Chapter 6 Marcus

Every day, no exceptions, my day started at five in the morning. I didn't have much of a say in the matter. My cat, Sammy, would wake me by pawing at my comforter like she was trying to dig me out—as if I wouldn't remember to feed her if she didn't tell me to. I had every right to be annoyed with her, but I was a softie. When she started meowing sweetly and snuggling up in the curve of my neck, I just couldn't say no.

After I fed her, I leashed up my dog, Frank, and we took a walk over to the dog park so he could relieve himself. While we were there, Frank would usually try to start a fight with the bigger dogs—kind of like he knew I would sue the living shit out of anyone who tried to hurt him. Never did I think I would be a father to spoiled pets, but there we were: It was their world and I was just living in it.

Once we were done at the dog park, I went back to my apartment. I did thirty minutes in the gym on the second floor, typically just enough time to run a mile and cool down with some yoga. Then it was a shower, breakfast, coffee, and a ten-minute walk to the office.

Typically, I was the first one to arrive at seven thirty. This was mostly per necessity. I needed to get there early to be productive, otherwise I was juggling swords and trying to dance at the same time. Most days when I got to the office, the place was dark and desolate—like I liked it. Today, I was caught off guard when I walked in and saw Cassie sitting in the fishbowl alone.

The only lights on in the entire office were the overhead sconces in the conference room. They shone over her like she was a priceless item at the Met. I wouldn't be surprised if it was by her design, frankly. She looked over her shoulder when she heard me come in, her brown eyes meeting mine as I walked around the side of the room to where the door was located. When I entered the fishbowl, I stood by the door and glared down at her.

As usual, she was perched primly with a spine so straight that the most well-tuned military battalions could eat their hearts out. She was dressed in a slim, tan pantsuit and a white chiffon blouse that was so well-tailored and well-coordinated that she should have been providing sartorial consultations to First Ladies for generations to come.

"You're early," I noted. My voice came out soft, not having spoken all morning.

"Can I talk to you?" Her tone was sharp, bordering on dangerous. As soon as I heard it, I knew exactly what was about to go down. We were about to engage in a verbal smackdown of epic proportions. Well fine— let's fucking go . My only regret was that I hadn't downed a second cup of coffee already.

Without a word, I walked over to my chair at the other end of the table and I took out my laptop. I situated it on the glass tabletop and booted it up, letting the light from the screen reflect over me and the television mounted on the wall behind me.

"Did you hear me?"

Yep .

"I'm a little busy at the moment," I snapped, keeping my eyes on my screen, which I just knew was going to piss her off. "Is it important?"

"Yes."

I heard her rise from her chair. When I glanced up from my laptop, I saw Cassie standing with her hands resting flat on the table, bent at the waist. It was a classic, 90s power pose, like something straight out of Jerry Maguire . I lifted an eyebrow and scanned her up and down, blatantly enough that she saw me do it, but not too exaggerated as to reveal I was going out of my way to aggravate her.

A sigh escaped me. "Well, you've already interrupted my flow, so you may as well go for it."

"I just want to address what happened yesterday," she said, clearly striving to keep the pace of her words measured, "and to apologize, again, for any lapses of professionalism on my part."

"Okay."

She paused, eyes widening just the tiniest amount. This was a pivotal moment for us: I could keep talking and clean this up, or I could just leave it at that: Okay .

Bottom line: My response was rude. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. But I saw Mark Zuckerberg do it once at a dinner party and I remembered how effective it was at pissing off Jack Dorsey. That night, I swore I would try it out one day, and the strategy didn't disappoint.

Cassie folded her plump lips over for a moment before she released them. Then she pressed them back together. She wasn't wearing lipstick today, but her lips moved into a perfect pout all the same. She exhaled and said, "Can we move forward?"

"Nope," I said, not missing a beat. "I was clear when I talked to Corinne Tyler that I didn't want to see you back in this office again, and yet here you are. This has me questioning the sanity of the team over at Davenport-Ridgeway. If this is the kind of decision-making I can look forward to when I sell my life's work, then I'm hesitant, if you catch my drift."

"There's no mistaking it," she responded—and I had to say her tenacity was admirable. If she spoke to me the way I did to her, I would have walked out of the room by now.

I flicked an eyebrow upward and slanted my head. "So I reiterate: no. We can't move forward."

"Then it sounds like you're walking back on the deal," she noted, her tone unwavering. "Right? What I'm hearing, if I'm catching your drift , is that you're content to pass on five hundred million dollars."

I paused, knowing that we were about to play an exceptionally dangerous game of chicken. "I want you off this deal," I said, actively working to keep expletives out of my sentence. "That's it. End of story."

Cassie exhaled through her nose. She observed me for a few moments, wrangling in the silence like a pro. Good for her. I was still going to win this one—whether or not she knew it.

"Fine. You don't want me on the deal—I get it. But who the fuck do you think you are trying to get me fired?"

