Connor’s eyes flicked toward Victor as if checking where permission lived, and Victor leaned into his mic with a public smile that never reached his eyes and said loudly, “I do not shake hands with low level employees,” which landed across the room like a crack that nobody wanted to acknowledge out loud.
Nobody corrected him, nobody moved, and Connor lowered his gaze to the agenda as if silence could erase responsibility, while I held my hand there one second longer because I needed to know exactly who I was dealing with before anything else mattered.
“I am here as instructed,” I said calmly, lowering my hand on my own terms and placing the flowers where the cameras would capture them clearly if anyone tried to move them away.
Victor dismissed me with a tone that assumed control and said, “Then stand where you are told, this meeting is for executives,” and I simply walked to the far seat and sat down without asking for permission because permission was already the point of the test.