"And I'd like to hear the pitch."
The silence was long enough that she could hear traffic from the street outside. Horns. The particular sound of Bandra at nine AM doing whatever Bandra did.
"No," she said.
"Zara—"
"I'm not going to sit across from you and pitch a company. Not again."
"I understand that. I'm not asking you as an investor. I'm asking as—" he paused, and the pause was genuine, not calculated. "I don't know what the right word is. As someone who owes you. I have contacts in this space — regulatory compliance for fintech, I know that ecosystem extremely well, I could make introductions that would save you six months of relationship-building—"
"Why would you do that?"
"Because I can and I should."
"You don't owe me business development, Aryan. You owe me an explanation, which you gave me. We're even."
"We're not even," he said. The flatness in his voice was different this time. Edged with something. "We are not remotely even. I cost you something significant and I cannot give it back, but I can do something adjacent to giving it back, and I would like to do that if you'll let me."
She looked at her investor list. Forty-two names, most of them cold contacts, most of them requiring three to five touchpoints before they would take a proper meeting. Six months of relationship-building, he had said. He was probably right.
"This is not you investing in my company," she said.
"Correct."
"This is not — whatever it used to be. We are not going back to whatever that was."
"Agreed."
"I don't trust you."
"I know. I'm not asking for trust. I'm asking for a meeting. Coffee. One hour. You tell me about the company, I tell you who I know in the space. No obligation, no follow-up you don't initiate."
She thought about it for exactly the amount of time a sensible person would. Then she thought about it for approximately three minutes longer than a sensible person would.
"Fine," she said. "Coffee. One hour. I choose the place."
"Of course."
"And Aryan — if at any point this starts to feel like something other than what you said it is, I leave. No conversation about it, no explanation needed. I just leave."
"Understood."
"Friday, ten AM. There's a place called Kala Ghoda Café. Be on time."
She hung up and sat very still for a moment. Outside, a cloud passed over the sun and the light in the office changed quality, going from bright to something more considered.
You're making a mistake, she told herself.
She opened a new document and began writing her pitch deck.
