When Sparks Fly

"Come on, come on," she muttered, grabbing her laptop bag and the slightly charred presentation materials scattered across her granite countertop. As the creative director for Sterling & Associates, Maya had worked three months on this campaign for Blackwood Industries, the tech giant everyone was talking about. Landing this account would secure her promotion to senior partner and finally prove to her traditional parents that her art degree hadn't been a waste of time.

Maya's phone buzzed with a text from her assistant: Mr. Blackwood moved the meeting up 30 minutes. He's already here.

Her heart sank. Ethan Blackwood was notoriously punctual and even more notoriously difficult to impress. The thirty-year-old CEO had built his company from a garage startup to a billion-dollar empire in just eight years, and he expected nothing less than perfection from everyone around him.

Racing through downtown Seattle in her Honda Civic, Maya rehearsed her pitch one more time. She knew the campaign inside and out – a series of advertisements showcasing how Blackwood's new software could bring families together across distances. It was personal for her; her own parents lived three thousand miles away in San Francisco, and she understood the ache of separation.