Page 30 of Due Diligence

“That works,” I agreed while I gave Frank’s belly a scratch. He loved that; he rolled onto his back asking me to keep going. I smiled down at him, wishing all relationships could be this straightforward.

“As for Cassandra. Or Cassie, rather.”

“Cassie.”

“As for Cassie, I think she said something interesting today. Something you should consider taking to heart.”

“Go on.”

“She said she’s changed in the last ten years,” he commented. “Just like you have. Has it occurred to you that if you got to know her, you might find she’s telling the truth?”

I drew in a heavy breath, loudly enough that Dr. Jensen could hear it on the other end of the line. “So I should get to know her?” I asked, my stomach lurching at the thought. “Like, I should invite her to lunch or something?”

“Not necessarily. Just talk to her. See if you have things in common. See what you learn about her. It sounds like you’ve both resolved to work together through due diligence. Why not try to make that easier for each other instead of making it harder? Cut the games. Cut the banter. Just focus on being professionals. You’re not eighteen anymore. You don’t have to pick up right where you left off.”

“I see,” I murmured. I turned to look out the window, watching the hazy sunset fall in the distance. City lights hadstarted to emerge in the coming darkness, illuminating through the clouds. Energy had started to purr outside my window as New York awoke for the weekend.

“It doesn’t sound like you were happy about the conversation you had this afternoon. Why is that?”

“No clue,” I admitted as Frank rotated in my lap back onto his stomach. “I’m just not a person who embarrasses people like that.”

“I agree. That’s not who you are. And deep down, I don’t think you want to be that person, nor do you want to be a person who derails someone’s career just because he can.”

When he said the words, the last two weeks felt shameful to me. He was right: I hadn’t been acting like myself. The real Marcus Fitz wasn’t petty or vengeful like this.

“I think I owe her an apology. A real one.”

“You do,” he agreed. “But like I said, give it a couple of days. Talk to her on Monday. Take the weekend and just relax—do something fun. Do you have any plans?”

There was that annoying question again—another opportunity for me to confront my reality: Fun was off the table for me and had been off the table for the last six or seven years.

“Not really.”

Dr. Jensen clicked his tongue. “Look, I know there are all these rules and things you have to follow…but give yourself a break. You’re twenty-eight. You may run a successful company, but you can’t be a COO all the time.”

“I don’t know, Dr. J. I signed a lot of paperwork and contracts stating that as long as I was in this position, I would be a paragon of virtue.” I inhaled through my teeth. “Are you telling me to go back on my contract?”

He chuckled. “I’m just saying, if I were you I would pick out a low-key place where nobody is going to recognize me, and Iwould just have fun for once. You’ve had a hell of a day in the middle of a hell of a week. Do yourself a favor. For once.”

A few minutes later when we ended our emergency session, I hung up the call and checked out my messages. I had a few texts from Alex, telling me he was having people over for drinks and he wanted me to come by. This was his indirect way of extending an olive branch, I knew, but I didn’t respond. Instead, I poured myself a shot of tequila from my bar and downed it while I stared out the window at the city lights. Immediately, the liquor took the edge off, but I was far from settled.

First Alex and then Cassie. What a shit show of a day. And for the past couple of days, I thought the problem was Cassie. God knows I’d been blaming her all week. There was just something about her type that pushed my buttons, ever since I was a kid. It was the tightly-wound, holier than thou, condescending attitude from these spoiled rich girls. They were always the ones giggling behind the jocks and preps who mocked me on the schoolyard until my moms finally acquiesced and sent me to a public school, where the kids just ignored me.

The great irony of the situation was that in my adulthood, I’d been forced into countless dates with women like this over the years. Apparently, they were the only kind of women I wasallowedto be with.They’re the ones people expect you to date, our PR firm Lilac told me years ago.People expect Lex to date a runway model and they expect you to date a woman of substance. Pedigree. Accomplished.

I took another shot—aggressive for a night in.

A few days ago, blaming Cassie made sense. It was almost logical. But now that I knew she was no longer the trust fund brat she once was, I didn’t even know what to think of her. She was right—I didn’t know anything about her.

So of course, I did what every twenty-something would when he wanted to learn about another twenty-something: I went on Instagram.

When I searched for Cassie Pierson, nothing came up—not even a private profile. I was surprised, but undeterred. I tried a couple of different configurations: Cassandra Pierson, C Pierson, Cassie P, etc. No dice.

By the time I was feeding Sammy and Frank their dinners, I’d tried out ten different versions of her name, and came up short every single time.

“Interesting,” I muttered. I looked over at Sammy, who was allowed to eat her dinner on the kitchen counter—otherwise, Frank would have inhaled it like dessert. “Thoughts?”

Sammy, of course, ignored me because she was a cat.

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