Page 42 of Masks and Mishaps

She bobs her chin. “Good,” she declares before she rises. “Then I’ll have an answer soon.”

As we stand, Hannington shoots me a look. After all, he has no intention of moving Villatoro’s money. But Claudia is in the door, and that’s what the bank needs.

Eventually, his expression eases. “Good job, son,” he murmurs, patting my back—and I’d be lying if I said the validation didn’t give me a rush. Warner grins, and it’s obvious: I’ve made him proud.

I dip my chin in acknowledgement before I face Claudia. “I’ll walk you out.”

We leave Warner’s office, and the entire bullpen moves—a sign everyone was watching the meeting through the glass. Claudia stops at the rail, surveying the rows of desks in the pit. Her eyes tick from one suited analyst to the next, and she sighs. “All this, day after day, to get richer,” she muses. “Surely there’s a better way.”

“If there is, I haven’t found it,” I admit. “Come on.”

Except Claudia ignores me. She’s staring at something.

She weaves past the railing and down the stairs, and once again, the bullpen quiets. Everyone is watching her—this twenty-five-year-old woman with the power to stymie our careers with a finger snap. She navigates through the labyrinth of chairs, bright red and put-together and so out of place.

She stops at Essie’s station.

It takes Essie a beat to notice, but when she sees Claudia, she smiles—and Claudia smiles back.

They’re talking. Nodding. Then, for reasons I can’t explain, Claudia reaches into her purse, takes out a detergent pen, and places it on Essie’s desk with a wink.

Moments later, as Claudia is strolling out of the bullpen, she says loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Next time we talk, I want her there too.”

Eighteen

DALTON

“Shit,”Cabrera,oneofthe interns, says. His eyes are huge as I triumphantly toss my empty beer bottle into the recycling bin, where it clatters against the growing pile. “That was six seconds.”

“Damn,” I mutter, wiping the heel of my palm over my mouth. “I could chug one in four in college.”

Cabrera faces another intern, Barnett, whose bushy eyebrows are high enough to see the flags on Mount Everest. Next to them, Weston takes a pull from his own bottle before he raises his beer in my direction.

I grab another and go to my living room, where the other four interns I manage are occupying my couches. The charcuterie boards I ordered were two hundred dollars each, and the interns know it. They’re eating prosciutto like it’s a commodity, dismantling the little roses I’d wanted Essie to see because she would have thought they were adorable—but she’s not here.

Frankly, she’s the only person I want here.

I leave a stack of napkins next to Gaffney and Chan, shooting them a look that says,I’ve never hurt these seven-thousand-dollar couches in any of my drunken escapades, so you better not either, and text Essie a second time:When are you getting here?

“My dad is obsessed with you,” Weston mentions, appearing at my side.

He startles me, but I turn my phone so he can’t see the screen. “We work well together,” I respond, downplaying it. I’d drop most things for Warner; I’ve done it before.

Weston’s brow tightens. There’s a glossiness from the alcohol layered over his blue eyes, and he wets his lower lip with his tongue before he says, “Why is everyone obsessed with you?”

The last time I heard jealousy so thinly veiled as a question, it was when Everett and Lander found out I was having lunch with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Everett asked, “Have you even read one of her dissenting opinions?”

Weston is a particular brand of finance bro who finds the mere act of working in the industry to be an aphrodisiac. He’s the type who grew up dreaming of a Patagonia and a button-down, and any given day, he’s high on himself or high-grade blow—more often than not, the latter. And the particularly annoying thing about Weston: He typically has no clue what the fuck is going on at Hannington-Hale.

His marble cut cheekbone elevates alongside a smile that looks one part genuine and two parts annoying. I wonder if having his last name on the building feeds his high or dampens it. If I were a betting man—and to be clear, I amthequintessential betting man—I’d venture it’s the former; he probably loves working for his daddy and hates that his father does indeed love me.

“Hey, can you keep an eye on Hayes?” I ask, avoiding the question. “I might have to call him a car.”

Weston nods, and I take advantage of his distraction to go onto my balcony. It’s cold out here—too cold to be jacket-less—but the liquor coursing in my bloodstream eases me as usual.

Essie answers on the third ring, and her voice fills my ear with a lyrical, “Let me guess. You want me to teabag you while you update the quarterly dashboard.”

“Don’t be silly. I would never ask for that,” I reply, leaning against the railing as I speak. “Everyone knows senior VPs don’t mess around with dashboards.”

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