Today is the best day of my life.
I know people say that, and they mean it, but they don’t mean this. My best day is better than anyone else's. Trust me.
I know.
I’m sitting at a table at Essentialz, a five-star restaurant in San Francisco. Everyone at the table watches me as I tuck the signed paperwork away in my black Bottega Veneta woven leather brief bag.
I, Hastings Monahan, just signed a nine-figure investment deal on behalf of the venture capital firm I work for.
Full partner, here I come.
Of course, lawyers will handle the majority of this. The signatures are symbolic as much as they are legal. But the fellow diners at my carefully crafted table will go back to China with an exciting opportunity for their company, Zhangwa Telecommunications, to enter the North American market with climate-change technology projecting yields that are the best aphrodisiac ever.
As I sip from my glass of Montrachet Grand Cru, I catch the eye of Ming Bannerton, a consultant with Zhangwa whose father is a high-ranking U.S State Department official in China, a woman who has a hunger for financial success that I can spot in anyone in three seconds flat. There’s something special about a fellow hustler–and when I use the word hustler, I don’t mean it pejoratively.
People who hustle get things done.
We connect. We network. We pattern match. We ruthlessly apply what we intuitively feel to what we operationally know in order to produce optimal outcomes.
In short–we hustle.
And we win.
But in competition, there can only be one winner.
One.
Tonight, I'm it.
Her smile mirrors mine, red lips stretched over perfectly white teeth that are as straight as a new picket fence. The smile doesn't reach her eyes, but an intensity infuses her. She’s about five years younger than me, with a knowing eye that tells me we need to stay in touch. Someday soon, she may shoot past me, and that’s where all the legwork pays off.
In this business, you network down as well as you network up, if you want to get anywhere.
And the manila folder resting in my brief bag, the one that feels like a warm gold ingot pressed against my lips? That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get somewhere.
“Where is Burke?” Mr. Zhao Bai asks, his head at a slight tilt, a gesture of genuine curiosity as his eyes survey me, looking for information that doesn't come directly from my mouth. He's the youngest of the four men at the table, a fast talker who looks around the room like he's a mob boss. Negotiating with him took a steady hand I didn't know I possessed, but now I understand.
Burke is part of the deal, and I didn't realize it.
The contracts are signed, though. That makes my husband an off-the-books addendum. No matter what, this is my accomplishment.
My husband, Burke Oonaj, is one of the hottest market makers in finance right now. Even he will have no choice but to be impressed by the deal I’ve just put together.
But the inquiry about my husband makes my uterus fall.
And it’s not like he’s around to catch it.
“Good question,” I say before taking another sip of wine, needing to buy myself a smidgen of space and time. I only need a split second.
Normally.
For some reason that I can't explain, my emotions are tangling in my mind, and that's an unpredictable variable I have to weed out.
Fast.
My heart feels strangely heavy in my chest, a sense of dread filling me that has no right to be here. This is MY night, I tell that sense of dread. This is MY deal. This is my culmination of six years of careful work, all coming together, right now.
Go away, dread.
But Mr. Zhao’s question is a good one, because Burke isn’t answering any of my texts or emails or phone calls, and hasn’t for the last three days.
My husband has disappeared.
Not literally, of course, because husbands don't just do that. Business travel can be intense. Plenty of stretches of time have gone by without hearing from him. They involved twenty-four hours or less, though.
Not eighty-one hours and thirteen minutes.
Not that I'm counting.
I can’t admit any of this to anyone at this table, of course, so instead, I give what my pattern-matching brain tells me is the optimal answer, designed to make me look good.
“Burke’s fine,” I say with a grin, the glass of wine still full enough to make more sips look like an appropriate response. “He sends his best regards. He would have been here tonight, but… you know.”
Two of the men share a look I don’t like. It’s a fleeting glance, the type that is practiced and meant to look like nothing. You think I'm paranoid, that I'm inventing it all?
Wrong.
I’m in a state of hyperarousal.
