Page 53 of Peppermint Bark

That’s how the two of us ended up here, sent to close this ugly acquisition. Victoria came to life at tables like this. If she’d been dispatched to Potsdam, Truman wouldn’t have had to drop the atomic bombs. Every mediation was her war room, and when she won, she claimed her spoils.

So although the opposing counsel was eye-fucking me, Victoria wasn’t threatened. After the day's negotiations ended, we huddled in a two-bedroom suite upstairs plotting the next day’s strategy, catching only a few hours of sleep. Victoria was confident that once champagne started flowing, our private celebration would end in one of those bedrooms. No foreplay required — god, I can’t remember the last time I had the energy for foreplay. It was the only time we had sex anymore, to burn the adrenaline before we crashed from exhaustion.

That was how we’d operated for years: Close the deal, open your legs, then pass out and pretend it didn’t happen, because that’s what always happens.

But it felt different this time.

I should revel in the thrill of the volley. I should want to go for the jugular.

But I didn’t want to be here.

‘What's your problem?’ She scrawled in my leather notebook, her blue ink saturating the margins of nearly every page.

‘We’re in a circle jerk,’ I scrawled back.

‘So finish it. Man up and call their bluff.'

She knew I would have already cut off this bullshit if I’d had my regular aggressive streak. Normally I could pull this off on only a few hours of sleep. But at night, I’d been plagued by dreams of chasing something evasive. In my dreams, I’d run between familiar rooms — my bedroom, Mom and Dad’s foyer, my office, Mallory’s yoga studio, Carol’s kitchen — but couldn’t catch it, and woke up more tired than when I’d crashed.

I interrupted the client’s rant, standing assertively so that my chair scraped against the floor and declared something monumental waste of time, and something ready to sign come find me.

I didn’t hear my familiar words, having been coached by Victoria years ago on how to deliver them for maximum impact. She told me it has to be me who leads this part, that she’d be seen as a shrieking woman who needed to change her tampon, but when I do it, it closes deals.

But now there was an extra edge to my voice. Because this time I meant them.

If I could close the deal and get out of this goddamn room, I’d take my own victory spoils. For two weeks, I’d had a taste a freedom, a taste of hope, a taste of Grace … and I was going to stop denying myself what I deserved.

Forget the suite upstairs, my prize was upstate.

My hand hovered over the doorknob when the client finally picked up a pen, testing my resolve.

My voice was dry and humorless. “Can we get this over with? Mrs. Claus is waiting for me up north.”

Victoria’s jaw ticked. Was it because I went off script, betraying my impatience? Or could she feel her victory sex slipping away, along with her claim on me?

The client met my gaze, wondering if another delay could sweeten the deal for him. I stood at the door, legs wide, arms crossed.

If I can get him to sign, I told myself, if I win, I can go to Grace.

I planned all my next steps: Go upstairs and pack. Make an appearance at the hotel bar where Frank Hamilton, one of the firm’s two equity partners, will be waiting to shake hands and take the credit. He’ll slap me on the back and say, ‘Great work in there, son,’ and expect me to behave like his father figure praise means the world to me because it normally does. Except this time, I won’t care, because soon I’ll get to spend time with my actual father, and Bruce Clarke beats Frank Hamilton any day. But I’ll give him the credit he expects, then throw him a curveball by telling him I won’t be back in the office until January.

Fuck this. If I close this deal, I go home.

I hit the client with my best ‘I’m not fucking around here’ face.

He signed the document.

I walked out.

Chapter 20

Grace

Christmas Day

A loud slam jolted me awake. I lurched upright in bed, pulse racing.

In the dark, I made out the silhouettes of my couch, my bookshelf of social work textbooks and romance novels, my windowsill of plants.

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