CHAPTER 6
NEENA
I learned to play chess on a broken board at the Boys and Girls Club. My teacher was Scott, a guy three years older than I was, who stared down my tank top at my thirteen-year-old chest and offered me cigarettes behind the dumpster while I waited to be picked up. My dad was often late, and one time, night falling in the questionable neighborhood, I took my first quick puff. The next week, a deep drag. A few months later, his fingers were down my pants, and my lit cigarette fell to the soggy ground. I watched it burn out against a wet red leaf and wondered how far away my dad was.
Chess is easy if you think ahead, the further out the better. You have to weigh the strengths you have. Decide what pieces can be sacrificed. Choose what pieces need to be protected. But the key, Scott preached, if playing against any skilled opponent, was the fake. You had to convince them that you were moving down one path—maybe a dumb path, an innocent path—while you skillfully tiptoed through your true plan, the one that would lead them straight to checkmate.
“Neena.” William smiled at me from the doorway to my office. “Got a moment?”
“Of course.” I gestured to the seat across from my desk. He ignored it and stood before me, his hands in the pockets of his dress pants, his legs slightly spread, his shoulders back. The pose of a man secure enough to put the weapons of his fists away. “How can I help you?”
The grin dropped from his face with unsettling ease. “Marilyn just spoke to Courtney in HR. She’s putting in her two-week notice.”
I frowned, irritated that I hadn’t picked up on any signs in my initial meeting with her. “That’s interesting.”
He moved forward and gripped the back of the chair I had intended him to sit in. His fingers drummed against the cloth, and he leaned forward, putting weight on it. I watched his clean and short-cropped fingernails bite into the gray upholstery as he cleared his throat, then spoke softly and precisely. “It’s notinteresting.”
I settled back and fought the urge to cross my arms defensively over my chest. Picking up my silver pen from beside my calendar, I tapped the tip of it against the paper and stayed silent, holding his gaze calmly.
“I may have been unclear in why I hired you, so let me make it perfectly obvious. I hired you so that I would know whatever Marilyn is thinkingbeforeshe puts in her notice. I hired you so that I don’t have to deal withinterestingsituations. I hired you to spy on this team and manipulate them into building the best damn medical conduction system that any heart has ever seen and to make me a billionaire. Do you understand that objective?” The last sentence was spaced out as if there were periods behind each word.
“Yes, sir.” I lifted my chin enough for him to realize I wasn’t intimidated.
He straightened, and when his hands fell from the chair, the imprints remained, like little teeth marks in an eraser head. “Convince her to stay or you’re fired. You have two weeks.”
Or you’re fired. Two weeks.He picked up his tie and smoothed it down the front of his shirt. On another man, it’d be a nervous tic. On him, it was merely a return of everything to order. I’d bet he was controlling in the bedroom. Precise. Authoritative.Dominant.
My lips parted slightly at the thought. “I’ll convince her to stay.”
He turned and ambled out of my office, his broad shoulders pinned back into their natural position.
I let out a slow breath, my heart racing, and turned to the computer, pulling up the calendar software and locating Marilyn’s schedule. Sotherewas the real William Winthorpe. Not the charismatic husband who had pulled Cat to his side on the couch. Not the affable businessman who had offered me the job. Not the polished intellectual I’d watched videos of, speaking at medical conferences and corporate events.
The real William Winthorpe was an asshole, and I was fascinated by him.
CHAPTER 7
CAT
It was interesting to see the dynamics of another relationship. William and I were together against everything. His competitors. Judgments against our childless state. Our families. We were a bond.
Neena and Matt were the opposite. A break. If I hadn’t seen it in our power-outage visit, the truth reared its head at our first dinner together.
“Don’t eat that,” she warned Matt, tapping his hand with the top of her fork. “It’s not grass-fed.” He reluctantly put down the Wagyu rib eye skewer, which was a shame, because it was one of the best items on Protégé’s menu.
I lifted an amused eyebrow in William’s direction. “Does it matter if it’s grass-fed?”
“It does if you don’t want to get cancer,” she snapped, her voice a little loud for the intimate restaurant. I glanced at the closest table and was relieved to see no reaction from the couple there. Leaning forward, I stole the abandoned skewer, which was absolutely delectable, regardless of its source’s dietary history. Her eyes narrowed.
“We’re strictly keto,” she announced, and I wasn’t well informed on the diet, but I’d be surprised if the wine she was guzzling down was part of it. “Matt’s down fourteen pounds.”
“Wow.” I nodded as if fourteen pounds would make any difference on her husband’s stocky frame. “Matt, that’s great.”
He nodded warily, she glared at me, and I stifled a smile at the long list of things that appeared to piss Neena off. For one, not including the doctor title before her name. We’d introduced them to the club manager, as well as some friends of ours, and in both instances, she interjected the designation after I made the introduction. She also seemed to intensely dislike anything that tasted good. And she was insecure to the point of being unbearably possessive with her husband, yet overly friendly with mine.
In contrast, Matt was wonderful. Gracious throughout all her snide remarks. Funny and endearing, with a catalog of stories that kept us laughing during the entire meal. He was obviously head over heels for Neena, despite her neurotic behaviors, which only made me like him more. He and William had hit it off immediately, talking politics and sports, their conversations often leaving Neena and me to our own discussions.
Now, she leaned forward and gently touched my arm. “That couple you introduced us to? The Whitlocks? You said that you sit on a board with them?”