No, not the sexual kind. Haven’t felt that in a long time, at least not with Burke. My hyperarousal is based around the stress hormones pumping through me from the excitement of what I just accomplished.
Me. Myself. Alone.
Independent of Burke.
As workday smiles stretch to become the more casual, intimate grins of people enjoying bottle after bottle of excellent wine, I loosen up. The answer I gave them sufficed. We can move on.
My body feels numb and excited at the same time. I’m on top of the world. The pinnacle.
I am Peak Hastings.
Which is why, when the maître d’ approaches my side, I don’t pick up on the gravity of his whisper. No one would. Because learning that my credit card has been declined for this business dinner is definitely not part of the plan, and the areas of my brain assigned to processing language literally can't comprehend it.
“It’s what?” I whisper, standing carefully, legs still steady, my alcohol consumption measured, even if my tablemates have made their way through more wine than an entire wedding party back home.
The maître d’, José, gives me a wide-eyed but polite look. “I’m sorry, Ms. Monahan. This has never happened before when you’ve dined with us. But the credit card company was very firm. You cannot use this one.”
Mr. Zhao gives me an inquiring look. My stomach sinks. Did he overhear?
“Will you all excuse me?” I tell them, hating the disruption, my legs turning into two steel beams covered in chilled skin.
“Something must be wrong with the credit card processor,” I snap at the maître d’ as I hurry away from my group. I want to get the taint of this failure out of the way and get back to my stellar success.
Once we’re out of sight of my table, I rifle through my purse and find another business credit card. “Use this one. And let me be very clear, to you and to your boss, that this is absolutely, abjectly unacceptable.”
He inserts the card, chip side in. “I realize this, Ms. Monahan, but we cannot…”
Beep.
He stares at the credit card terminal.
I read the display upside down. “Declined!” I hiss. “This is impossible! That card has no limit!”
“Perhaps you’ve had your identity stolen, or there are fraud alerts on your account? Perhaps you’re the victim of a financial crime?” José suggests.
“I can’t be the victim of a financial crime!” I snap at him. “I’m a financial expert! This doesn’t happen to people like me. Here!” I shove a third company card at him. This one better work.
I only have one more.
My mind races ahead, conjuring contingency plans, even as my cheeks burn with shame.
Shame.
Why would I feel shame for someone else’s mistake? And yet, there it is, and I have to override it fast. Because if I don’t, it gets a toehold.
And that is the fastest way to lose your edge.
José closes his eyes and lets out a sigh through his nose, a split second before the display terminal beeps.
Again.
“Your computer system is down,” I declare, pulling out the fourth card and my phone, texting my office manager. Maybe something went wrong. Maybe José is right. Maybe we were hacked. But this is surreal enough to let the dread come inside me and have a seat, as it decides whether to become an overnight guest.
It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m staring at a mid-four-figure bill that I owe, right now, and have no way to settle.
This cannot be happening.
As he runs the fourth card, the main door opens. My spine straightens, calves stretching tall, and not just from the five-inch heels I’m wearing.
I know that man.
I hate that man.
And he’s the last person on Earth I want to see in the middle of this debacle.
Ian McCrory cannot see me like this.
“You need to fix this!” I hiss at José, whose demeanor is rapidly changing.
“Ms. Monahan,” he says, “this does not appear to be a credit card machine malfunction. This appears to be a credit card account malfunction.”
Our eyes meet, his with a challenge I am unaccustomed to experiencing. Because I am unaccustomed to my credit cards being declined.
“Hastings!” Ian says, walking toward me with the casual confidence of a man who has it all. Yes, ‘the man who has it all’ is a cliché, but clichés exist for a reason.
And Ian McCrory is a walking cliché. He’s hot. He’s rich. He’s smart. He's charming.
And he’s alpha to the core.
All of that works against me as I find myself in the least favorable position ever.
And if I were to choose a position with Ian, it wouldn’t be this one.
Fury at my husband for not answering my calls and texts and emails for days rises up in me, tangling with the anger I feel at the inevitable attraction toward Ian, combining with my deep embarrassment.
