“What?” I asked.
She peered at me over the book.
“What?” I repeated.
“I heard Sam’s your co-host for the literacy campaign fundraiser.”
“Yeah,” I said, scowling. I tugged at the book again. “Listen, Flora, do you want me to give this to Edie or not?”
“And how do you feel about that?” she asked, ignoring my question.
My heart rate increased.
“What?”
Flora rolled her eyes. “What?” she mimicked. “Everyone knows you two don’t get along. So: how is it working with her?”
“It’s fine,” I said, and snatched the book out of her grasp at last. She crossed her arms.
“Fine,” she said. “You don’t want to talk about whatever it is between you, then don’t.”
“What–”Silky blonde hair spread out on a hotel pillow. Brown eyes that gazed back at me in challenge, even naked and vulnerable as she was. Slim fingers that clutched my shoulders so hard I could feel her perfect pink nails digging into my skin.“There’s nothing going on between us, Flora,” I said, as calmly as I could manage.
Her eyebrows rose. “I only meant whatever problem you have with her.”
Shit. “Right. It’s, uh, I meant that it’s not a big deal. It won’t get in the way of the literacy campaign.”
“It better not,” Flora warned, her expression dark. I almost laughed: I’d never seen her so serious. She really cared about her kids–all her students as well as her new step-daughter Maddie, who went to school here.
“Hey, Flora?” I said, tucking her book under my arm as I flicked off the lights and ushered her out of the computer lab. “You’re a good person.” We walked along the empty school corridor together, our footsteps sounding loud without the happy noise of a hundred elementary schoolers to muffle them.
She rolled her eyes at me again. “I’m just doing my job.”
“Don’t be modest,” I said as I opened the front door for her. Ryan’s car was waiting there for her, although his house was walking distance, and I felt a pang of loneliness–maybe they had a post-honeymoon date tonight. I covered it with a grin, and when she caught my eye, I winked at her. “Inever am.”
“Bye, Charlie,” she said, smiling. I watched as she slipped into the backseat of Ryan’s car, then as the driver pulled smoothly away from the curb, whisking her away to her new husband, before I set off down the street. It was still early; I’d walk to the Bancroft.
The Bancroft Club was aNew York institution, which meant that it was a stuffy old place filled with the type of old-money assholes I’d grown up with. James hadinheritedour membership from our late father, who’d inherited it from our grandfather, but I’d suffered the indignity of having to purchase mine–and all for the privilege of mingling with a bunch of investment bankers and venture capitalists, the same men I spent most of my working hours attempting to avoid and the same men that had given it its cringe-inducing nickname: the Bankworth Club.
Unfortunately, everyone who was anyone had a membership, including my brother and our friends–who were, I was sorry to say, a banker–Ryan–and a venture capitalist–Barrett–so I had no choice but to start every Friday night here. Well, Ryan wasn’t strictly a banker anymore. I’d hired him away from his role as CFO of a bank to be the CFO of my tech company.It’s sweet,I thought,that he spent so few days in Tahiti with Flora for their honeymoon. I’d told him to take as much time as he needed, so it must have been her who’d wanted to return to work so soon after their wedding–that and he probably missed his eleven-year-old daughter. I wondered vaguely as I walked the familiar path from the school to the Bancroft if I could convince him to take a month off in the summer. Maybe for a family vacation. Ryan always had been an incorrigible family man, even after he and Tally had divorced. And after the IPO, he’d have time… I grimaced.
After the IPOhad become my motto–everything would be better after we took Veritech public. Everything would be rosier on the other side, just as long as we could get there in one piece. Or rather, a hundred thousand tiny pieces: the shares the company would become, each one a fraction of my life’s work, scattered on the winds of the open market.
But I’d retain the largest share, and thus, the majority stake, as well as the titles of CEO and founder.
Yeah. I was looking forward to that feeling.
It still wouldn’t get me into the Bankworth without a sport coat, however. I straightened the cuffs of my dress shirt and braced myself before pulling open the non-descript door tucked into a shallow alcove of a brick building.
“Good evening, Mr. Martin,” the host said. He peered distastefully at me. “You are aware of our dress code,” he said. “Which applies to all our members.”
“So sorry, I forgot.”
“Again,” he said. His voice was perfectly polite but his expression was one of having swallowed something sour.
“Again,” I agreed. “Luckily,” I said, and craned my neck to peer around him, “I think I happen to also have forgotten my jacket here last week.”
“Again,” he repeated.
