Chapter 3 Cass

I exhaled as soon as the heavy wooden door to the Libra offices closed behind me. My hands were trembling. I had no explanation for that. It was either anger or frustration or maybe even shock. My dread and trepidation over the last few weeks had clearly been warranted—if not prudent. But the fresh air greeted me, reminding me there was a world beyond the conference room where I just spent the last few hours with Marcus Fitz. Marcus fucking Fitz.

That was what they called him in college. When Libra started attracting momentum in the media, the university newspaper— The Daily Princetonian —interviewed Alex Larson for a feature story on the university's two latest budding tech entrepreneurs. In the article, he was quoted as saying, " Mark my words, me and Marcus f***ing Fitz are going to take over the world ."

The ridiculous nickname stuck, catapulting Marcus's status from shy, unassuming freshman to noteworthy, soon-to-be-rich tech bro. I remembered sitting in Firestone Library one day during midterms week, watching as a duo of lacrosse players high-fived him and said, "You're the man, Marcus fucking Fitz," while Marcus grinned sheepishly, blush rising in his cheeks. Like the asshole I was back in college, I shushed them from the other side of the stacks. Knowing me, I probably threw in a cringeworthy eyeroll for good measure. But then I remembered Marcus bowing down, peering at me through the rows of books with those beautiful green eyes of his, and mouthing Sorry at me. My breath had hitched at the sight. Back then, that brief interaction circled me for weeks. I couldn't shake it: God, that guy was cute.

Ten years later, standing outside of his office, I pulled my blouse away from my chest a couple of times. Cool air surrounded me and continued to abate the full-bodied fury that he had awoken in me. That wasn't at all how I thought that interaction would go. I assumed it would be awkward, potentially. But hostile? No. That wasn't Marcus—at least not ten years ago.

Clearly things had changed.

After I left the Libra offices, I headed over to the Davenport-Ridgeway Tower to check in with my manager, Mahendra, who took me at face value when I told him that the meeting was just fantastic, nothing to report, and certainly no near bouts of rage with the seller. After that, I sent a summary email to Corinne Tyler, one of the presidents on the mergers and acquisitions team, who was leading the deal with Libra.

Corinne answered immediately, which was my biggest pet peeve in a person. I knew that was irrational. It was probably a phenomenal quality in an employee, but I just wanted to get the hell out of the office as fast as humanly possible. Instead, I found myself engaging with her over email for the next half hour.

It did occur to me that I could have just responded to her tomorrow. After all, that was what I usually did—even when I had plenty of time to email. Work to live, not the other way around , that was the motto. But I actually liked Corinne Tyler. Despite her youth, she was one of the few women in leadership in M&A at the company, and she was a bona fide bad ass. To be honest, she kind of had to be one. Her fiancé was our CEO's heir apparent, and one misstep by Corinne would undoubtedly add fuel to the rumor that her hire was based on nepotism. Anyone who worked with her knew nepotism had nothing to do with it, but office politics were an impossible, untamable beast.

I appreciate your diligence on this (no pun intended, because puns are the lowest form of humor) , Corinne wrote. Have a great evening, Cassandra.

That was my cue to leave, and I did so with the same joy I felt every day when the clock struck six and I could leave this soul sucking (though lucrative) job.

I finally got home around seven, just in time to cross paths with my roommate, Bethany. She said I could eat the rest of the pasta she made herself for dinner, as long as I cleaned up the kitchen. I then spent the next hour eating chicken alfredo out of the pan, splitting a cheap ass bottle of wine with myself (I would drink the other half tomorrow), watching The Blair Witch Project for the tenth time, and thinking about Marcus Fitz.

My assumption was that he was doing the same thing right now—although, he was probably doing it in whatever lavish, million-dollar Park apartment he had secured for himself. He also probably didn't need a roommate to make rent and was most likely eating something organic that didn't come from a Knorr packet. I, on the other hand, was lying in a lopsided bed that still smelled like cigarettes, whiskey, and cologne from the stranger I banged last night. I didn't envy Marcus though. I'd slept in multi-million-dollar homes before and knew firsthand that money couldn't buy happiness (even if it could pay the bills).