There's a lot happening inside this toned, successful body.
Ian comes in for the requisite hug, holding it a little longer than he has before.
“You’re trembling,” he says, his voice textured and nuanced, the concern something I’ve never heard in past encounters. We’ve sparred at conference tables that feel like they’re the size of football fields. I’ve lost countless deals to him, some of them reasonable, some of them not. Ian's a favorite of the old boys’ network.
Me? Hastings Monahan is not exactly an old boy.
Then again, neither is Ian.
His cologne cuts through the low-grade panic that I’m trying to hide from him as José continues to stare me down. It must be a custom blend. I can pick out notes of cherry, burnt oak, and something spicy. Inhaling the air around him is like experiencing the bouquet of the finest bottle of Screaming Eagle cabernet you’ve ever tasted, at a private retreat, with people who know how to live.
Like me.
His suit fabric under my hand is a weave that can only come from a tenth-generation tailor, the kind whose DNA has been honed by craft and time. Deep brown eyes, so close to the color of his hair and brows, make a ring of chocolate around the edge, the opposite of most people’s irises. Even Ian's body doesn't follow the rules.
Ian is the exception in everything, even in how God constructs eyes.
“I’m just worried,” I say, deflecting. “I haven’t heard from Burke in days, and—”
“Burke!” His entire stance changes, tension filling his body. “Is he here?”
“No. Why would he be here?”
“Aren’t you two doing a deal?”
“I’m doing a deal.” I bristle inside at the implication that I need Burke for anything.
Ian peers around me, instantly making eye contact with Ms. Bannerton at my table. His eyebrows shoot up. “You scored that deal?”
“Yes. Ink’s on the papers.” I glance distractedly at the credit card still in my hand.
“Congratulations.” Now his eyebrows are in a different position, one corner of his mouth curling. I know that feeling. He knows he can’t win all the deals.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t fantasize about them.
“Thank you.”
“I can't say I'm surprised. I worked my ass off on the regulatory issue. Zhangwa Telecom couldn't get past that until I pulled some strings with elected officials.”
“You groomed the path,” I say smoothly, knowing damn well he did forty-nine percent of the work on this. “But you couldn't close.”
“Let me guess. I got them close, but you took it all the way.” His eyes narrow. “How many personal contacts did you work to get port access for Zhangwa?”
“I did nothing untoward, Ian.”
His eyes comb over me. Creepy guys abound in our business, but Ian's gaze is anything but gross. In fact, I like it.
Like it too much.
I'm a very married woman, thank you. I don't stray. Vows matter, even when my husband ignores me for days on end and doesn't sleep with me for...
Far more than a few days.
“I'm sure you were completely above board and legal in every action you took, Hastings. But I also know you have a mind like a steel trap and a nose for gossip. How much dirt did you have to collect on adjacent property owners to guarantee port access?”
All I can do is grin.
It feels remarkably good to have someone understand me so well. Emotion swells in my chest, raises my temperature, makes my pulse quicken, a high of accomplishment spreading throughout my body.
It's unfamiliar.
It's unbounded.
And it's Ian McCrory who is eliciting it from me.
“Good work. That’s taken you…” his voice fades out as he thinks, “...six years.”
“Yes. Yes, it has. And now it’s done.”
“Nice little deal you've made.”
“Don't do that.”
“Do what?”
“Little. This is anything but little, Ian. Don't act like this deal is some sort of a consolation prize for me because you decided you didn't want it enough.”
“Don't tell me what I want, Hastings.”
Suddenly, it's clear we're not talking about business.
The sound of a man clearing his throat makes us both turn to look at José, who cocks one eyebrow, gives Ian a glance, and then looks at me pointedly.
Ian’s not stupid. “Is something wrong?” he asks José, instantly protective. The tone change is one that I would normally admire, but right now, panic is scrambling all of my sensors.
