Phil didn’t answer the question. He pulled the laptop toward him. “You can just type in anyone’s name and find their whole history?”
“I don’t—” Juan started to lie.
Phil stared at him, waiting.
“Yes. I don’t know where it came from, though, I swear.”
Phil typed a name into the database, and Juan braced himself for the fallout as he watched the man’s face go white.
“We have to get rid of this,” Phil said. He looked on the verge of panic.
“You don’t think we should tell?” Juan asked.
“Tell who?” Phil glared at him.
“The police?” Juan asked, not sure what he wanted Phil’s answer to be.
“What are you talking about?” Phil looked at him like he was crazy. “I have to talk to Josh.” He slammed the laptop and left the room.
Juan looked at the closed computer and felt his heart sink. He opened the laptop to shut it down properly, but stopped when he saw the name the venture capitalist had entered in the database: it wasn’t Kelly Jacobson, it was . . . Phil Dalton. Juan’s jaw dropped as he scrolled through the married man’s extensive history of Hook meet-ups across the globe.
AMANDA
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16; SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
“Finally he’s gone,” Andy Schaeffer, the frat-tastic paralegal who sat opposite Amanda’s cubicle, sighed. He’d been working around the clock for a senior partner who had just left for a meeting, giving Andy a solid two hours without any nagging. “I’m still hungover from Saturday. But Chris Papadopoulos is just perky, perky, perky.” Andy lifted his shoulders to imitate the enthusiastic Greek partner.
“What’d you do Saturday?” she asked. She’d spent her Saturday on a Marina bar crawl with Julie. She still wasn’t sure what the occasion had been, but they’d donned two hundred dollars’ worth of American Apparel gear and been drunk with other in-costume San Franciscans by ten a.m. It had made Amanda long for Lavo, and a nice sparkler in a magnum of champagne.
Between the beer crawl and her terrible date with Ben Loftis, Amanda’s enthusiasm for San Francisco was starting to wane. It felt like going back to college, but without the cool kids.
“We hosted our Annual Schaeffer–Collins Beer Olympics,” Andy said proudly. “We had twenty-two teams this year. Biggest turnout ever. It was epic.”
“I take it you won?”
“Obviously. Even did a—wait for it—sixty-five-second keg stand.”
Did he really just brag about a keg stand, at twenty-five years old? she thought, then coached herself to have more patience.
“Nice work.” She smiled.
“Thanks.” He leaned back in his chair and scratched his stomach. “Would be so much better if I could just revel in the glory instead of dealing with stupid Hook.”
“You’re working on the Hook deal?” She sat up in her chair. “Like the IPO?”
“Obviously.”
“My roommates both work there,” she said.
“Lucky bastards. They’re going to make so much dough.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Like how much?”
“The early guys? Like the ones who joined in 2010 and 2011? Their options’ll be worth like fifty mil, at least.”
“What?” Amanda’s jaw dropped. Were Juan and Julie making that much? Why were they living in a three-bedroom stealing booze from their company when they had that kind of money?
“Welcome to Silicon Valley.” Andy lifted a brow. “I’m telling you, we picked the wrong profession.”
“No kidding,” Amanda said. Maybe she shouldn’t go to law school after all, and should join a start-up instead.
“But yeah, deal’s totally brutal. The CFO’s a tool and their general counsel quit six months ago and the bankers are fucking idiots and Josh Hart is determined to get the whole thing done by May. It’s a shit show.”
“Who’s the bank?”
“L.Cecil. But not San Francisco L.Cecil. Some team in New York, so I’ve gotta be up on their hours. It sucks balls.”
Amanda felt her breath catch. A New York team from L.Cecil? Was it possible?
“Who are the bankers?” she asked quietly.
“What?”
“I knew a few people at L.Cecil in New York,” she said. “Just wondering who you’re working with.”
“I mostly work with this girl Neha who’s got a stupid stick up her ass,” he said. “But the head of the team’s this stud Todd Kent.”
“What?”
“Yeah, some, like, big-shot banker. I bet he gets so much tail.”
Amanda’s face went white.
It was a sign.
It had to be.
Coincidences like that did not just happen.
“Are they here?” she asked, trying to control herself. “I mean, are the bankers in the building?”
“Why would they be here?” Andy made a face. “They’re at the St. Regis for the meeting with the sales team. There’s a cocktail hour after, too,” he said, “which is why I’m going to curl up under my desk and go to sleep.”
Amanda looked up the St. Regis on Google Maps. She checked her watch and, before she could overthink it, was on her way.
She got to the St. Regis just before five o’clock and went to the bathroom to fix her hair and her face, willing her heartbeat to calm. She’d been lying to herself: Todd was worth the effort. Much as she wanted something real, she wasn’t ready to settle down if it meant settling for a guy like Ben Loftis or Andy Schaeffer or the other overgrown children who represented the men she’d encountered in San Francisco. The timing hadn’t been right before, but now . . . this was the universe giving her another chance.
