The Underwriting (10 page)

“Perceptions matter,” Todd said. “You're representing the firm, you know.”

“Thank you, Todd Kent, master of perception management.” She rolled her eyes, turning out the door.

“Knock him dead, T Two!” Beau called after her cheerfully.

TARA

W
EDNESDAY
, M
ARCH
12; N
EW
Y
ORK
, N
EW
Y
ORK

Tara could feel her pulse hammering as she rode the elevator down to the lobby.

How
dare
Todd imply that there was anything inappropriate about her meeting with Callum, as if half of Todd's job wasn't getting drunk with clients late at night. Hadn't L.Cecil only gotten the Hook deal because Todd had met Josh Hart at a strip club? And he had the nerve to criticize her for meeting the largest independent shareholder of the company, at his request, for a single drink.

Then again, she knew part of the reason she was so defensive was because she was nervous: Josh's words “You're going to be great with Callum” were still lingering, and she wasn't sure what to make of them.

But Josh wasn't worth getting upset about, she reminded herself for the seventeenth time. He was clearly a sociopath—one of those tech geniuses whose brains were so consumed by coding that they never developed the ability to relate to human beings. Still, it bothered her, the way he had diagnosed her person so bluntly. It felt visceral, like he had violated her. Even if she'd felt like she could tell someone, she didn't want to. As though repeating Josh's argument would give it some validity and leave her powerless.

She noticed the flashing light on her BlackBerry and looked down at the new e-mail.

FROM:
Catherine Wiley

CC:
Catherine Wiley assistant two

SUBJECT:
Frick

heard good things from Phil Dalton. firm has a table at the frick event nxt Weds. Can you make it? Leslie will send you details.

sent from my blackberry

The elevator stopped, but Tara didn't notice, her eyes frozen on the e-mail in front of her.

Catherine Wiley was president of L.Cecil's investment banking division. She was the highest-ranking woman in the firm, one of the highest-ranking women on Wall Street, and probably one of the most successful women in the world. Had she seriously meant to e-mail Tara Taylor?

Another e-mail came through:

FROM:
Catherine Wiley assistant two (Leslie Cowper)

SUBJECT:
Re: Frick

Tara,

See attached for invitation to Gala for George E's art exhibit at the Frick Wednesday, March 26, as well as bios of the clients who will be in attendance. John Lewis from L.Cecil Asset Management will also be in attendance. Please arrive no later than 6:30 PM. Dress code is Black Tie.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Leslie

The elevator arrived on the ground floor and others moved past her to exit while Tara read the note again, finally looking up and smiling at the empty lobby.

Oh my god.

Tara laughed out loud, her mind whirring as she went down to the street. Catherine Wiley was known for handpicking female protégés, giving them opportunities and grooming them for leadership positions within the firm. And now she was asking Tara Taylor to represent the firm at an art gala? Was she seriously considering Tara as one of her mentees? Because of a ten-minute meeting she'd had with Phil Dalton last week? Had she even said anything while he was in the room?

Her brain froze: was he just saying she was pretty, like Josh had implied was all that mattered?

Whatever, she shook the thought away.
Why
it happened wasn't as important as the fact that it was happening. She was getting her break. This was what it meant to be on your way, climbing up the corporate ladder, finally recognized for the potential she'd always known she had, even if she'd started to doubt it. How quickly things could change.

Tara climbed into one of the black cars outside L.Cecil and directed the driver to the Crosby Street Hotel, her aggravation with Josh and Todd replaced by gratitude to Catherine and Leslie.

The Crosby Bar was full of the downtown business crowd. Unlike the midtown business crowd, who hung out at places like the Peninsula, frequenters of the Crosby owed their personal fortunes to exploits outside the financial services industry. Same twenty-dollar martini, but served with trendier pretension.

Tara was fifteen minutes early. The hostess showed her to a table, and she pulled out her iPhone in order to look occupied and important when Callum arrived, trying not to get carried away thinking about all that Catherine's e-mail implied.

She blinked with surprise when she saw thirty-two new notifications from her Hook app, still open from when Beau had been “fixing her profile.” She went back to the main screen, where the app showed her photos of guys within a one-mile radius and instructed her to swipe left if she didn't like them and swipe right if she did.

She looked at the first photo:

Mark
stood on a beach, the wind blowing on his perfectly bronzed skin. He peered flirtatiously into the camera.
No personality
, she thought, and swiped left.

Jordan
flexed his tattoo-covered bicep.
Yikes.
Tara swiped left quickly.

Timmy
grinned open-mouthed at the camera, his cheeks pudgy and inviting. He looked funny and kind. She clicked to his profile. Height: five feet seven inches.
Swipe left
.

Frank
lifted his hand in a fist pump to the camera, standing behind a beer pong table wearing fluorescent orange sweatbands, short shorts and a custom jersey.
Stuck in college
.
Swipe left
.

