Page 87 of A Fae in Finance
“Humans prefer privacy,” I said, fiddling with the mouse.
With a noise like an overburdened cement mixing machine, she stood up and stalked out of the room. I stood and took a few steps away from my chair.
The second the door closed behind her, I tiptoed back to my seat with absolute stealth and absolutely no grace. I slid gingerly down and tabbed over to my emails.
I opened Kayla’s latest.
Hi Miri,
I am sure you’re busy with the client but I don’t know where to start with this and am sitting paralyzed with indecision and fear at my computer. Haha.
The previous email began similarly.
Dear Miri,
I don’t want to bother you but I don’t know what folders in the server I should use to find this information. Or what information I am looking for. Jeff is in the office but Stoneleys Gross got the mandate for the werewolf food company this morning and he doesn’t want to talk. Levi is at home and won’t answer my calls. I don’t want to ask Corey any questions in case he thinks badly of me.
I bit back a groan.
Hi Kayla, I typed in reply, trying to tap lightly against the keyboard. I pictured the Gray Knight standing outside my door, ear pressed to the wood, listening for the sounds of urination or betrayal.
Don’t panic. Google is your friend. So are PitchBook and Capital IQ. Just look around for companies that manufacture household goods—public companies or private companies with accessible financials—and use those to set up a valuation spreadsheet. Please ask Corey questions.
Miri
I sent it and tabbed back to the Excel model. “Ready,” I called out, and the Gray Knight opened the door posthaste. She popped in like a Jack-in-the-box, only beautiful and slightly less scary.
“You took a long time,” she said, glaring around suspiciously as she returned to her seat. I checked the clock. I had not taken a long time, and she was being quite grumpy, really.
“It wasn’t that long,” I said.
“I felt the press of the eons upon my shoulders as I waited.”
If she said it, it must have been true. So apparently she wasn’t having a great day either. Doctor Kitten and I looked at each other.
“Sorry,” I said. “I realized Doctor Kitten… needed me.”
“You detained me in the hallway in order to engage with your cat?” Her voice had gone flat.
I flinched back in my chair. “No, sorry,” I said. “I didn’t do that.”
We both shifted in our seats. Her unbound hair swung across her shoulder in silk sheets. I scratched at my hand, fidgeted with my ring. She didn’t speak. Her profile was so severe, so rigid I almost couldn’t remember her sayingYou are rare to me.
“Why did you tell Sahir we lay together?” I blurted.
She froze, eyes on the window.
“Why would I not?” she asked, and I thought I saw a tic, a jump in her jaw muscles. “Are you ashamed of what we did?”
Two questions for the price of one. I gritted my teeth.
“Sahir thinks you wanted me to fall in love with you so you would have more political cachet,” I said. “He thinks you think humans are all monogamous and that you wanted power over me.”
She scoffed. “I do not need more power in this Court, human,” she said, sounding haughty and offended at the same time. “I did what I did because I wanted to.”
Oh.
I’d been ready to have a confrontation, but I wasn’t ready to have this conversation.
