Page 24 of Due Diligence

Twelve seconds.

“Don’t worry about it,” he stated, his expression flat. “We’re good.”

When I took a step back, it broke the grip he had on my shoulders. I continued to watch him, reticent to trust his words.I’d known Alex for too long to fall for any of his strategies. His deflections, his charm—there was more here. I just didn’t know what.

“Clear your calendar,” I instructed. “I’ll get our lawyer on the line.”

“Bullshit,” Alex declared. He walked around his desk to pick up his phone again. “And I don’t have time for this.”

“What are you even doing in here?”

But I’d already lost his attention. He was scrolling on his phone, one hand sitting on the top of his head where it rested on his neatly styled, sandy hair. “Just planning shit for my birthday party. Did you like the DJ I used last year? Because he raised his rates, like, two hundred percent, which feels kind of exploitative, right?”

“I don’t care, Alex.”

Heavily, he exhaled through his nostrils and looked at me once again. “You can’t let this go?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “If you’re busy—fine. I’ll deal with it.”Like I always did. “Can I use your office to make calls?”

“Sure.” He patted the top of his chair. “Go wild. I think I’m going to head out anyway. It’s Friday, after all.”

“Congrats.”

Alex paused, a frown settling on his face. “Okay, I get that you think I made a mistake, but are you seriously angry at me over this?”

“Of course I am,” I responded as I took a seat in his chair. “It’s a Friday—you just said it yourself. And while you’re off booking douchebag DJs and probably screwing some trust fund brat who wants to make a clean transition from her daddy’s house to yours, I’m going to have to sit here and clean up your mess.”

“Don’t act like you don’t love it,” he sneered. “Come on. Look at you, sitting there with your laptop clutched to your chest, justdelighted that you have the lawyer’s phone number memorized. You think I can’t tell how much you love swooping in? Please.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, fuckyou, Marcus,” Alex snapped as he shoved his phone into his vest pocket. He walked forward and bowed low, fixing a glare at eye level. “I made you into a goddamn millionaire. Do you get that? So don’t come intomy officeand act like you’re doing me any favors.”

I didn’t say a word; all I had for him was vitriol—and that wasn’t the way this relationship worked. I didn’t get to say what was really on my mind. I didn’t get to lash out or rattle off one caustic comment after another. No, that wasn’t my job, even if every instinct I had was begging me to tell him how I really felt.

“What were you even going to do tonight?” he continued. “Sit at home with all your pets and send sad little emails to Alice, hoping she’ll pay attention to you? I fucked her, by the way. So if you really want to kill the story, why don’t you remind her ofthat.”

Under the desk, my hand was shaking. I could feel the blood boiling in my ears and the tension welling in my throat.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I hated him sometimes. I hated the way he knew exactly what to say to get me to this point. He saw through me, every time. It was why I’d been following him around since the day we showed up at Princeton ten years ago—strangers and roommates turned into lifelong business partners.

He picked up his backpack from the floor by his desk and raised his chin in my direction. The gesture was subtle but spoke volumes: He got the last word.

“See you,” he commented as he turned towards the door.

As soon as he left, I released the breath I’d trapped in my lungs, holding it for so long they stung with pain. When I lookeddown at my hands, I saw I had squeezed my fists together so tightly that my fingernails cut into my palms. It took a few minutes for them to stop shaking.

***

I talked through the situation with our lawyer, Margaret, who agreed that calling her was the right thing to do.

Of course it fucking was.

Margaret told me the next best thing to do was to grovel to Alice to get her to kill the story—screw my dignity. To my relief, it didn’t really come to that. After a couple of calls to Alice, she agreed to stop the article. I didn’t use what Alex told me—the thing about him sleeping with her. I thought about it though. When I heard her voice, I thought about him wordlessly seducing her, like he did with so many women. A wink. A raised chin. A small smile. A cock of his head to the side in the direction of somewhere private. It was so easy for him, and always would be.

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