“No. The house was furnished, but I hired someone to stock the kitchen with anything I might need.”
My jaw fell open. “That’s a thing?”
“Sure—for a price.” He watched me pull out a shiny stainless sauté pan and place it on a burner.
“So you just say, ‘I want a kitchen full of beautiful things, here’s my credit card?’ And you don’t have to shop for anything yourself?”
“Exactly. That’s the best part about making a lot of money—you can pay people to do the things you don’t want to do, like shopping.”
“You should have just asked me,” I said. “I would have enjoyed it, and I would have done it for free.”
“I wouldn’t have let you do it for free.”
“Then I would have taken your money and blown it on good food and wine for us. I need olive oil,” I said, turning on the heat beneath the pan.
He went over to the pantry and brought me a tall glass bottle. “What else?”
“Dump the gnocchi in the water and keep an eye on them. Let me know when they float to the top.”
He did what I asked, watching the little pillow-shaped blobs so diligently I had to smile.
“So what’s the worst part?” I asked, adding the garlic, onions, chopped zucchini, and the kernels from two ears of corn to the pan.
“Huh?”
“You said being able to pay people to do things you don’t want to do is the best part of making lots of money—so what’s the worst?”
He thought for a moment. “People assume things about you. Like that you’re greedy or a scammer or you cheated somehow. Especially with crypto, because it’s not easy for the average person to understand.”
“Like me. I don’t get it at all,” I confessed with a laugh, stirring my veggies.
“Oh shit—I didn’t mean that to sound insulting,” he said quickly.
“Relax.” I touched his arm. “I know what you meant. And it’s true—if you’re not in the banking industry, crypto is not easy to understand. And when people can’t understand something, especially when it relates to huge sums of money, it seems sketchy.”
“There are sketchy people in crypto. And U.S. regulators love to find them and shut their operations down. But I’m not one of them. And HFX isn’t perfect, but the industry is moving so fast, it’s hard for regulators to keep up. If they wanted to work with us, they could—we could find the balance between growing the industry and preventing crimes and enforcing laws they want in place. But they’re often more interested in playing gotcha.”
“It probably sells more newspapers,” I said, adding the tomatoes to the pan.
“And gets them re-elected.” Hutton frowned at the boiling water. “I have to testify in front of the House Committee on Financial Services.”
My eyes widened. “The House, meaning U.S. Congress?”
“That’s the one. I haven’t said anything about it because I was hoping to delay it. Or better yet, avoid it altogether.”
Grabbing the bottle of wine from the island, I poured us both some more and handed Hutton his glass. “When will it happen?”
He took a long swallow before answering. “In about three weeks. July 28th.”
“Holy shit. Alone?”
“No, there will be five other CEOs there.”
“Well, that helps, right?”
“I guess. Unless everyone else sounds like they know what they’re talking about and I sound like a fucking idiot.”
“You won’t.” I reached over and rubbed his shoulder. “Can’t your partner testify instead of you? Wade?”
“He’ll be there, but Wade doesn’t do what I do. He’s East Coast old money, a member of the club, knows all the right people—but that’s not necessarily helpful in this situation. Wade had the capital to invest at the start and he’s good with people, which is why we’re a good team, but he doesn’t know the back end like I do. The things are floating, by the way.” He pointed at the gnocchi.
“Good. Got a colander?”
Hutton hunted around until he found one, and I drained the gnocchi before adding it to the pan with the vegetables. “So do you have a choice whether or not to testify?” I asked.
“Not really. I mean, I could cash out of HFX and abandon the algorithm I created along with the company I co-founded. But that would look fucking terrible. Like I was a criminal or had things to hide.”