The elevator opened on the hotel bar: it was a closed cocktail party. She couldn’t just pretend to be there. Think fast, she told herself. She dug in her bag and found a notepad, ripping out the marked pages and heading into the room to find Chris Papadopoulos.
She spotted Todd immediately, standing at the bar, talking to another guy and a pretty-but-not-that-pretty girl. Amanda’s heart rose into her throat. He was even hotter than she remembered. It wasn’t just his tall frame and his perfectly proportioned body, it was the way he stood, casually, with his hand in his pocket, the way his pants were tight enough around his butt to hang just so, the way he held his glass firmly with the same fingers he’d used to hold the back of her neck when he kissed her.
She felt her cheeks burn and watched him move. Where was he going? There! Toward Chris Papadopoulos! Her feet sprang into action without waiting for her brain.
“Chris,” she said, tapping the lawyer’s sleeve, not looking at Todd.
“Amanda?” He turned. She watched Todd behind Chris’s shoulder. He hadn’t noticed her yet. “The new paralegal, right?” Chris asked. “What are you doing here?”
She handed him the notepad. “Andy asked me to give this to you,” she said. “He was working on some corrections and I needed to run an errand nearby, so—”
Chris opened the notepad onto its blank pages. “There’s nothing here,” he said.
“I’m not sure,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “He just asked me if I could bring it.”
“Strange,” the senior partner said. “Well, thanks. So long.”
Shit. What now?
Just do it, she told herself. Now or never.
“Todd?” She walked up and touched his arm, remembering to bat her lashes.
Todd turned and squinted his eyes to place her.
“I thought that was you,” she said, faking a laugh. “Amanda, Amanda Pfeffer,” she said.
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded. “Sorry, I—”
“Context, I know,” she agreed. “So crazy to see you! What are you doing out here?”
“I’m working on the deal,” he said, as if everyone he
re should know that.
“Oh, nice,” she said. “I just dropped something off with Chris. I moved out here, actually,” she continued. “Crowley Brown needed more people in San Francisco so I thought, why not, you know?”
“Sure.” His smile was forced. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I just need to get back to—” He tilted his head, indicating the conversation she’d interrupted.
“Yeah, of course,” she said. “Well, give me a call if you’re sticking around. I’m still learning the city, but it would be fun to catch up.”
“Sure, will do.” He smiled, turning his shoulders back.
She turned to leave, finally letting her breath go, but then turned back to make sure he still had her number.
“I—” she started as she reapproached, but paused when she heard him talking.
“Who was that?” the guy Todd was talking to asked.
“No fucking clue.”
Amanda felt her face drain. Her legs moved her unconsciously to the hall, directing one foot in front of the other, until the elevator doors closed and she stopped and allowed the vacuum of disappointment to appear in her brain, then let it suck her down, down, down into its empty darkness.
TARA
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16; SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
“Hey, do you want to grab dinner tonight?” Todd caught Tara’s sleeve as she turned to the elevator. “Please don’t make me hang out with Nick.”
“I’m having dinner with Rachel,” she said, “then heading straight to the airport.” Her brain was still spinning from her morning with Neha and she was looking forward to talking it through with Rachel, who she knew would have good perspective.
“Rachel Liu?” Todd’s brow furrowed.
“Yeah,” Tara said, watching his face, and concealing a smile as she imagined him as a gorilla having sex with the PR rep. “And I’m actually a little late, so—”
“Yeah, sure,” Todd said. “Good job today, by the way.”
“Thanks,” she said, her smile changing from bemusement to genuine appreciation. It was the first time he’d ever complimented her, and it meant a lot.
—
AT THE RESTAURANT Tara sat down and checked her BlackBerry while she waited for Rachel. There was another e-mail from her mother asking if she’d bought her ticket to Maine for her sister’s wedding. I’ll do it tomorrow, she wrote back, irritated, but also not sure why she hadn’t booked it yet. The road show started next week in London and would wrap up two weeks later, culminating with the pricing call and IPO on May 8. She could fly straight to Maine from New York and celebrate the deal closing along with her sister’s wedding.
“Hello there.” She looked up at the British accent. Callum Rees took off his black leather jacket and sat across from her at the table.
She tilted her head, surprised. “I’m sorry, I’m meeting—”
“Me,” he finished her sentence. “Rachel had something come up, so I filled in.”
“I don’t—”
“Want to eat dinner alone.”
“But—” she protested. She could feel her cheeks redden. Had Rachel also told him her theory that Tara should sleep with him?
“We’ll have a bottle of the pinot noir,” Callum told the waiter, ignoring Tara. “Then I’ll have the duck, and the zucchini fritters to start. She’ll have the winter salad, dressing on the side, to begin, followed by the salmon. And do you think you could do all vegetables instead of vegetables and potatoes?”