“Ms. Monahan and I were dealing with a business matter, Mr. McCrory. Your room is reserved in the back. Most of your party is there already.” José's smile is ingratiating. I can feel the shift in how he treats me versus how he treats Ian in my salivary glands. A bitter taste fills my mouth as I realize I’ve been instantly relegated to some social trash heap as a result of a computer glitch.
Their glitch.
Ian bends down to kiss my cheek, startling me, his clean-shaven face so smooth, hot, and dry, making my pulse skip.
“Congratulations, Hastings. A job well done. Give my best to Burke when you see him next.” He opens his mouth slightly, as if to say something more, and then shuts it quickly. I want to ask him what he started to say, but I know that no matter what, he’s sealed up tight, like a drum.
Men like Ian McCrory don’t equivocate. If he changed his mind, his mind is changed.
I can’t help myself as he leaves, my eyes taking in the back of his body, that bespoke suit jacket perfectly molded along the lines of his tight, wide shoulders. His legs are long, shoes shined, a deep Italian richness that you can’t buy with just money.
You need taste, too.
Real taste.
José’s eyes jump from Ian, to me, back to Ian. The man is clearly making decisions based on social importance. If I am important to Ian McCrory, then upsetting me could upset the alpha.
Social calculations take microseconds for people like me, Ian, and even José. You can’t be the maître d’ at one of the hottest restaurants in one of the hottest cities in the world and not be people smart. Emotional intelligence isn’t just for softhearted church ladies, preschool teachers, and therapists.
We need every advantage we can get in this world.
“Isn’t Ian wonderful?” I murmur as I bring José into my space with a confidante’s wink. “We go back ages.”
José’s eyes narrow. He’s trying to figure out if by ages, I mean we’ve slept together. It can’t hurt to pretend that’s the case, so I lean in and lower my voice. “He’s a good friend to have. Comes through when you need him. I’ll bet he’s a great tipper, too.”
That elicits a chuckle, something in my gut unclenching at the sound.
“Will you excuse me?” I say to him, my hand on his. “While you figure out the computer glitch, I need to get back to my guests.”
As if I weren’t deflecting, I give him a flirty smile and move away quickly… but not too quickly. I can’t be...
Hasty.
“Is there a problem?” Ms. Bannerton asks, batting dark eyes at me that make it clear she knows damn well there’s a problem and wants to watch me squirm.
“No problem. Just dealing with—” I hold up my phone and jiggle it. “You know. The husband.”
“Everything’s okay with Burke, I hope?” Mr. Wang Min asks. He's the senior person from Zhangwa and his silence thus far has been a great contrast to Mr. Zhao.
That same strange look passes between him and Mr. Zhao, though.
“Oh, he’s fine. Just had a personal-life question. You know. Marriage.”
“My wife texts me twenty times a day when I’m on trips,” Mr. Zhao says, lips pressed in a tight smile. “And she doesn’t care about time zones, so I get the texts at two in the morning.”
“Mine pretends I’m dead when I’m gone,” says Mr. Wang. Everyone halts. He laughs. “Not literally. She decided that it’s easier to have no contact when I’m away than to have only a little. As long as I bring her back real maple syrup from Vermont, she’s fine with all the travel I do.”
“It’s not as if she has a choice,” says Mr. Zhao. That comment elicits the heartiest laugh from the men at the table.
Ms. Bannerton and I give each other sympathetic looks, but not too sympathetic, because we can’t telegraph weakness in a crowd like this.
Suddenly, the men all stand in unison, Ms. Bannerton struggling to join them in her high heels. My skin breaks out in gooseflesh as I realize something has changed.
Pressing my palms into the arms of my chair, I rise to my feet and turn.
Even before I see him, I know exactly who is drawing this reaction from them.
“Ian!” Ms. Bannerton says, her lips spreading in a grin of joy, eyes devouring him. She bypasses all of the men to launch herself into the arms of the ninth richest man in the world. Mr. Zhao and Mr. Wang are only ranking in the high ’teens these days.
