Page 9 of Due Diligence

That was my cue to leave, and I did so with the same joy I felt every day when the clock struck six and I could leave this soul sucking (though lucrative) job.

I finally got home around seven, just in time to cross paths with my roommate, Bethany. She said I could eat the rest of the pasta she made herself for dinner, as long as I cleaned up the kitchen. I then spent the next hour eating chicken alfredo out of the pan, splitting a cheap ass bottle of wine with myself (I would drink the other half tomorrow), watchingThe Blair Witch Projectfor the tenth time, and thinking about Marcus Fitz.

My assumption was that he was doing the same thing right now—although, he was probably doing it in whatever lavish, million-dollar Park apartment he had secured for himself. He also probably didn’t need a roommate to make rent and was most likely eating something organic that didn’t come from a Knorr packet. I, on the other hand, was lying in a lopsided bed that still smelled like cigarettes, whiskey, and cologne from the stranger I banged last night. I didn’t envy Marcus though. I’d slept in multi-million-dollar homes before and knew firsthand that money couldn’t buy happiness (even if it could pay the bills).

The last time I saw him, we were eighteen. The interaction was uncharacteristically hazy for me after so long, but it wasn’t entirely sharp when it happened. I blamed Four Loko, creepy upperclassmen who always invited me to their parties, and eighteen years of oppressive rule by my parents.

That night, we were both drunk and not yet capable of managing our liquor. The dancefloor was dark and the music was pounding—Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and then that horrendous Chris Brown song. I could still hear the drunk preppy bros, cackling about what I said to Marcus. I remembered the look on Marcus’s face—something between hurt and shock, like he didn’t know I had it in me to speak like that to anybody. In the moment, a pang of regret hit me as soon as those words left my mouth, but my lethal arrogance stopped me from apologizing. It wasn’t my finest hour. I knew that. But little about my time at Princeton incited much pride in me.

Marcus had changed a lot since the last time I saw him. Physically, he looked the same—just infinitely wealthier. He still had that thick brown hair that he kept longish and those light green eyes that made my jaw go slack when I saw him for the very first time in the library. Now, he was obviously much older. He had shed the baby fat that boys so often bring to college and lose sometime around junior year. He was sharper now, with more hard edges. And he had a hint of stubble on his jaw that just screamedI’m a workaholic but I still take time to look disarmingly handsome.

But the primary and biggest difference between Marcus ten years ago and Marcus today was how confidently he carried himself. This morning, he walked into that conference room and looked right at me, commanding my attention. That wasn’t the Marcus I once knew. The Marcus I used to know was so often in Alex’s shadow, following him from party to party, standing off to the side while Alex would chatter endlessly about hisnew app—which was called Scales at the time. He would chew on his thumbnail while he watched it happening, smiling softly when people would pat him on the back. In those days, Marcus couldn’t even make eye contact with people when they spoke to him. Today, he looked into my eyes and he didn’t falter.

I swigged some wine straight from the bottle (so much for saving half of it for tomorrow). I released a breath, laboring to keep my exhalation even. I still didn’t know why I acted the way I did on that night ten years ago. Truth be told, I had spent a long time repressing it, pretending that it didn’t happen.

Now that Marcus was back in my life, it was just a matter of time before I would have to confront it. I probably should have known that it was never so simple as pretending things didn’t happen.

I would have to learn that the hard way, but I was no stranger to that.

***

I awoke fifteen minutes earlier than usual, determined to arrive at Libra on time. That ended up being a prudent decision because it wasn’t until I was getting out of the shower that I realized I had a gargantuan hickey on my neck. I spent five minutes applying concealer to cover it, before I realized this was some kind of superhuman hickey that refused to be tamed. I ended up switching out my outfit to a sleeveless turtleneck and a pencil skirt, which I had to iron like my life depended on it before I could put it on.

I made record time to the subway, which wasof coursedelayed because it was the subway. That was where I lost a few minutes, swearing inaudibly and making silent deals with the universe that if I could just get to work on time, I would never ghost another guy again. To my relief, by the time I was roundingthe corner to the Libra offices, dangerously close to snapping the heel off one of my pumps because I was speed walking at Olympic-level pace, I was just about on-time.

Suck it, Marcus.

My victory was short-lived, however. As I stood there, staring at the time on the face of my phone, it began to ring. Taunting me. And it was truly a cruel twist of karmic fate, something right out of an ancient Greek tragedy, because the caller ID read:Mom.

Every fiber of my being ignited with anger. My grip tightened around the phone, making my hand quake lightly in the process. Of course.Of courseshe would call me right now—when my professional reputation was on the brink and I was on the verge of slipping into the red zone with an egotistical founder I once insulted a decade ago.Of courseshe would call me when I was panting, sweating through the back of my turtleneck as my feet throbbed in six-year-old Jimmy Choos that she bought me when I started law school.

“Fuck off,” I murmured, just as a woman in an abhorrent houndstooth coat passed me on the sidewalk. She sent a glare in my direction that was so caustic, I envied it.

I ignored my mother’s call and sent it straight to voicemail, which I swiftly realized was a monumental misstep. It was a blatant indication that I was holding my phone and was fully aware that she was trying to get in touch with me. I may as well have texted,I’M IGNORING YOUR EVIL ASSto her.

Naturally, the phone rang again immediately after I sent it to voicemail, like clockwork. It vibrated and flashed at me, just daring me to ignore her. If persistence and shamelessness were gold medals, my mother would be Michael Phelps. Continuing to send her to voicemail was just delaying the inevitable—and I needed to get her off my back before I started the day with Marcus.

I glanced at the watch on my wrist. I only had eight minutes until I was officially late. I spent fifteen seconds of those precious eight minutes standing outside of the Libra offices and just glaring at my phone, wondering if I could wrap this up in seven and a half minutes. It was a stretch, but I had done it before.

Taking a deep breath, I tapped the green button on the screen and brought the phone up to my ear. “Mother, I can’t talk now. I’m about to walk into—”

“Cassandra, you cannot dodge my calls forever.”

I could try.

Her voice was honey and harps, the kind of tuneful and soft voice that women of a certain generation were once expected to have. It clashed with the subtle, venomous words that so often passed through her lips. I paused when I heard her, bracing myself. Her tone sent me reeling every time I heard it, and I realized that wasn’t a normal reaction for anyone to have when hearing her mother. Over the years, my responses had been capricious. Today, I chose to fight. “I’m not dodging your calls. I’m speaking to you, aren’t I?”

“I would like to have a real conversation with my daughter.” As usual, she was succinct and she didn’t stutter. My mother would have made a phenomenal lawyer—a phenomenalanything, really.

For the first (but certainly not the last) time in this conversation, I released a sigh. “Well, I believe the window of opportunity has shut on that one. There’s no chance of you and me having a real conversation again. You and dad gave that up when his assistant sent me that invoice.”

My mother was quiet. The word “invoice” was practically my safe word. All I had to do was weave it into the conversation and without fail, she would find a way to end the call.

“I have to go now,” I told her. “I’m working. Tell dad he’ll have another check at the end of the month.”

“He’s not cashing those checks, Cassandra. He just wants to talk to you. We both do.”

Hearing that, I sighed again. I would be lying if I said the notion didn’t tempt me. At some point, I loved my parents. Both of them. There were days when I still thought about sitting in my dad’s BMW and listening to audiobooks when we would drive to our vacation home in Big Sur. I would fall asleep to Stephen King, my father shaking his head and smiling the whole time and saying, “This man is agenius,” after every chapter.

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