Page 90 of Due Diligence

“This is such a bad idea,” she reasoned. “You obviously want more than I can give you—”

“Let me worry about that.” Then I took a page out of the Cass Pierson misdirection playbook and said, “Plus, I don’t think I’m the one we have to worry about. Your reaction to Erin was…”

“Please don’t bring up my jealous rage. That was so embarrassing.”

“I’m just saying.”

Cass held up her hands, composing herself before she said, “Look, I don’t take offense to you sleeping with other women. But I do take offense to the idea of you pitting me and another woman against each other. It’s bullshit. Women don’t need that. So, if you go out and try to pick up a woman and you strike out, don’t call me to make her jealous. I won’t take that from you.”

“Cass, I know I pickedyouup in a bar, but I promise you—I never do that.”

“It’s just an example.”

“Got it,” I said.

She nodded, content to leave it at that. “So we have a deal. We keep fucking—each other, and whoever else we want to. Right?”

“Right.”For now. I kissed her head. “Well, listen: I could go make coffee for us, or we could continue on the miseducation of Marcus Fitz. Now that we’ve gotten a few firsts out of the way, I’m thinking we could try a few more.”

“Such as?”

“I’ve never sixty-nined before.”

I had barely finished my sentence before Cass practically leapt on top of me and gave me the best Sunday morning I’d ever had.

Chapter 23: Cass

I exited the subway and peered up at the Davenport-Ridgeway Tower. The building was colossal for no reason. I took a long sip of my coffee and released a heavy sigh. We were kicking off the fourth week of due diligence, which meant I had to do a deep dive with Mahendra to make sure everything was going according to plan.

This was a standard part of my process, but it did mean I wouldn’t see Marcus today. The only thing worse than a Monday morning was a Monday morning without Marcus Fitz. As I walked into the building’s lobby, I thought about texting him to remind him I wouldn’t be there. When I took out my phone I realized two things:

One, I didn’t have his phone number. Seriously. Somehow, I had hooked up with this guy three times and Istilldidn’t have his number—and I had phone numbers for guys whose last names I didn’t even know.

And two, I realized Marcus waswell awareI wasn’t going to be there today, because the following email was already waiting patiently in my inbox:

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Cassandra,

Morning. I hope you’re well. I noticed you’re not onsite today. I saw this is noted on the schedule you provided, so I apologize for not connecting on this earlier. At your earliest convenience, could you please reach out to me? I’d like to discuss the pro bono services I received this weekend and to confirm if we can schedule a follow-up. I have availability today, tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday (with Friday being my preference). If you can’t do in-person, I’m also open to a video call.

Thanks so much, and please let me know if you have any questions.

Warmly,

Marcus Fitz

COO and Founder, Libra

I entered my seldom-used office with a smile on my face, which was truly an anomaly. Luckily, I could shut the door and guarantee none of my coworkers would see me beaming at my cell phone like an idiot.

Just as I was logging on to my laptop to prepare for the day (read: respond to Marcus’s email), my cell phone began to ring. As soon as I heard that, I had a Pavlovian response. My heart skipped a beat and my stomach churned with dread. The only person who ever called me was my mother. But to my surprise, when I looked at the screen the name staring back at me was Trevor.

It was Trevor.

Every fiber of my being was telling me not to answer the phone. Every cell inside of me was jumping up and down,shoutingDON’T DO THISlike the crowd in a theater during opening night of a horror film, screaming at the braindead side character who thinks it’s a brilliant idea to go into the basement. But there was a cardinal rule of horror movies: Virgins survived and the girls who slept around didn’t—and I obviously wasn’t a virgin.

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