Ian accepts her hug with the gracious formality of a man who knows exactly what to do, then works the table, shaking hands. When he’s done, he turns to me, arms stretched out in a gesture of gentlemanly acknowledgment, and says, “I don’t need to hug you.”
Ms. Bannerton’s eyebrows shoot up.
“We already took care of the intimacies earlier,” he adds.
Normally, that sort of comment would get him a high-heeled spike through that beautiful Italian leather on his size fourteen (I'm guessing) feet, but I’m grateful tonight. It cuts through the tension of my declined credit cards and gives everyone at the table something to whisper about later, long after this dinner is over.
On the other side of the group, José appears, making eyes at me. My heart jumps up into my throat, clawing its way into my sinus cavity, beating like it’s in the Tour de France and about to wipe out at the bottom of a steep hill.
I reach for my purse, the universal gesture of going to the ladies’ room, and I step away, grateful for Ian’s presence. He’ll keep them all busy as I go and untangle this very private mess.
My phone buzzes. I look at the text, hopeful.
It’s a reminder from my carrier to pay my cellphone bill.
Dammit, Burke. Where are you?
Those words have rushed through my brain hundreds of times in the last three days. He’s never gone this long without answering, even if it’s just a single letter, “K,” when I ask him if he’s alive.
I find my way back to the concierge desk, where José is now standing with even less warmth than he had before Ian appeared.
“This is not a credit card machine failure, as I suspected,” he informs me. “You need to pay the bill.”
“I’m a good customer. I’m sure this is some sort of an error. Can’t I just—”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Monahan. You have to settle the bill immediately. Do you have a debit card?”
“Oh! My personal account. Of course! I can pay it, and I’ll have my company reimburse me once this is all sorted out. There’s plenty of money in our personal accounts.” I pull out the debit card and hand it to him, relieved to have been given an out, still furious to be in this position at all.
He runs it. I stare at the machine. At the same moment, my skin does that prickly thing again, goosebumps everywhere. If I weren’t in this state of abject terror that I’m working so hard to cover, I would think that I was aroused.
Aroused in the most delicious of ways.
Ian McCrory's entirely at fault.
The light on the machine turns red, the word looking like Hebrew, although at this point I know damn well what “decline” looks like upside down.
“Hastings,” Ian purrs in my ear, his hand resting between my shoulder blades. His eyes flit down to take in the machine, then the cards gripped in my hand. He looks at José. An extraordinary expression of sympathy that makes me want to rip my own liver out and eat it in front of him covers his face.
“Oh, Hastings. I had no idea.”
That is the exact moment I learn how much I hate Ian McCrory.
“Had no idea of what?” I challenge.
He looks at the debit card as if it were a limp penis. “That you and Burke were in financial trouble.” The words come out of his mouth as if they’re in slow motion, in free fall, BASE jumping without a parachute.
“We are not in financial trouble,” I snap, hating the edges of my words, how they vibrate out into the waiting area. Two people turn, microscopic shifts in the way that their ears tilt. I know full well about eavesdropping on other people’s drama–and I know damn well that I don’t want to be someone else’s funny story for later. “We’re fine. This is some kind of computer glitch.”
“Ma’am, you have now attempted four credit cards, all from different issuers, and your personal debit card. Everything has been declined,” José says, completely obliterating my cover story.
The shift from Ms. Monahan to Ma'am is the worst.
The spray of shock that radiates through my body as his words hit me makes it hard to breathe. Something really is wrong. How can the greatest moment in my entire life implode like this?
“José,” Ian says to him, making himself a human shield between the prying eyes of my dinner party and me, “put it on my account.”
“You can’t do that!” I protest.
“I am doing that.”
“But this is my dinner. This is my responsibility. And my contract,” I growl.
“I’m not trying to take your contract away from you, Hastings. I’m trying to save you from embarrassment.”
“I don’t need you to rescue me.”
“It sure as hell looks like you do.”
“This… this isn’t… I’ll pay you back,” I hiss, furiously grateful, but filled with more fury than gratitude.