“You can’t—” she started again, then shifted her tone. “You’re not even going to let me order?”
“Did I get it wrong?”
It was exactly what she’d have chosen from the menu, except that she was too embarrassed to ask for no potatoes, so was planning to just eat around them. “That’s not the point,” she said. “What if someone—”
He watched her, sipping his water with an eyebrow cocked.
She paused, then relented. “Am I really that predictable?”
“Salad and fish? Yes.”
“Why do you want to have dinner, then, if you know me already?”
“I think your clichés have been adopted,” he said as the waiter returned with the wine. “And that there’s more to you than the way you’ve been trained.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Three reasons.”
She waited.
“One: your outburst at the Frick. No good banker would have thought to stand up to a billionaire, even a shit like Rick Frier.”
Tara blushed.
“Two: you turned down every single boy on Hook, even the really rich one. Most girls in New York would at least have gotten a dinner out of him.”
“You were watching me?” She thought back to how she’d wasted time on Hook while she waited for Callum at the Crosby.
“Yes,” he said without apology.
“And the third reason?”
“You had a hole in your sweater that evening.”
“What?” Tara’s jaw dropped.
Callum lifted his arm and pointed underneath it. “Right here. The seam had split and you kept moving your arm, oblivious, and I could see your turquoise bra,” he said, then added, “Interesting color selection.”
Tara’s face burned. Was he making it up? Had she really not noticed a hole in her sweater? “I don’t understand what that says about my character,” she lied. She knew exactly what it said: that she was not at all put together enough to be a successful woman in business.
“It says that your perfectionist habits are not innate.”
“I am so embarrassed.”
“Why?” He furrowed his brow. “It was very sexy. You kept moving your arm, like a chicken”—he imitated—“yelling at me for my morals.”
He took a sip of his wine and grinned as though he’d won a game.
“That’s humiliating,” she sighed.
“If that’s your version of humiliation, you don’t have a very interesting life.”
“Thanks for making me feel better.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I heard you did a great job in the presentation today.”
“Are you regretting wanting to sell your shares?” she said wryly.
“Not in the least.”
“I’m sorry, why did you come here again?”
“To see you,” he said.
Her cheeks burned: why?
“Where’s Katerina?”
“In New York, I suspect?” Callum shrugged. “Don’t really care, to be honest.”
“Did you cover for me?” Tara asked. “With Catherine?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “But only because it benefitted Catherine.”
“What do you mean?” she asked carefully.
“Over the long term, you’re more important to her than Rick Frier, but she wouldn’t have seen it that way. Banks think too much in the short term.”
“But John Lewis got fired, for something I—”
“John Lewis got fired because he wasn’t a good banker. If he had been, my report wouldn’t have been enough to get him canned.”
“But—”
“You can just say ‘thank you,’” Callum said. “You don’t always have to make it more complicated.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“So what were you trying to say with Rick that night, about your generation?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she demurred, “I think the wine had just gone to my head.”
“Your generation really is a self-entitled lot, though. Incredibly absorbed in yourselves.”
“See,” she said, riling back up, “you say that like it’s our own fault we’re self-focused when we were raised the way we were.”
“Gotcha.” He smiled.
She blushed.
“Go on,” he said, �
�I’m interested. Really.”
“I just think your generation doesn’t recognize how unsettling it was, to grow up in this world that was simultaneously hyper-competitive and committed to giving everyone a trophy. We signed up for everything in this effort to get ahead, but then everyone was too afraid of hurting our feelings to ever tell us whether we were actually good or not. We did everything, but had no idea whether we were actually good at anything.”
“Forgive me for not having pity on a generation that had boundless opportunity and relentless encouragement.”
“I’m not saying you should feel sorry for us, I’m just saying it’s worth recognizing how incredibly destabilizing that is—to never know whether you’re good or not, but always feel like you’re being judged. It’s a constant state of anxiety over not being good enough.”
“Good enough for what?”
She shrugged. “Your job? Your parents? A man? The life you’re supposed to want?”
The waiter returned again and set the plates in front of them.
Callum sat back. “Can I offer you a piece of advice?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Figure out what you really want,” he said, “as opposed to what you’re supposed to want. It’s worth the time.”
“I could be happy doing a lot of different things,” she said. “I think I’m very lucky in that regard.”
“That,” he said, “is the definition of settling. You may be able to make yourself happy doing a lot of things, but there is one life that you want more than other lives, and it is definitely not the one in which you wake up when you’re fifty and figure out what you like after it’s too late to do anything about it.”
“Fine,” she said. “Then I know what I want: it’s to be on the path that I’m on, which, it turns out, is really starting to take off.”
“Your path to being Catherine Wiley?”
“Yes.”
“You want the life wherein you work all the time, never smile or laugh, have a drunk for a husband and daughters you never see?” He lifted a brow. “You haven’t thought hard enough.”
“You’re her friend.”
The Underwriting Page 21