Her response was soft-spoken, but somehow much more jarring that way. Neither of us reacted to her words the way that we should have. As a professional, Cassie should have been mortified that she just spoke that way to a business partner. As a stone-cold, seasoned tech douche who once won a share of Tesla stock from Elon Musk himself in a chugging contest, I shouldn't have been fazed by a girl so prim and blond that she probably could have united every sorority in America under her leadership and challenged the president for rule of the nation.

But the thing was, I was fazed by her. The words caught in my throat, and it was only thanks to years of practice and therapy that I could keep the tension from my face. I leaned forward, letting my forearms rest on the tabletop. It was cold, downright uncomfortable. I couldn't surrender my position though; I just had to grin and bear it. "Let's be clear, Cassandra. You're not going to come into my office and ask questions about my decisions," I finally replied, eyes locked on hers. "I'm not sorry either. I don't hesitate to do whatever it takes to ensure the best for Libra."

Cassie scoffed. "And you don't think I'm good enough to lead due diligence for your beloved company?"

Nope .

"I think the way you're reacting to some well-timed feedback from your own company is a sure sign that no—you're not good enough to lead due diligence for Libra."

Hearing my response, she shifted from her power pose and stood up straight. "You really think you know anything about me?" She shook her head. "Please. You may think you have me pegged, but I can guarantee you don't know anything."

"Okay."

"And fine—if you want me gone? Screw it. I'm gone ."

Cassie began to pack up her things, preparing to storm out for the third day in a row. Relief started to creep into my being. By the end of the day, she was bound to be out of my life for good—and I wouldn't have it any other way.

But there was still this part of me left unresolved and without closure as I watched her slide her arms into her coat. I could tell I had angered her, but I just wished I had done so much more. It only seemed fair, after what she put me through.

"This is a hell of a story coming from a woman who lied about knowing me," I called out, just as she put her hand on the doorknob.

Cassie paused with her back to me. Her shoulders pulled together and her fingertips lingered on the edge of the handle, running languidly along the metal. Slowly, she rotated to face me. Her expression was flat, but I could tell she was working to keep it that way. Her jawline tensed, likely the result of her clenching her teeth together.

"You think I lied?"

"I know you did. You knew where we met," I challenged, nodding my chin at her. "You've been trying to hide it this whole time."

Still sporting a poker face, Cassie folded her arms. "You're making a lot of assumptions."

"So, let's say I'm wrong." I shut my laptop with a snap. I leaned back in my seat and rested my hands on the armrests. "Let's say I'm wrong and let's pretend you don't remember me. I toyed with that notion once, but it just doesn't make sense."

"Why not?"

"You're many things, but you're not dumb, Cassandra. I only spent three months in college, but in that amount of time I knew you were in a class all your own. You remembered me."

Face steely, she continued to stare at me.

"Tell me how you somehow don't remember throwing a cup of Milwaukee's Best in my face. Tell me how you don't remember the things you said to the most successful person to come out of our class. I know we were both drunk that night, but we weren't blacked out or anything."

Without another word, I got to my feet and I walked over to her. I stopped when I was about a foot away, leaving her staring up at my face. For once, it occurred to me just how small she was. Something about the way she carried herself always gave me the impression she was taller, more commanding. No, now that we were standing right next to each other, for once, I realized she was petite—pure gravitas and nothing more.

I shook my head as I glared down at her. "God, Cassandra, I remember it like it was yesterday. Or should I say, Cassie ." I reached out and I picked a piece of lint off her shoulder. Except, there was no lint there. Her jacket was pristine—as usual. But my performance must have been convincing enough because she briefly broke eye contact to glance down at my hand.

"Don't call me Cassie," she muttered after a long pause, her eyes still averted down at her shoulder.

"But that's who you were back then. Cassie Pierson from…I want to say San Francisco. Is that right?"

Her silence was all the confirmation I needed.

"Cassie Pierson, freshman class president at Princeton. Did you know all the guys in my hall voted for you just so they had something to say to you when they ran into you when we went out?" I nodded. "I voted for you too, for the record."

"Good for you."

"Yeah, I thought you seemed so genuine," I continued, watching as her eyes landed on anything but me. "That was before you told me I was an idiot for dropping out of Princeton, that my company was built on hypocrisy, and that you didn't expect to hear from me ever again."

And that was it. That was verbatim what Cassie said to me on my last night at Princeton. As soon as the words were out in the open, they soaked up the tension in the room. We were doing this—after ten years, we were finally going to talk about that night.

Good .

"Did I get it right?" I asked needlessly. "That's what you said to me, wasn't it?"

Somehow, Cassie was unfazed. She simply tossed her hair away from her face and said, "Marcus, you're ten years older and hundreds of millions of dollars richer. You're still angry about what one freshman girl said to you drunkenly on a dancefloor in an eating club? Get over it."

Get over it .

I learned many years ago that get over it was one of my triggers—one of those little throwaway phrases that pushed me into the deep end. I loathed its flippancy and its condescension. I wouldn't take it from her—not her, not anyone.