“Of course you will.”
“And–I’m not in financial trouble.”
“Of course you’re not.”
Condescension is my kryptonite. It’s what I use against other people as a weapon, a cover for my insecurity.
Yeah, yeah, I’m not supposed to be that self-aware. I went through enough therapy to know I don’t give a damn what other people think about me, but I certainly give a damn about how I feel when someone else perceives me as weak.
And that’s exactly what Ian’s doing right now.
“First of all, you’re a jerk. Second of all, thank you.”
“That’s the worst thank you I’ve ever received in my life.”
“I’m sure you’ve been subjected to worse.”
“Well, there was that one time in Sydney when I was in bed and—”
“I don’t want to hear about your sex life!”
Especially when mine is non-existent.
“Look,” Ian says, grabbing my upper arm gently, pulling me out of the view of my dinner guests. “I don’t want you to win this contract any more than you want me to win the ones that I take from you.”
“You admit it? I’m a competitor of yours?”
“You’re an annoyance, Hastings.”
“Annoyance?”
“You’re so much smarter than you give yourself credit for, and you’ve attached yourself to that slimy piece of overblown ego masquerading as a finance expert.”
“How dare you talk about my husband that way!”
“You knew instantly who I was talking about, though, didn’t you?”
We're both breathing harder than we should be, and a flush of heat wanders around my body like it's looking for something to burn.
I straighten my spine and let out a deep sigh. “I am not having this conversation with you.”
“Actually, you are. We’re literally exchanging the words right now.”
My phone buzzes in my hand. I look at it. It’s from Burke. It’s two words:
I'm sorry.
My eyebrows drop, my face twisting with horror. “I’m sorry?” I whisper.
“That’s better.”
“Not you! I’m reading my text from Burke–‘I’m sorry’? At least he's finally contacting me, so I can stop worrying.”
A second text follows:
Don't tell them anything.
I frown. Before Ian can rudely ask me what the new text says, his phone buzzes, too. Over at the table, everyone’s phone buzzes at the same time.
The timing is too coincidental.
A snake begins to uncurl along my tailbone, rising up my spine between my shoulder blades to the base of my neck, splitting in two and going to each ear, crawling up over the crown of my head.
Something is terribly wrong.
Burke doesn’t apologize for anything.
Behind me, the door to the restaurant opens, bringing with it a cool blast of evening air that should be refreshing but feels more like death. The sound of heavy steps makes me turn, and a clink-clink-clink that is distinct and unfamiliar.
“Hastings Monahan,” says a man behind me. He's not asking if I'm her.
Because he knows.
I look at Ian. His eyes are wide, hand gripping his phone, thumb on the unlock position already. When I turn around, I’m faced with uniformed police officers and men and women in black, all of them wearing weapons and expressions of doom.
“Yes?”
What happens next is a blur. Words float into my brain, like under arrest and charged with as Ian punches the glass screen on his phone like a jackhammer on concrete, barking orders to some person named Irene on the other end. My purse is taken out of my hands, my wrists pulled behind me. I catch Ms. Bannerton’s eye, and her whole expression melts into one of mocking delight.
The men at the table do not move, do not defend me, do not protect me, do not interfere in any way.
I can’t blame them.
Ian, on the other hand, the Ian McCrory, my biggest competitor, my outright nemesis, reaches through the molasses of the moment as my hands are zip tied behind my back, forcing my breasts out, my feet teetering on the platforms of my shoes, my soul slithering out of my body.
“I’m getting lawyers on this. Whatever’s going on, I’ve got you, Hastings,” he says grimly, the stark emotion in his voice cutting through the horror of what unfolds.
“You what?”
“I’ve got you.”
And those are the last words anyone says to me as police officers remove me from the restaurant, my perp walk the ultimate free-fall from Peak Hastings to Freak Hastings.
Less than an hour has passed since we signed the contract for my nine-figure deal.
The only pen in my life now is going to be a holding pen.