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Simone pushed back her chair and rose “Then ave Zoe a sunny smile “Thank you for your time”

Zoe plucked her card from her desk and handed it to Simone “I’ll be available to you all week,” she said “This is my direct contact information It’ll help you bypass the various assistants in order to reach me Any questions or concerns that I can help you with, I will Like you, I want Nano to be the best it can be”

West Coast Bar & Grill San

Jose, California

27 February

Tuesday, 7:15 pm local time

June Morris leaned one hip against a barstool, her fingers interlaced on the counter She angled her head long enough to give the roolass of ainst her handbag at the edge of the counter

Polished wooden tables and chairs Comfy leather couches Decent music And a crowd that was definitely comprised of business professionals As a well-dressed, forty-one-year-old “corporate” type, she fit right in

It was a funny thing She’d been to so many different bars that were fifteen or more miles from Nano and that were similar to this one that they’d actually started to look alike Then again, she’d specifically chosen bars that catered to professionals so she would fit in and, at the sauy would try to hit on her—until her date arrived Then they took the hint and their attentions elsewhere She’d never spotted a Nano eoodness Given the gridlocked drive from Santa Clara, the Nano team would naturally choose to stay closer to home for their after-work drinks And “after-work” was still an hour or more away for most of them

She wasn’t the only workaholic Robert eh she was up there with the most intense of them The only days she left this early were the ones on which she visited her elderly mother in a senior facility—a fact that ell-known and understood by the Nano team

What they didn’t knoas that she always made this critical stopover on the way

The infrequent days she left earlier than nine p CFO in a cutting-edge technology company like Nano had taken her down routes she’d never expected to go Holding on to what she’d achieved took every drop of her hts were a continuation of her days, and the coood, and she knew it, but that didn’t er candidates out there who could do her job if she o so far She ell aware that she wasn’t a frontrunner for the future CEO position, and quite frankly, that made her feel relieved rather than resentful She had all she could handle on her plate as it was And the screws only turned tighter as the workload increased

What she needed was a clone

What she was getting was as close as it got

“Here ya go, lass of merlot in front of her