I shift on my feet. The grass beneath my boots is still crunchy from frost. It’s all that breaks up the silence that follows.
“Alex,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. I really am so, so sorry. About all of it.”
He rubs at his face, eyes pointed listlessly toward the sky. When he doesn’t say anything for a few moments, I can’t take it.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
“I am wondering,” he says, voice gravelly, “if I have any right to be mad at you for keeping a privileged secret from me that might have gotten you into serious trouble, had I not kept it to myself. And I think the answer is no. I don’t have that right.” His eyes drop to mine. “But I’m also wondering why you didn’t trust me enough to tell me that secret anyway. Because whether we admitted it to each other or not, we were dating a month ago. I was already telling you everything a month ago.” I can see his frustration visibly growing. “I spent weeks working on that presentation. You spent weeks. Now you’re telling me the whole time, Dougie Dawson was just waiting for the curtain to close?”
“It wasn’t like that. Tracy thought we had a chance—”
“I’m sure you can understand why Tracy’s thoughts don’t hold much weight for me right now, manipulative as she’s been toward both of us,” he mutters. “Fuck. That was supposed to be it.” Alex grabs at his hair, turning away from me.
That was supposed to be it.
Successfully launching a subsidiary company at his father’s old haunt was supposed to be the thing that would make Robert care.
I think of Mom in this moment, of her obsession with legacy. I still don’t know what mine is supposed to be. But Alex does. That was supposed to be it. Only now, it won’t be. It won’t be.
“Alex,” I whisper, and he turns back. “We did everything we could. We tried our hardest.”
For an instant, I deceive myself into thinking his eyes warm, but it’s so brief, and they go so cold after, that I must have only seen what I wanted.
“I know, Casey,” he says, his voice soft and low. “And I’ll come around to that, with time. That the acquisition was beyond either of our control.” His jaw flexes and he breaks hold of my gaze, looking back toward the car. “But you obviously never trusted me the way I trusted you. And that’s what’s really breaking my heart.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
My Subway Nemesis is holding two things: his usual homemade death trap granola bar and a computer bag with a vaguely familiar insignia stitched on the front. Through puffy, swollen eyes—I haven’t stopped crying all week, despite the excitement of planning my big move and Miriam’s constant attempts to cheer me up—I squint at it.
I’ve seen that before, I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, where have I seen that before.
It’s woven with silver thread, a small spiral that braids in on itself. I stare for a few beats longer, and then, I realize—
It’s the same symbol I spotted on a document in Robert’s Harrison’s town house.
My forehead wrinkles, and hair falls into my eyes as I lower my head into my hand, thinking. The headache I haven’t been able to get rid of for days is drumming loudly, choking my thoughts the same way it’s been robbing me of sleep.
Focus.
I think this is important. Because … even when I saw the symbol there, on that Upper East Side entryway table, right before Alex made urgent, desperate love to me on the sunroom floor—fuck, I miss him so much and it’s only been a week—but even then, it was familiar.
So, where did I see it the first time?
My Subway Nemesis is talking with someone he recognized a few minutes ago. They’re having a slightly awkward, self-preening conversation about his current line of work. I’ve been halfway listening, halfway reading a historical romance novel （to avoid thinking about the tragedy of my own romantic state）， but the more they talk the louder they get, and I eventually give up on the French Revolution.
“I miss the rush,” says my Subway Nemesis. “The excitement of the floor.”
“You mean the terror,” says the other. “But I get it. Trading’s so addictive, sometimes it feels illegal.”
I roll my eyes. Okay, Jordan Belfort.
“What do you do now?” the trader asks.
“Financial consulting,” says my Subway Nemesis, and I roll my eyes again.
“What sort of consulting?” the trader asks.
“We work with clients looking to break into new markets.”
I look at his computer bag.
I look at my Subway Nemesis.
I look back at his computer bag.
And then, I remember.
That symbol was on the Strauss website.
In a perfectly Elle Woods moment, a lightbulb glows bright in my mind, and I gasp out loud, causing both men to glance down where I’m sitting. My hands clutch my book as the train hauls to a stop, and shakily, I rise to standing.
“That’s the Strauss logo, right? Is Strauss one of your clients?” I ask. “A client you’re trying to help break into a new market?”
Subway Nemesis glares at me. He looks down at his bag, then back up. “It’s not against our company policy to accept gifts worth less than fifty dollars. And stop eavesdropping, you teenaged SEC narc.”
“That’s not what I … I’m not going to report your gift to the … Whatever.”
I walk out the doors. Up the stairs.
My brain is swimming.
That’s the Strauss logo, and it was in Robert Harrison’s house, and Strauss is employing a consulting firm to help it break into new markets, and oh my God oh my God oh my God.
The tall windows of FiDi refract sunlight all around me, but it does nothing to stave off the sharp cold. Pink salt crunches beneath my boots as I start to walk, chewing on my lip while my mind rolls over the puzzle pieces that are suddenly fitting together. In a daze, I’m in the building, then the elevator. Then Tracy Garcia’s office. Gloves still on. Brain still swimming.
Tracy is standing behind her desk in a dusty-blue long-sleeve dress. When she sees me, she smiles. And when she really sees me—focused eyes, racing mind, here without an appointment or an offer of explanation—her smile slips into a smirk. “Yes?”
My voice comes out soft but confident. “You said Strauss Holdings’ offer was high. Higher than Little Cooper is worth.”
She doesn’t miss a beat. “I did. And they went even higher last week. They probably thought we’d have accepted by now and upped their offer to speed things along.”
I start pacing. “What if Strauss knew our growth strategy for Bite the Hand? What if they factored it into their offer? Strauss is mostly a print magazine company, but I think it’s wanting to … break into a new market.”
“How would they know about Bite the Hand’s growth plan?” Tracy asks. Taunts. “That whole project is privileged information.”
“Someone told them.”
“Who?” If leading the witness was a thing in the finance world, she’d be doing it.
My laugh comes out slightly deranged. “This is why you asked me to get information from Alex. This is why you told me, a lowly analyst, about the acquisition. Why you pretended to let the Strauss name slip from your mouth in front of me when it was probably no accident at all.”