Page 36 of Preferential Treatment

“It was your turn,” Theo pointed out.

“Oh. Right.” She quickly scooped up the dice before the conversation could return to what, exactly, had distracted her from the game in the first place.

Through sheer force of will, Kate managed to ignore her phone for the rest of the night. That didn’t mean thoughts of Mikhail weren’t running on an endless loop in her mind.

After her minor breakdown, Kate had managed to bundle up all those murky feelings and shove them into a deep, dark, easily-forgotten corner of her brain. She’d had a brief relapse into inexplicable moroseness when the promised credit card was delivered by courier, but she’d managed to shove that into the dark corner with all the other emotional instability.

As if to prove to herself that she was unbothered, Kate had taken the card on an online shopping spree. It had been unexpectedly heavy in her hand, matte black with a brushed metal finish. With it, she was now the half-hearted owner of some outrageously expensive clothes. They were an exorbitant expense to Kate, but she couldn’t help looking at them through the lens of Mikhail’s vast wealth, which made their cost seem downright paltry. She’d briefly floated the idea of buying a Maserati, or a house, something that might actually make him take notice, but then nixed it. First of all, despite the fact that her unlimited credit limit was backed by a literal billionaire, she wasn’t sure you could buy a car with a credit card. Or a house. And secondly, even if she could, how would she explain those things to her friends?

“Kate.”

She looked up, suddenly aware that she’d gotten lost in her own thoughts again. Everyone was looking at her expectantly. It must be her turn again. She reached for the dice as if she’d been paying attention all along, and rolled them.

Somehow, she managed to keep her head in the game after that. It was another cooperative game. This one something to do with terraforming inhospitable planets. Theo seemed to be subtly sabotaging the rest of the team out of pure boredom, so Kate focused on thwarting Theo’s treachery. When Theo realized that Kate had caught on to his machinations, he doubled down, making more and more damaging moves with every turn. They ended up in their own game within the game, while the others played around them, oblivious.

At the end of the night, Theo was the first to leave. He grabbed his coat and punched Kate affectionately on the shoulder as he passed her. At the kitchen door, he ruffled up Anna’s hair. He darted out while she was gasping in outrage, shouting his goodbye from the dark.

“He thinks he’s so funny,” Anna grumbled as she finger-combed her hair back into place. Her gaze landed on Kate and Naomi, slipping their coats on. “Oh! Hey. Before you guys leave—” She reached for a manila envelope on the kitchen counter and reached inside to pull out some papers. “The Margaret’s Arms women’s shelter is facing a major funding shortage. Their biggest donor pulled out when he found out they refer women for abortion services. If they don’t make up the shortfall, they’ll have to shut down, and more than eighty women and children will be homeless. If you can spare a little bit of cash, we can at least get them through the next month or two while they try to build up their donor pool.”

Kate took the papers Anna handed her—a list of names, along with pledged amounts of money. Mostly women’s names, mostly donations of less than fifty dollars.

“How much do they need?” she asked, continuing to stare at the names.

“For the year? About sixty thousand.” Anna grimaced at the number.

Kate quickly tallied up the accumulated donations so far—not even three thousand dollars. The Maserati she’d been considering buying, to provoke Mikhail, had an MSRP of over a hundred and fifty thousand.

“What’s this place called again?”

“Margaret’s Arms,” Anna answered. “They do really good work. A friend of mine is on their board of directors. She’s a public defender and she’s one of the smartest, most compassionate people I know. If she thinks—”

“I thought I was the smartest, most compassionate person you knew,” Kate interjected lightly, still not able to tear her eyes away from the list of donations.

Anna snorted. “Smartest maybe.”

“Theo’s not the smartest?” Naomi asked sincerely.

Kate finally managed to tear her attention off of the paper, shooting Naomi an offended look.

“Sorry,” Naomi said with a sheepish smile. “I grew up with Anna and Theo—he was valedictorian and everything.”

Kate scoffed. “Big whoop.” She handed the donation sheet back to Anna. “I’ll get back to you about a donation. I have to check on something first, okay?” She had to figure out if she could fund a non-profit from a credit card.

At home, Kate finally had the privacy to respond to Mikhail. After she’d left his last message on read, he’d sent her a new picture of bright orange roses climbing an arching trellis. A little later, another message, I have a meeting now. I’ll be unreachable for a few hours.

How did your meeting go? Kate inquired. A split second after she hit send, her lungs shriveled with mortification. She shouldn’t have sent him such a casual, girlfriend-y type text. She clutched her phone, trying to think of something else to add, to shift the tone back.

Before she could come up with something, Mikhail’s reply came in. It was fine. Signed an agreement for manufacturing rights to a new processor that we’re releasing next year.

She hadn’t expected him to respond so casually. Is that a big deal? she asked.

Not really. Business as usual, he replied. A second later, he added, When news gets out, company stock will shoot up. Good news for shareholders.

Kate’s eyebrows rose. This conversation was so… ordinary. Well, except for the fact that she was having it with Mikhail Volkov. But otherwise, chatting casually with him about his workday? Not something they’d engaged in before. It felt very much outside the bounds of the princess-servant dynamic.

I’d buy stock, but I think that’d be insider trading, she replied uncertainly.

I wouldn’t tell.

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