"That's cute," I snapped, working furiously to keep my voice from wavering. I felt my hands starting to vibrate with frustration. "I love this revisionist history, but that's not how I remember it. I remember an eighteen-year-old kid, going out with his friends for a last hurrah before he dropped out of school to take on the terrifying task of launching a startup with millions of dollars on the line. I remember going to Ivy and seeing that nice, pretty girl who I had talked to a few times before. I remember thinking: Hey, I'm probably never going to see her again so I should have a conversation with her or something . And then I remember her laughing in my face for no reason, insulting me and my company, and assembling a nice little crowd of her trust fund brat groupies to laugh along with her. And that's what you all did, right? You laughed at me."

Cassie looked away from me again, just as she pulled her lower lip back with her teeth. She had heard enough—I could tell. I wasn't done though, not by a longshot.

I took another step forward. "I stood there feeling so small, wondering what I ever did to this girl who was so fucking nice to everyone else—except for me. So…what did I say to her?"

"You said—"

I held up my hand, cutting her off. "I said, ‘In ten years I'm going to be a wealthy motherfucker who made a real difference, and you're going to be some rich guy's trophy wife who wishes she had done anything exceptional with her life.' And that's when you threw a beer in my face, right?"

Cassie didn't say a word. She simply glanced to the other side, staring into the darkness for a few seconds. When she looked back at me, her expression was unreadable.

"I'm sorry," she said, raising both shoulders like she didn't know what to do with her body. "I'm sorry I said those things and threw a beer at you."

"Are you?" I questioned. "Or is this just a ploy to keep your job, Cassie? Because the thing is: I don't need an apology from you. It would be nice, sure, but I have no desire to make amends with you. To be totally honest, I didn't give a shit about you for ten years. All I know is that I won't gut my company and expose her insides to someone like you. So, there's nothing we can do here other than call it a day and get a new analyst. Understood?"

"Not going to happen." She shook her head. "It's just not an option."

"And why the hell not?"

"Because this is my job," she responded, finally looking at me again. And when she did, there was a resolve in her brown eyes that I hadn't seen before. "I may not like you, but I'm going to do right by your company. I'm going to make sure that for the next fifty-seven days, nothing goes sideways. By the time I'm done, you'll have your money and you won't have to think about me ever again."

I frowned. "So you're telling me nobody else can do your job?"

"No, plenty of other people can," she countered, nodding. "It's not that hard. But I am good at what I do. Exceptionally good. I've closed five deals in the last year, and I've managed to finish them all ahead of schedule. In three of those deals, I was able to make a case to Davenport-Ridgeway to increase the purchase price because of oversights on multiple parties' parts. That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

In a swift motion, she removed her coat. She turned and laid it on the back of her chair before she faced me again.

I put my hands into the pocket of my slacks, watching as Cassie took a deep breath. She didn't force a smile this time, but she nodded her head and took a step closer to me.

"Ten years was a long time ago, but I owe you an apology. A real one. We may never be friends, but we can help each other. You want a clean deal, and I want to keep my job. Let's do that." She held out her hand to me.

I looked down at it, at her perfectly manicured hand that sported a delicate gold watch that was so small I couldn't even fit all five of my fingertips through it at once. I shook my head. "I'm not ready for that."

Slowly, Cassie lowered her hand to her side. There was a brief glint of dejection on her face, but it faded quickly.

"What?" I asked, frowning. "You really want to work on this deal? This means that much to you? I find that hard to believe."

"Why?" Cassie asked. She reached over and picked up her coat.

"Because I don't think you give a shit about Libra. You told me that ten years ago—to my face. What could have changed in that amount of time?"

To my surprise, Cassie shrugged. "Maybe you're right, maybe not." She shook her head. "But humor me, before I go. Tell me why you and Alex created this app."

I paused, two things sticking out to me. The first: The request sounded sincere. The second: She called him Alex. Not Lex.

I was the only one who had done that in years.

"We created Libra because we believed everyone has the right to try to better themselves, regardless of whether or not they can afford the exorbitant cost of education in this country. So, until someone can rein in the prohibitively expensive fees associated with college and grad school, it's our responsibility to empower people to manage their debt in a smart and sensible way."

As I spoke, she was nodding. "Let's just say, that message means a lot more to me now. I can't lose this job, Marcus."

When I took in her expression, I was reluctant to admit that it looked sincere. Damn it. Just when I thought I could rid myself of her for good, she had to do this. She had to bring up the one thing I cared about and tell me it meant something to her as well.

"You really think you're that good?" I asked after a pause.

She nodded, her body relaxing at the same time. "Diligence is an art, not a science. Most people don't realize it."

Shaking my head, I let out a sigh. "Look, I'm going against every business instinct I have right now, but we can give this a shot. You're on thin ice though, Cassie. I'm going to need total commitment from here on out."

"Noted," she said, her eyes locked on mine. "I won't let you down."