The last time I saw him, we were eighteen. The interaction was uncharacteristically hazy for me after so long, but it wasn't entirely sharp when it happened. I blamed Four Loko, creepy upperclassmen who always invited me to their parties, and eighteen years of oppressive rule by my parents.

That night, we were both drunk and not yet capable of managing our liquor. The dancefloor was dark and the music was pounding—Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and then that horrendous Chris Brown song. I could still hear the drunk preppy bros, cackling about what I said to Marcus. I remembered the look on Marcus's face—something between hurt and shock, like he didn't know I had it in me to speak like that to anybody. In the moment, a pang of regret hit me as soon as those words left my mouth, but my lethal arrogance stopped me from apologizing. It wasn't my finest hour. I knew that. But little about my time at Princeton incited much pride in me.

Marcus had changed a lot since the last time I saw him. Physically, he looked the same—just infinitely wealthier. He still had that thick brown hair that he kept longish and those light green eyes that made my jaw go slack when I saw him for the very first time in the library. Now, he was obviously much older. He had shed the baby fat that boys so often bring to college and lose sometime around junior year. He was sharper now, with more hard edges. And he had a hint of stubble on his jaw that just screamed I'm a workaholic but I still take time to look disarmingly handsome.

But the primary and biggest difference between Marcus ten years ago and Marcus today was how confidently he carried himself. This morning, he walked into that conference room and looked right at me, commanding my attention. That wasn't the Marcus I once knew. The Marcus I used to know was so often in Alex's shadow, following him from party to party, standing off to the side while Alex would chatter endlessly about his new app—which was called Scales at the time. He would chew on his thumbnail while he watched it happening, smiling softly when people would pat him on the back. In those days, Marcus couldn't even make eye contact with people when they spoke to him. Today, he looked into my eyes and he didn't falter.

I swigged some wine straight from the bottle (so much for saving half of it for tomorrow). I released a breath, laboring to keep my exhalation even. I still didn't know why I acted the way I did on that night ten years ago. Truth be told, I had spent a long time repressing it, pretending that it didn't happen.

Now that Marcus was back in my life, it was just a matter of time before I would have to confront it. I probably should have known that it was never so simple as pretending things didn't happen.

I would have to learn that the hard way, but I was no stranger to that.

***

I awoke fifteen minutes earlier than usual, determined to arrive at Libra on time. That ended up being a prudent decision because it wasn't until I was getting out of the shower that I realized I had a gargantuan hickey on my neck. I spent five minutes applying concealer to cover it, before I realized this was some kind of superhuman hickey that refused to be tamed. I ended up switching out my outfit to a sleeveless turtleneck and a pencil skirt, which I had to iron like my life depended on it before I could put it on.

I made record time to the subway, which was of course delayed because it was the subway. That was where I lost a few minutes, swearing inaudibly and making silent deals with the universe that if I could just get to work on time, I would never ghost another guy again. To my relief, by the time I was rounding the corner to the Libra offices, dangerously close to snapping the heel off one of my pumps because I was speed walking at Olympic-level pace, I was just about on-time.

Suck it, Marcus.

My victory was short-lived, however. As I stood there, staring at the time on the face of my phone, it began to ring. Taunting me. And it was truly a cruel twist of karmic fate, something right out of an ancient Greek tragedy, because the caller ID read: Mom .

Every fiber of my being ignited with anger. My grip tightened around the phone, making my hand quake lightly in the process. Of course. Of course she would call me right now—when my professional reputation was on the brink and I was on the verge of slipping into the red zone with an egotistical founder I once insulted a decade ago. Of course she would call me when I was panting, sweating through the back of my turtleneck as my feet throbbed in six-year-old Jimmy Choos that she bought me when I started law school.

"Fuck off," I murmured, just as a woman in an abhorrent houndstooth coat passed me on the sidewalk. She sent a glare in my direction that was so caustic, I envied it.

I ignored my mother's call and sent it straight to voicemail, which I swiftly realized was a monumental misstep. It was a blatant indication that I was holding my phone and was fully aware that she was trying to get in touch with me. I may as well have texted, I'M IGNORING YOUR EVIL ASS to her.

