Chương 2
"Oh."
The stranger's smile deepened.
"That was apparently an option."
"I really am sorry about your suit."
I lifted my suitcase handle.
His expression changed before I could leave.
"What happened?"
The question was quiet enough that I could have pretended not to hear it.
"My boyfriend broke up with me in a voice message."
The stranger's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
"Today?"
"About six minutes ago."
"And he knew you were at the airport?"
"Yes."
"That's efficient."
I blinked.
Then I laughed again.
"You're mean."
"To him."
"Good distinction."
A few travelers hurried between us.
The airport announcement repeated my boarding information.
I backed away.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Eve."
He waited.
I realized he expected more.
"Mercer."
"Eve Mercer."
Hearing my full name in his voice felt oddly formal after I had deposited mascara and possibly mucus on his clothing.
"And you are?"
Before he answered, an airport employee approached quickly from behind him.
"Mr. Sterling, your car is ready downstairs."
He glanced toward the employee.
The younger man opened the red notebook as if the interruption had restarted an engine.
Mr. Sterling looked back at me.
"You should catch your flight, Eve."
I should have asked his first name.
Instead, I gave him a mortified little wave and joined the security line.
Ten minutes later, I was barefoot at a checkpoint when my phone vibrated.
For one stupid second, hope flooded me.
It was not Preston.
It was my boss, Mara.
Please tell me you're actually on your way.
I typed back that I was.
Then I added, My relationship just ended at Terminal 4.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Do you need me to call?
No.
Do you need me to kill him?
Maybe after Monday.
Good.
Stay employable until then.
I smiled despite myself.
By the time I reached the gate, the smile was gone.
Preston had finally texted.
I saw you called.
I think space is best right now.
I stared at the message until the words blurred.
He had ended our relationship and then prescribed space as though I were the one behaving irrationally.
I typed six different responses.
I deleted all of them.
Then I wrote, Leave the apartment key on the kitchen counter.
His reply arrived before boarding began.
Of course.
That tiny courtesy hurt almost as much as the voice message.
On the flight to Boston, I sat beside a retired dentist named Barbara who offered me almonds, complained about airline coffee, and politely ignored the fact that I cried twice while looking out the window.
By the time we landed, my face felt swollen and my head hurt.
Mara met me outside baggage claim wearing a green coat and an expression that suggested violence remained available.
She hugged me properly.
"Three years," I said into her scarf.
"I know."
"Forty seconds."
"I know."
"He took the espresso machine."
She pulled back.
"He already took it?"
"He said he would."
"That bastard."
"The breakup bothers you less than the appliance?"
"That machine was Italian."
I laughed, and then I hated myself for laughing.
Mara took my suitcase handle.
"Come on."
We spent the weekend in a rented conference room preparing for Monday's presentation.
Our firm, Mercer & Vale Research, sounded grander than it was.
There were eleven employees, two perpetually malfunctioning printers, and a refrigerator containing salad dressing that had expired during the previous presidential administration.
My surname was on the door because my father had founded the company.
His death eighteen months earlier had left me with his shares, his clients, and absolutely none of his talent for making uncertainty look manageable.
Sterling Capital could change that.
Their proposed contract was large enough to stabilize us for at least a year.
I had spent four months preparing the research we would present.
On Sunday night, Mara caught me staring at Preston's Instagram profile instead of our financial projections.
"Block him."
"That feels childish."
"So is checking whether he's suddenly become happy in the last seventy-two hours."
I locked my phone.
"He hasn't posted anything."
"Wonderful research, Eve."
Monday morning arrived with freezing rain.
I wore my best navy suit, tied my hair back, and covered the remaining shadows beneath my eyes with enough concealer to qualify as structural engineering.
Sterling Capital occupied several floors of a glass tower overlooking Boston Harbor.
Everything inside the lobby was stone, steel, and expensive silence.
At reception, I gave my name.
The receptionist's professional smile flickered.
"Ms. Mercer."
"Yes?"
"Mr. Sterling asked to be notified personally when you arrived."
Mara looked at me.
I looked at her.
"Personally?"
The receptionist touched her headset.
"Ms. Mercer is here."
My stomach tightened for reasons I could not explain.
An assistant escorted us upstairs.
We passed offices where people spoke quietly into headsets and moved with the purposeful speed of people whose mistakes involved more zeros than mine.
Outside the conference room, Mara squeezed my elbow.
"You know this material."
"I know."
"Don't think about Preston."
"I wasn't."
"You just made the Preston face."
"I have a Preston face?"
"Unfortunately."
The assistant opened the doors.
Six people sat around a long walnut table.
At the head of it was the stranger from JFK.
He wore another immaculate dark suit.
No mascara this time.
His gray eyes found mine immediately.
The room seemed to tilt by half an inch.
Mara whispered, "Eve?"
I could not answer.
The stranger leaned back in his chair.
For the first time since I had entered the building, his severe expression softened.
"Hello, Eve."
Nobody else at the table seemed to understand why the billionaire chief executive of Sterling Capital was smiling at the woman who had come to ask his company for twelve million dollars' worth of business.
Unfortunately, neither did I.
May you like
I kept one hand on the back of the nearest chair because it suddenly seemed possible that my knees might fail in front of six people who controlled a contract large enough to keep my company alive.
Mara looked from me to him.
