of comparative advantage in trade.

My mind stalled for a moment. What was it Lottie said I should do next in this situation?

Lottie had such a high level of emotional intelligence and was so in tune with others that it was like she could almost read their minds. That’s why she was invaluable to me. My emotional intelligence was in my boots, and I struggled with reading people. Before Lottie came on the scene, I was unwittingly insulting various investors and business associates on a daily basis. Now, if she was with me, she could help direct my aberrant behaviour with the non-verbal signals we’d developed together.

She squeezed my wrist again.

If in doubt, just smile at them, I heard Lottie say in my head, and I turned back to the men in the circle around me to do just that.

A couple of them blinked in shock at the abrupt transition, but most smiled right back.

Lottie’s voice filtered into my thoughts again…

“Use that thing carefully,” she’d warned me.

“What thing?”

“That smile.”

I frowned at her. “What about my smile?”

“Vics, do you have any idea how stunning you are when you smile?”

I shrugged. Of course I was well aware that I was conventionally attractive, but what did that have to do with my smile?

She gave me a patient look. “What happens when you smile at people?”

“I don’t really smile at anyone.”

Lottie sighed. “Okay, then just try it for me. I guarantee that with men, they’ll either smile back or be too stunned to do anything at all.”

Lottie was right. Even in the most difficult negotiation, if I smiled, I could gain a huge advantage.

“I’m sorry, gentleman,” I said in the self-effacing tone I’d practised with Lottie. It annoyed me, really. Why should I say sorry when I wasn’t? Why should I apologise for knowing more about economics than them? I didn’t understand the point. But Lottie explained that if I wanted people on my side, it was what they wanted to hear. “I tend to get carried away with economics.”

“Money is Vicky’s jam,” Lottie said with her own smile.

There was a snort from the side.

My gaze flicked across, and I froze.

Mike was standing there in a dinner jacket perfectly fitted to his huge frame. He was pulling at his collar and shifting in his shiny Italian leather shoes. The contrast between this Mike and the normal Mike was so stark that my brain somewhat short-circuited.

“Well, I can attest to that,” one of the investors said as he smiled at me. “The investments you’ve managed for us have doubled in the last quarter.”

Someone else started speaking, but I lost the thread of the conversation. The importance of making a good impression on the men around us, which was one of the main objectives of this evening, faded.

All I could see was Mike.

“You’re wearing a suit,” I blurted out as I stared at him, ignoring everything else around us.

Once I slipped into hyperfocus mode, there was no stopping me.

Mike’s eyebrows went up. “Er… well, yeah. It’s kind of required,” he said in his gruff voice.