“You say that like it’s a character flaw.”
“I say that like it’s refreshing.” He tilted his head. “Most people in that ballroom would sell their grandmother for an introduction to the right investment firm. You look like you’d rather burn the investment firm down.”
I should have walked away. Every professional instinct I possessed screamed that this man was trouble—the expensive, complicated kind that derailed careers and made journalists end up writing puff pieces about celebrity divorces.
Instead, I stepped forward to meet him.
“Maybe I’m just here for the open bar.”
“The open bar is in the opposite direction.”
“Maybe I have a terrible sense of direction.”
“No.” His certainty was absolute. “You don’t.”
We were circling each other now—not quite predator and prey, something closer to two people sizing up an opponent before a match neither had started.
“You know,” I said, “most people who catch someone lurking in service corridors assume they’re lost or drunk.”
“Most people don’t pay attention.” His gaze dropped to my notebook, then back to my face. “You’re neither lost nor drunk. You’re working.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“The ink on your thumb.” He nodded toward my hand. “Fresh. And your pupils haven’t dilated since I approached, which means you’re not intimidated. You’re calculating.”
Noted. He paid attention.
“And what are you calculating about me?” I asked.
Something shifted in his expression—the corporate mask slipping just for a heartbeat, revealing something rawer underneath.
“I’m calculating whether you’re going to be a problem.”
“Funny,” I said. “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
The service door swung open behind us, and a harried event coordinator nearly collided with my elbow. She took one look at the man in front of me and went pale.
“Mr.—I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize—do you need anything? Should I?—”
“That won’t be necessary.” He didn’t even glance at her. “Tell them I’ll be another twenty minutes.”
The coordinator fled. I filed away the almost-name like a pressed flower — flat, weightless, something to examine later.
Twenty minutes. He’d just bought us time without explaining why, and the fact that I didn’t immediately object told me more about my own judgment than I wanted to know.
“You have a way with the help,” I observed.
“I have a way with people who recognize their place.” The corner of his mouth curved. “You don’t seem to have that particular affliction.”
“Tragic, really. My mother despairs.”
He laughed—a single, surprised bark of sound that seemed to catch even him off guard. For a moment, the predatory tension dissolved, and I glimpsed something almost human beneath the billion-dollar armor.
Then he glanced toward the far end of the corridor, where a set of glass doors opened onto the building’s private balcony — a narrow strip of stone and iron railing above the city, far enough from the ballroom that the music was just a murmur.
“Walk with me,” he said.
It wasn’t a question. But it wasn’t an order either. It was something in between—an invitation weighted with the certainty that he expected me to say yes.
