Page 126 of Masks and Mishaps

What isn’t underwhelming is Dalton Cavendish. Each time he introduces one of his interns, he stands at the head of the huge conference room, which is brimming with every intern, VP, senior VP, and managing director at Hannington-Hale. I’ve never been able to witness how the rest of the bank responds to him until today.

…I may be slightly jealous.

The way his colleagues track his body when he walks to the front—six times altogether—should spark HR violations across the board. And if it’s not attraction, it’s admiration. This ishisbank.

Weston gets a slightly chillier reaction—and by slightly chillier, I do mean he’s the human equivalent of an arctic plunge.

When it’s my turn, Weston and I stand side by side near the projection screen, and I take him in. His outfit is polished, and he bears the hallmarks of a man who expects the world to fall at his feet. It’s unsurprising I didn’t figure out what was beneath his gilded outer layer sooner, and I don’t blame myself. Men make choices; Weston chose to deceive me.

He’s about to make another choice.

“I had the pleasure of managing Essie Romero,” he begins, smiling like an asshat. “As most of you likely noticed, Essie kept her head down and worked hard throughout her internship. However, she was lucky to be noticed by one of the bank’s most profitable clients, which will likely be the focus of her presentation today. She’ll also take you through the algorithmic model she built. And, if there’s time, I’m sure she’d be happy to answer questions about how she fucks herself on the internet.”

My jaw clenches. He did it. Weston actually did it.

And the burn of eyes scalds me before the whispers start. A lump forms in my throat, and I glance at Weston, who simpers back.

Everyone is looking, and my hands tremble under their scrutiny. But I find Dalton across the room, and his adoring gaze becomes the only one I see. Time and again, this man has believed in me.

He’s confident I can do this.

“Thank you, Weston,” I say as if he didn’t torpedo my career at Hannington-Hale before it started. Using the clicker at the front of the room, I open to the first slide in my presentation. “Obviously, forex rates for the US dollar have been phenomenal since the summer quarter closed—”

“Hold on,” Warner interjects, resonating across the packed conference room. “Weston, what did you say?”

“I said,” Weston replies, raising his voice as if he and his father are at opposite ends of a football field, “she fucks on camera for money. She’s a camgirl—and she’s fucking Cavendish.”

The entire room springs into a symphony of dull murmurs. Dalton doesn’t look anywhere but at me, and his hands grip the armrests of his chairpainfully.

“This is a wild accusation,” Warner snaps, rising. “Can everyone—can everyone shut the hell up.”The conference room falls silent again. “What you’re saying is deeply inappropriate—”

“I can prove it,” Weston snaps. “I can—”

“I can prove it too,” I cut in. “And since I already have the clicker.” I wave it in the air and take an emphatic step back when Weston lunges. Staying out of his grasp, I advance to the next slide in my presentation. “Here’s a slide that shows the revenue I brought in,” I explain in a rush, continuing to back away. “And here—”

“Essie—” Weston warns, lunging for the clicker again.

“Here—”

“Give me the clicker.” Weston grabs my wrist. “Give me—shit.”

He releases my arm as Dalton hauls him backwards, lifting him like he weighs nothing.

Dalton’s glare—his expression of undiluted fury—subsides when our eyes meet. I know he’s biting his tongue to keep down countless snarky warnings for Weston ranging from, “If you ever touch her again, I’ll flay you and use your skin to make an artisanal journal I’ll give your mother for Valentine’s Day”to“Give me a reason—any fucking reason.”But this moment is for me.

I click to the next slide and face the room when I say, “And here are three hundred fifty-six messages from Weston Hannington asking me for private camming sessions and begging me to fuck him.”

Forty-Six

DALTON

“Tosummarize,”Essiecontinues,speaking over the whispers in the room, “if your justification for not giving me an offer is because I slept with a colleague, please remember your most valuable banker, Dalton Cavendish, did too. And if your justification is because I’m a sex worker, please consider Weston Hannington and how he not only begged me to have sex with him, but has paid me one thousand, five hundred seventy-six dollars via my camming page.” She clicks to the next slide, which contains nothing more than a number in red text on a white background: $1,576.

Weston’s jaw drops, but the slide is so absurdly gigantic that the red from the numbers reflects off his shiny white teeth. “She’s lying,” he spits, pointing at it.

“Gosh, you’re right,” Essie replies, clasping her hand to her heart. “Weston didn’t spend fifteen hundred dollars on me.” She clicks to the next slide. “He spent fifteenthousand.”

$15,760.42. The forty-two cents gets me every time.

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