The expo floor had changed.
Or maybe Adele had.
She wasn’t sure when it happened, but as she walked through the sea of booths, the polished displays and carefully rehearsed pitches felt… thinner, somehow. As if she were seeing past the bright banners and confident smiles, glimpsing something beneath the surface—the patterns, the invisible threads that connected every interaction.
It was like stepping behind the curtain of a stage play and realizing the world she thought was real was just a carefully constructed illusion.
The words Cassian Vale had left her with wouldn’t let go.
“You’re tracking the wrong thing.”
“The lead itself isn’t gold. The interaction is.”
She gripped her tablet, scrolling through the day’s captured leads. 217 names. A long list of people who had stopped by the Nexora booth, scanned a badge, watched a product demo.
But now, the list didn’t feel like proof of success. It felt like a question she didn’t know how to answer.
And Cassian? He had vanished into the crowd like smoke.
Adele exhaled, pushing forward. She still had a job to do.
The numbers and the noise
Sienna met her at the booth, eyes flicking to the tablet in Adele’s hands.
“Please tell me things are turning around,” she murmured.
Adele hesitated. “We’ve captured over two hundred leads.”
Sienna raised a brow. “And?”
Adele hesitated again. “And… I don’t know what any of them actually mean.”
Sienna frowned. “Okay, cryptic. Are you alright?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer that. Because something was shifting.
Before today, Adele would have been satisfied with the numbers. She would have stood in front of Nexora’s executives, pointing to a chart proving they had gathered X% more leads than the last event, arguing that the data showed success.
But now? She couldn’t unsee the cracks in the system.
Sienna nudged her gently. “Earth to Adele?”
Adele shook her head, snapping out of it. “Sorry. It’s just… have you ever wondered how many of these leads actually go anywhere?”
Sienna blinked. “That’s a question for sales, isn’t it?”
Adele wasn’t so sure anymore.
The first experiment
The next lead came in five minutes later.
A man in a gray suit stopped at the booth, his badge identifying him as Nathan Carter, Director of Procurement, Stratacore Systems. A potential client, maybe even a big one.
Adele watched as he moved like clockwork—the same scripted motions she had seen a hundred times before.
Pause at the booth. Look at the product display. Nod at the sales rep’s introduction. Hand over his badge to be scanned.
Transaction complete.
Nathan Carter walked away.
Adele’s fingers hovered over her tablet.
Before, she wouldn’t have thought twice. He would be added to the pipeline, dropped into the system as just another entry in a growing list.
But now… she hesitated.
“You’re tracking what they did. Not why they did it.”
Adele’s pulse quickened.
What if she tried something different?
She pulled up Nathan’s profile on the system—a basic scan, a job title, an email. Not much else.
Her eyes flicked toward the floor, catching sight of him a few booths away, half-listening to another sales rep.
Without giving herself time to overthink it, she strode forward.
Nathan glanced up as she approached, surprised.
“Mr. Carter,” she said, offering a polite smile. “I noticed you stopped by our booth earlier.”
He blinked, then nodded. “Yes, Nexora, right?”
“That’s right,” Adele said. She didn’t pitch. Didn’t sell. Instead, she tilted her head slightly. “I’m curious—what made you stop?”
Nathan hesitated, caught off guard. “Well, your booth was right along the main walkway, and your rep caught my attention…”
A rehearsed answer. A polite response.
Adele held his gaze. “But why us?”
Another hesitation.
Nathan glanced at the floor, then exhaled.
“Alright,” he admitted. “Your product looks like something we might need. But honestly? I wasn’t sure if it’s any different from what we already use.”
A flicker of honesty.
A real answer.
And just like that, Adele saw the real moment of conversion.
It wasn’t at the booth. It was here. In the second conversation. In the space between scripted pitches and genuine engagement.
Her heartbeat picked up.
She didn’t talk about specs or features. Instead, she asked him about his current system, his frustrations, what he wished worked better. And as he answered, something changed in his posture—he leaned in. He stopped looking at the next booth. He was engaged.
And when she finally offered to set up a deeper conversation after the event, he didn’t just nod.
He agreed.
A new way of seeing
Back at the booth, Adele’s mind raced.
One shift. One small adjustment. And suddenly, the entire process felt different.
She looked at the list of leads on her screen. 217 names.
How many of them had been just like Nathan Carter? Half-interested? Distracted? Just going through the motions?
And how many of them would have engaged if someone had just asked them the right question?
A new thought took root in her mind—one that terrified her.
Was their entire event strategy built on an illusion?
The scanners. The automated follow-ups. The polished booth. Had they spent all this time optimizing for the wrong thing?
Her throat felt dry.
She needed answers.
She needed Cassian Vale.
The whisperer returns
She found him at the edge of the expo hall, leaning casually against a marble pillar as if he had been waiting for her to catch up.
Cassian glanced up as she approached, amusement flickering in his storm-gray eyes.
“Well,” he murmured. “That didn’t take long.”
Adele crossed her arms. “I need to understand this.”
Cassian studied her, then nodded slowly.
“You’re beginning to see it now,” he said.
Adele exhaled, pressing a hand to her forehead. “I don’t just see it—I can’t unsee it.”
Cassian’s lips quirked into something almost like approval.
“Good,” he said. “Then you’re ready for the next step.”
Adele’s stomach tightened. “Which is?”
Cassian pushed off the pillar, slipping his hands into his pockets.
“To learn how to turn momentum into gold.”
The words sent a shiver through her.
Because she knew—this was where everything changed.
