Following the meeting with Arvind, she felt better about recommending obtaining a stake in the firm to George.  Mark’s team had done a good job with the background analysis, and she found Arvind had been well prepped for the meeting also.  He was honest about possible issues that could arise, but said the firm was ready to ride things out.  Bette thought they had a goldmine in the quality of contracts and prospective customers who were waiting to do business with Arvind’s company, all of which were stable customers, also.  So all in all, the investment promised to be a potentially good one. Bette was grateful that George had offered to raise the percentage she would get out of gains from this deal.

It was with good spirits that she decided to hit local stores the next day, before she and Arvind continued with their discussions later in the day.  She just wanted to go over some financials with him, before she returned to the US.

She was tabbing through her tablet, scheduling a call with Tina, when she saw something glinting in the escalator step in front of her.  She realized that the woman in front of her had probably dropped it, or it had fallen off of her ear, somehow. She bent to pick it up.

Seconds later, as the woman alighted onto the next floor, Bette reached to tap her shoulder.  “Excuse me, I think you dropped this,” she opened her hand and extended it to the woman.

The woman turned and gasped, “Oh my goodness, thank you! Thank you so much!,” as she picked it up from Bette’s hand.

The woman eyed Bette.  “This woman is a goddess,” she thought, as she looked at the brunette.

“Thanks, again…my name is Sarah, Sarah Perkins,” she said as she stepped aside to let Bette alight on the same floor, while offering her hand.

Bette smiled, “Bette, Bette Porter,” and shook her hand.  The woman seemed pretty enough, blonde, like Tina, nice shape, and her eyes were roaming all over Bette.  Bette sighed, telling herself, wow, it’s been a while since someone’s sized me up so brazenly.

“You don’t know how you’ve saved me from certain disaster,”  Sarah was saying.

“Disaster, really?” Bette laughed.

“Yeah… this belonged to my grandmother, and it was passed on to her by her mother, so my mom would kill me if I lost it!”