Chapter 3: Monday Morning

Sloane

I arrived at my office at seven forty five on Monday morning.

Not because the meeting was at nine. Because I needed the hour before the meeting to be completely prepared and being completely prepared required arriving early enough that the building felt like mine before anyone else arrived to complicate that feeling.

I had done my research.

This was not a surprise to anyone who knew me. I did research the way other people breathed. Automatically and continuously and without deciding to. By Sunday evening I had a file on Beckett Rowe that covered his career trajectory his company's acquisition history his board composition his known professional associations and three analyses of his sector strategy written by people who tracked these things for a living.

I had read all of it twice.

What I knew going into this meeting was considerable.

What I did not know was why he wanted to meet with me specifically.

That was the thing that had been sitting in the back of my mind since Saturday morning when his voice had come through my phone low and even and completely controlled saying the kind that requires a face to face conversation.

Corporate attorneys got called for specific reasons.

Litigation. Acquisition. Dispute resolution. Contract review.

Nothing in Beckett Rowe's current professional profile suggested an obvious need for any of those things at this particular moment.

Which meant the reason was not obvious.

I did not like reasons that were not obvious.

Dara arrived at eight thirty with two coffees and the expression she wore when she was excited about something and was managing that excitement with professional discipline.

She handed me a coffee.

Sat across from my desk.

"He is early," she said.

I looked up from my file. "He is not supposed to be here until nine."

"He arrived at eight fifty," she said. "He is in the lobby."

I looked at my watch.

Eight fifty two.

Eight minutes early.

Which told me something. Men like Beckett Rowe did not arrive eight minutes early to meetings by accident. Eight minutes early was a choice. It said I am here and I am ready and I am not the kind of person who makes you wait but I am also not so eager that I arrived thirty minutes before the scheduled time.

Eight minutes was calculated.

"Send him up at nine," I said. "Not before."

Dara looked at me.

"You want him to wait eight minutes in the lobby," she said.

"I want him to arrive at the scheduled time," I said. "Nine o clock."

She almost smiled.

Went back to her desk.

I straightened my file.

Looked at the city through my window.

Thought about a charity auction and a Maine kitchen facing the ocean and a man who had looked at me like he had already decided something and then called me on a Saturday morning.

Told myself to stop thinking about that and focus on the professional meeting that was about to happen.

Focused on the professional meeting.

For approximately ninety seconds.

He walked in at nine exactly.

Dark suit. No tie. The same as Friday night except that in the daylight of my office he was more real than he had been across a crowded room. More present. The specific quality of someone who occupied whatever space they were in completely without trying.

He looked at my office.

Then at me.

I stood up.

We shook hands across my desk.

His handshake was exactly what I expected. Firm. Brief. The handshake of someone who had decided that a handshake was a data point and was giving you accurate data.

"Ms. Mercer," he said.

"Mr. Rowe," I said. "Sit down."

He sat.

I sat.

We looked at each other across my desk.

I waited.

He looked around the office briefly. Not nervously. Assessingly. The way I looked at things when I was building a picture.

"You arrived early," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Eight fifty," I said.

Something moved at the corner of his mouth.

That thing.

The thing that was more complicated than a smile.

"You were watching," he said.

"My assistant mentioned it," I said.

"Your assistant who you asked to send me up at nine regardless of when I arrived," he said.

I held his gaze.

"You assumed that," I said.

"Did I assume it incorrectly," he said.

A pause.

"No," I said. "You did not."

He looked at me with the expression that gave away nothing and slightly more than nothing simultaneously.

"I like that," he said.

"That I made you wait eight minutes," I said.

"That you knew I would come early and planned for it," he said. "Most people do not plan for things they do not know for certain."

"I plan for likely scenarios," I said. "You arriving early was a likely scenario."

"Based on what," he said.

"Based on you," I said. "You are the kind of person who arrives early to things that matter to you and on time to things that do not."

He looked at me.

Something shifted in his expression.

Not visibly. Underneath.

"This meeting matters to you," I said. It was not a question.

"Yes," he said.

"Then tell me why," I said. "Specifically. Not the version that sounds like a business introduction. The actual reason."

He held my gaze for a long moment.

The office quiet around us.

The city outside doing its Monday morning thing.

And then he told me.

Not all of it.

I would learn later that he never told anyone all of it in the first conversation. That he gave you what you needed to take the next step and held back the rest until he had decided you were ready for it.

But what he told me was enough.

A business arrangement. A performance. Events and obligations and a specific outcome he needed that required someone with a particular combination of qualities he had not found in eleven other candidates.

He had found it in me.

He did not say why I specifically yet.

I did not push for it yet.

I would.

But not today.

Today I listened to the shape of what he was proposing and felt something I was going to categorize as professional assessment and absolutely nothing to do with the charity auction or the kitchen facing the ocean or the way he was looking at me right now like I was the most interesting problem he had encountered in a long time.

"You are proposing a performance arrangement," I said when he finished.

"Yes," he said.

"A fake relationship," I said.

"A professional arrangement," he said. "The distinction matters."

"Does it," I said.

"To me," he said. "Yes."

I looked at him across my desk.

At the dark suit and the no tie and the controlled face that gave away slightly more than it was supposed to.

"I have conditions," I said.

"I assumed you would," he said.

"You assumed correctly," I said. "Again."

That thing at the corner of his mouth.

"Tell me your conditions," he said.

So I did.

And he agreed to all of them.

Without hesitation.

Without negotiation.

Without a single counter offer.

Which was when I understood that whatever this was it was significantly more complicated than a professional arrangement.

And that I had already decided to find out exactly how complicated.

Which was either very smart or very stupid and I genuinely could not tell which.

He stood to leave at nine forty seven.

Picked up his jacket.

Looked at me.

"Ms. Mercer," he said.

"Mr. Rowe," I said.

"The auction," he said. "Friday night."

I held his gaze.

"What about it," I said carefully.

"The kitchen facing the ocean," he said. "That is what you were bidding for."

I did not say anything.

"I know because it is what I was bidding for," he said. "I have been to that house. The kitchen is exactly what the photograph suggests."

I looked at him.

"You have been there before," I said.

"Yes," he said. "Several times."

"Then you did not need to win the auction," I said slowly. "You could have booked it directly."

He held my gaze.

Something moved across his face.

Something I was not fast enough to read before it was gone.

"No," he said quietly. "I could not have booked it directly."

He left before I could ask why.

I sat at my desk and listened to the elevator close and thought about a man who had bid ten thousand dollars for something he could have booked directly and would not explain why and had looked at me the whole time like I was the answer to a question he had been asking for a long time.

My phone buzzed.

Dara.

One message.

Well?

I typed back: Complicated.

She replied immediately: Obviously. WELL?

I put my phone down.

Picked up the file I had built on Beckett Rowe over the weekend.

Opened it to a fresh page.

And started writing down everything I had just learned.

Which was considerable.

And nowhere near enough.