Page 11 of Due Diligence

A lot.

As a sidenote, this wasdefinitelysomething to explore in therapy, but that would have to wait until tomorrow when I had my standing call with Dr. Jensen.

I stood, walked over to the window, and rotated the clear adjuster to open the blinds. Murky morning light filtered into the room, reflecting on the transparent walls and the tempered glass tabletop. I lingered there, watching as Cassie forced herself to focus on her laptop. “Well, are we going to work, or are we just going to sit here in awkward silence?”

“I vote we work,” she responded, clearly trying to keep her tone bright. “We need to run through a checklist to make sure we have what we need uploaded to your data room. I like to start with the legal documents, since those audits typically take the longest. How is the file transfer process going?”

I made my way back to my chair and I stood behind it, resting both of my hands along the hard edge of its back. It was a Herman Miller Aeron. Ergonomic. Engineered for productivity.Timeless. It cost over a thousand dollars—a number I didn’t balk at when I saw it. At that very moment, I had exactly one hundred and fifteen of these chairs all throughout the three-story office building. They sat there unassumingly behind each and every desk and every tempered glass table.

“Fine,” I said, still standing behind my chair and wondering if she knew just how much it cost. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did. Cassie Pierson had always been the poster child for subtleluxury. Even back in college, all anyone had to do was look at her and they could just tell—the girllookedexpensive.

“Do you have any problems with that?”

“Nope.” I pulled my chair back and it rolled like butter. I sat, relaxing into perfectly engineered suspension that held my body in all the right ways. Most people would spend forty years at a desk job, never once sitting in a chair like this. I, on the other hand, could build a fortress with mine.

“Great, so I’ll start going through each of your uploads—”

“I read your résumé,” I cut in. I leaned back in the chair, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. I was going for casual—unbothered. Although, the position really wasn’t all that comfortable. I was just too stubborn to move. “It’s really impressive, Cassandra.”

She paused when she heard me mention her résumé. Her eyes immediately drifted to the exposed red brick to her right. I could practically hear the gears in her mind working, trying to ascertain if I recognized her or not.

I do, Cassie.

“Not half as impressive as yours,” she countered, foolishly thinking she could deflect and distract me with flattery. It wasn’t a bad tactic, but it was child’s play. I worked with Alex Larson; I practically invented this move.

“I know,” I replied. “But let’s not compare apples to oranges.”

Cassie inhaled sharply and looked up at me, those big brown eyes narrowing steadily into a downright lethal death stare. She ticked her laptop screen down just an inch before she folded her hands together. “So, did you have any questions about why we need you to provide any of these documents?”

Still reclining in my seat, I raked my fingers through my hair before I tilted my head to the side. “You did undergrad at Princeton. Moved here to the city after graduation…and that’s where I found a gap. Based on the résumé your company sentover, there’s a year between you graduating and then you getting a job at Davenport-Ridgeway. That’s interesting.”

“Not really,” she responded, her gaze unrelenting. I stared right back at her—I could do this all day. “Certainly not as interesting as your articles of incorporation. I’d love to talk about the existing terms for your board members and make sure we have up-to-date conflict-of-interest statements on hand.”

“What were you doing for that year?” I went on, delighting in the way her shoulders sagged when I continued. “According to your résumé, you werephi beta kappaat Princeton. That’s a feat. What is it—the top ten percent of the graduating class receives that honor?” I released a whistle. “I find it hard to believe it took you an entire year to get a job.”

“I went to law school,” she answered sharply. “For three months. Then, I dropped out and had to work hourly wage jobs until I finally got a temp job at Davenport-Ridgeway, which turned into a full-time job. Then I got my MBA and now I’m back at D-R. That’s the whole story. Nothing interesting or noteworthy there. But back to your conflict-of-interest statements—”

“Law school was hard, I see.” As soon as she realized I was really going to keep traveling down this path, Cassie actually went so far as to close her laptop. “I know not everyone is cut out for it.”

“How would you know?” she shot back. “Did you ever go to law school? Because if I remember correctly, you didn’t even finish undergrad.”

I smirked, victorious.There it is. There was that insatiable desire to say whatever the hell she wanted, whenever the hell she wanted. Iknewshe still had it in her.

As soon as Cassie saw me smirking, she realized her misstep. She released a soft hum, forced a smile, and said, “Law school wasn’t for me, so I pivoted. That’s it.”

“Was it the pressure?”

“No, not the pressure.” She shook her head. “It just wasn’t what I wanted to do, so I made my own path.”

I gritted my teeth and inhaled, pretending to be perplexed. “Yeah, I just feel like there’s got to be more to this story. I just feel like you were probably super driven in undergrad, and probably toldeveryoneyou were preparing to go to law school one day. I mean, that’s just, like, thevibeI get from you, you know?”

As I said this, I thought back to the time I was eating breakfast in the dining hall and watching Cassie hand out flyers for her campaign for freshman class president. Alex had nodded his chin in her direction and said,“This is the first step in her master plan to go to Harvard Law, become a Supreme Court Justice, and lay to rest in the Capitol building one day.”I didn’t have a response for that. I just remembered thinking she was the most beautiful and intimidating girl I had ever seen in my life.

“Are you playing with me?” she questioned.

Yep.

I scooted up in my chair. “Sorry, what?”

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