Naturally, the phone rang again immediately after I sent it to voicemail, like clockwork. It vibrated and flashed at me, just daring me to ignore her. If persistence and shamelessness were gold medals, my mother would be Michael Phelps. Continuing to send her to voicemail was just delaying the inevitable—and I needed to get her off my back before I started the day with Marcus.

I glanced at the watch on my wrist. I only had eight minutes until I was officially late. I spent fifteen seconds of those precious eight minutes standing outside of the Libra offices and just glaring at my phone, wondering if I could wrap this up in seven and a half minutes. It was a stretch, but I had done it before.

Taking a deep breath, I tapped the green button on the screen and brought the phone up to my ear. "Mother, I can't talk now. I'm about to walk into—"

"Cassandra, you cannot dodge my calls forever."

I could try.

Her voice was honey and harps, the kind of tuneful and soft voice that women of a certain generation were once expected to have. It clashed with the subtle, venomous words that so often passed through her lips. I paused when I heard her, bracing myself. Her tone sent me reeling every time I heard it, and I realized that wasn't a normal reaction for anyone to have when hearing her mother. Over the years, my responses had been capricious. Today, I chose to fight. "I'm not dodging your calls. I'm speaking to you, aren't I?"

"I would like to have a real conversation with my daughter." As usual, she was succinct and she didn't stutter. My mother would have made a phenomenal lawyer—a phenomenal anything , really.

For the first (but certainly not the last) time in this conversation, I released a sigh. "Well, I believe the window of opportunity has shut on that one. There's no chance of you and me having a real conversation again. You and dad gave that up when his assistant sent me that invoice."

My mother was quiet. The word "invoice" was practically my safe word. All I had to do was weave it into the conversation and without fail, she would find a way to end the call.

"I have to go now," I told her. "I'm working. Tell dad he'll have another check at the end of the month."

"He's not cashing those checks, Cassandra. He just wants to talk to you. We both do."

Hearing that, I sighed again. I would be lying if I said the notion didn't tempt me. At some point, I loved my parents. Both of them. There were days when I still thought about sitting in my dad's BMW and listening to audiobooks when we would drive to our vacation home in Big Sur. I would fall asleep to Stephen King, my father shaking his head and smiling the whole time and saying, "This man is a genius ," after every chapter.

But then I remembered that it was always the same with them. Love with caveats. Strings attached. Conditional love. The kind of love that you couldn't lean on, or trust to catch you when you were falling—when you needed it the most.

I knew better than to believe this, not again.

"Trevor is picking me up after work, but I can call you tonight," I lied, testing her.

And sure enough, my mother failed miserably when she blurted out, "Don't tell me you're back together with that lowlife."

"See?" I snapped, dropping my leather tote right on the concrete sidewalk into cigarette butts and coffee lids and stale water and whatever the hell else was waiting on New York's streets. "You're so full of shit. You haven't changed at all."

"How dare you talk to me like that? After everything I've done for you." Her harps and honey had evolved into straight harpy at that point. Acid practically radiated out of the phone, drawing out the goosebumps on my neck that prickled when I got angry.

"Don't," I cut in. "Don't do this again. Don't you dare manipulate me by bringing up the fact that you so boldly, so valiantly raised your child. The selflessness, mother. The absolute sainthood you deserve."

"I will not accept you speaking to me that way. I'm still your mother, Cassandra."

"Don't remind me. And I swear, the day I pay you back will be the day I change my phone number and officially cut all ties with you and your scumbag husband."

"He's your father!"

I was holding the phone two inches from my ear, but the words rang deafening, a stark reminder that yes—he was still my father, no matter what I did.

"Well, we can all be more than one thing at a time," I retorted. "This conversation is over. I'm going."

But it was never that simple with my mother. "You do not hang up on me," she insisted. "I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to help you get your life back together."

"I am so freaking happy with my new life that you're going to have to pry it from my cold, dead hands." I was nearly shouting on the street at this point, but I didn't care. Let them listen. Let all of New York know that I gave zero fucks about what my parents thought of me. "You have nothing left to offer me. I am so close to being free from you, and the day I send you that last check will be the happiest day of my entire life."

"Cassandra!"

"Goodbye, mother." I ended the call, picked up my bag, and shoved open the door to the Libra offices.