New York Billionaires Series

Freddie’s beautiful, elfin face drifts into my view. Olive-toned skin and brown eyes, dark hair, a beauty with fire in her eyes. And now she’s been offered her dream job. Oh, I’d recognized the tentative hope in her eyes as she told me. The warring of emotions. She’s conflicted, and it’s because of me.

I can see so much of myself in Freddie. The hunger in her eyes. I’d had the same desire, undiluted and powerful, when I was her age. Before I’d received Joshua. I will never regret taking care of him, never regret signing those papers. He’s Jenny’s greatest lesson and greatest gift, as if she’d handed me the note slow down, brother in human form. He’s a wonder.

And yet I remember the initial feeling of being held back. Of making concessions, of sacrificing pieces of your old dream as you try to make sense of the new one. I can’t ask Freddie to do that, and we can’t build a relationship that’s heavy with that decision, weighed down by her sacrifice. I don’t know if it would survive it.

She might resent me one day, not to mention how I might resent myself, because it would kill me to be the reason she doesn’t get what she dreams of.

I reach for the phone on my desk. Dial the number to the chief HR rep.

To do what, though? Instruct them to give her the job?

Or tell them to choose someone else?

Slowly, I put the phone down. For a long moment I just stare at it in horrified silence.

I can’t interfere with this. Whatever happens, it’s Freddie’s decision, and it has to be on her merits alone. My fingerprints can’t be anywhere near this. Not if we’re to have a hope of surviving past it, as friends.

Friends. Could I stand just being her friend? Receiving polite little postcards from Italy?

Never has the knowledge that she’s in the same building as me burned the way it does today. Sitting just a few floors below me, but she might as well be on the other side of the globe already for all the good it does. I can’t take her to lunch. I can’t show her the city.

I’m powerless.

And I hate feeling powerless. So I open my emails and type a quick one to Gwen in HR, still keeping my internal promise not to interfere. Let me know when you have a viable candidate for Milan, I write. I want the position filled as soon as possible.

The emotions inside me still as soon as I’ve sent it. At least I’ll be notified when she’s made a decision. Should give me an opportunity to put on my game face for when she comes to tell me. To break up with me gently. Tell me she’s following her dreams, the way I want for her. Even if it’ll hurt.

I don’t know if it makes it easier or harder that we won’t have much time to spend together before she goes. The company’s holiday party is tomorrow night. Then I fly to Tahiti with Joshua, and she heads to Philadelphia to celebrate Christmas with her family.

A quick, rapid-fire succession of knocks on my office door, the pattern familiar. “Come in.”Property © of NôvelDrama.Org.

Clive’s navy-blue suit is a bit too large for his form. He’s wearing the same bland smile as always, but it widens when he notices my scowl.

“You look like you want to punch someone,” he comments. “Should I leave? Because I’m not a volunteer.”

“No, I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. What do you need?”

He doesn’t waste any time. That’s one of the things I’ve always appreciated with Clive as a COO, that he isn’t here for idle chitchat or trying to get to know me. We run a business, so let’s get down to running it.

“Actually,” he says, sinking down in the chair in front of my desk, “what I want is an update on the mole situation.”

My mood sours further. The fucking leak had struck again, at least if the article Anthony sent me this morning was correct. A rival company in the biotech sphere just unveiled their new five-year plan, and it’s nearly point for point the same as the business strategy we’d developed for a client.

I run a hand through my hair. “I think it’s time we start broadening our horizons away from just Strategy.”

He frowns. “Logically, Strategy makes the most sense. They’re the only ones with access, if one excludes the executive branch. And it’s not amongst us.”

“I have it on good authority that it’s most likely not an employee in Strategy.”

“Yes. I want you to draw up a list of everyone who knew about the biotech strategy for Finley. Leave no one out, including the two of us.”

His eyebrows rise. “Okay, sure thing. But just out of curiosity… who is your source in the Strategy Department?”

The name hovers on my tongue, but something about Clive’s interest halts me. Freddie doesn’t deserve to be dragged into this. “I’ll keep that to myself.”

“Yes, sir.”

Clive shuts the door behind him as he leaves, the silence of my office complete. The way I usually like it, but today, the absence of sound grates. It leaves too much space for my thoughts.

A click on my keyboard wakes my computer to life, and there’s already a peppy email waiting there for me from Gwen in HR.

Great news! We’ve found a trainee from the New York office who would be excellent for the position. We just need to dot some i’s and cross a few t’s, but we’ll have the position filled shortly!

I close my eyes and push back from the desk, telling myself I’m happy for Freddie, but all I feel is happiness slipping out of my grasp.

I spin the frosted glass of white wine around, the red imprint from my lipstick sharp against the rim. He isn’t here, and yet I can’t stop glancing around the packed holiday party, searching for a glimpse of the man I’d first locked eyes with across the Gilded Room. The man who grilled s’mores with his adopted son in the fireplace of a multi-million-dollar apartment. The man who’d refused to be categorized from the very start.

“Earth to Freddie,” Toby says. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely.”

“You looked lost in thought,” he says. “I hope you were somewhere far better.”

“Better than this?” I sweep an arm out at the lavishness. One of Exciteur’s office spaces has been transformed, and food-laden tables surround a tastefully decorated Christmas tree. “What more do we need?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A beach. A raise. A longer vacation to look forward to,” Toby suggests with a grin.

“God, I’d love a longer vacation. What are you doing for yours?” I ask. “Both of you?”

Quentin frowns into his glass, but he shoots a sideways glance at Toby. Toby, who is almost forcefully cheery. Who hasn’t made a single snide, cheeky remark about Quentin. “I’m staying in New York. Well, I’m going to my family in Jersey for the holidays, but that’s only thirty minutes away.”

I glance at Quentin, but he doesn’t rise to the bait, doesn’t make a comment about how Jersey isn’t New York. “I’m staying here,” he tells us both.

“That’s nice. You two have someone to hang out with, then,” I say. “Just in case, I mean. I know I spent some lonely weekends here when I first arrived.”

They don’t look at each other, but nervousness flavors the air. Perhaps they’re navigating the same turmoil that Tristan and I have, working at the same firm. But for them it might amount to no more than a slap on the wrist. For me and Tristan? A junior trainee and the company’s CEO looks awful, from both perspectives.

“But not anymore, not when you have us,” Toby says. “Because we’re going to the opera in January.”

Quentin groans at this, but I don’t. “Really?”

“Yes,” Toby says, clinking his glass with mine. “I’m going to make a real New Yorker out of you.”

“And this comes from someone raised in Jersey,” Quentin mutters, but his voice is fond. My attention slides from their ensuing banter to our mingling co-workers. To the company I’ve just started to get to know.