Then the CEO looked at her.
The anger in his eyes finally escaped its professional disguise.
“You.”
She did not move.
“You had no right to listen to a private negotiation.”
The waitress stared at him.
“I was standing six feet away.”
“You were paid to serve dinner.”
“Yes.”
“Not interfere in business.”
The senior chairman said:
“She answered a question you asked.”
The CEO looked toward him.
“This woman is hotel staff.”
The chairman closed the folder.
“And?”
The single word hit harder than shouting.
The CEO turned back to the waitress.
“You think speaking Arabic makes you a lawyer?”
“No.”
“What are your qualifications?”
The waitress almost answered.
Then stopped.
This was exactly the trap arrogant people set.
They demanded credentials only after facts became inconvenient.
She said:
“My qualifications do not change the words on that page.”
The chairman’s mouth moved slightly.
Not quite a smile.
The CEO laughed bitterly.
“This is absurd.”
He looked toward the other businessmen.
“We are discussing a nine-hundred-million-dollar transaction based on the interpretation of a waitress.”
The senior legal adviser said:
“No.”
He tapped the page.
“We are questioning a transaction based on the contract.”
The CEO’s face flushed.
The adviser continued.
“She only caused us to read it again.”
The senior chairman looked toward the waitress.
“Where did you learn Arabic?”
The CEO interrupted.
“This is not relevant.”
The chairman turned his head.
“Do not interrupt me.”
The CEO stopped.
The waitress answered in Arabic.
“I studied Modern Standard Arabic in university and worked for two years assisting with legal and financial translation before family circumstances required me to leave graduate school.”
The chairman listened carefully.
“You worked with contracts?”
“Translation support. Not as counsel.”
“Why are you working here?”
The question was direct.
Not insulting.
Still personal.
She answered honestly.
“My mother became ill.”
Something softened in the chairman’s expression.
The CEO rolled his eyes.
The waitress saw it.
So did one of the younger businessmen.
The chairman asked:
“And you understood everything we said tonight?”
The waitress chose her answer carefully.
“Most of it.”
The CEO laughed.
“Most.”
She turned toward him.
“Enough to know you told them the share issuance provision had not changed.”
His face hardened.
She continued.
“Enough to know it had.”
The senior legal adviser reopened the folder.
“Which page?”
She gave it.
He found the language.
The chairman leaned closer.
The CEO said:
“You cannot rely on her memory.”
The waitress responded:
“You discussed it while the lamb course was being cleared.”