Harry
held a glass of champagne in one hand and positioned the other in his tuxedo pocket. His closed-lipped grin smiled sardonically at the camera. She clicked to his profile. Trinity College.
Trustafarian with a drug problem.
Swipe left
.

Tarik
flashed a smile that was warm and inviting. She opened his profile. Harvard Business School, Morehouse undergrad. She hesitated. She'd seen
Save the Last Dance.
Even if he was perfect, she couldn't be that white girl who took a good black man.
Swipe left
.

“How's the selection around here?” a British accent said from above her. She looked up at Callum Rees and blushed furiously, suddenly realizing how engrossed she'd become in the app.

“Oh, I—” she started, then stood, offering her hand. “I'm Tara.”

He took it. “I figured.”

“Sorry, I was just—”

“Doing exactly what Hook hopes you'll do,” he interrupted. “Get Hooked.”

“I don't think I like it.” She shook her head, looking down at the phone. “I feel like a total jerk.”

He laughed. “I hope you've got better user testimonials for the road show than that.”

Callum was in his late forties and not particularly good-looking. He had an average height and build, and was classically English: his face was long and rectangular, and his brown hair receded at the corners atop a high forehead and watery eyes. But there was something about him—his deep accented voice or his smile or the confident way he now sat across from her, leaning his elbows forward on his knees—that was undeniably sexy.

The waitress approached the table. “What can I bring you?”

“Sparkling water for me,” she told the waitress, “with lime.”

Callum made a face. “You're going to make me drink alone?”

“I have to go back to the office.” She smiled. “And I assume you'd rather I be sober getting things ready for your company's IPO?”

He pursed his lips, considering, then shook his head. “No.” He looked back at the waitress. “We'll have two vodka martinis,” he said. “Extra olives.”

“But—” Tara started.

He gave her a look.

“Fine,” she said. She did love martinis.

The waitress left and Tara turned back to him, reminding herself this was a business meeting. “So what can I do for you?”

“I want to cash out,” he said.

“What?” Her mouth opened and she sat forward. “You can't cash out. You're the largest non-employee shareholder.”

“So?”

“We have to disclose what you sell in the IPO. When people see you're cashing out, they'll assume you think the company's overvalued, that you know something they don't,” she said, knowing he knew this. “It'll kill demand for the offering and the price we're able to get for the shares.”

Callum shrugged. “I want out.”

“You can't,” she insisted.

“I can, and I am, and you're not going to change my mind, so we might as well enjoy a drink and talk about more interesting things,” he said, plucking an almond from the bowl the waitress had delivered. “How long have you been at L.Cecil?”

“The price—it'll drop twenty-five percent, if not more.” Her mind raced back to the price calculation model, then raced forward to Catherine Wiley. That Frick event was history: the minute Catherine heard the deal was running off track she'd replace Tara with someone else, setting Tara back even further than if Catherine didn't know about her at all. “Which also means your holdings will lose twenty-five percent in value, which means that to make this economical for you, you have to believe the price is going to drop more than twenty-five percent after the IPO. Can't you just hold it through May?”

“Do you like it?” He ignored her question. “Working on Wall Street?”

“You can't do this, Callum,” she repeated, undeterred. “Have you talked to Josh?”

“I'd hate it.” Callum shifted back in his chair, thinking aloud. “All those insecure suits running around acting like they create value, when all they do is make money off of money, like money is the most important thing.”

“Says the billionaire,” she said, catching his bait.

“I never did anything for the money, which is probably why I made so much of it.”

“Why are you so desperate to get out of Hook?” She wasn't going to let him distract her.

“I don't believe in it anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Intuition.”

“You must have a better reason than that.”

“What better reason is there than intuition?”

“Facts?” she suggested. “There's nothing wrong with the company. I've been neck-deep in their data.”

“Is fact synonymous with truth?”

“I'm sorry?”

“Philosophical question. I think if you equate facts to truth, you miss just about everything in life.”

“I think philosophical musings are better left out of investment decisions.”

“Then how about the fact that you don't like the app?”

“I'm not the target demographic.”

“Twenty-eight-year-old single woman? I'd say you are.”

She blushed. How did he know she was twenty-eight and single?

The waitress brought their drinks and Callum clinked his glass to Tara's. “To truth,” he said.

She took a sip of her martini, re-pooling her argument.

“Okay,” she started. “Truthfully, I think it's incredibly selfish of you to risk upsetting the success of the IPO because you have an intuition.”

“And why is that?”

“Because money might not matter to you, but that's because you have a lot to fall back on. But it's not just your shares that lose twenty-five percent if you do this, it's everyone's, including people who need it.”

“Point A.” He lifted a finger. “My not caring about money is not because I have a lot to fall back on. They are unrelated. And Point B, anyone who thinks they need money that's based on something so intangible it can float twenty-five percent in value based on one man's decision needs to seriously consider his principles.”

“What about Juan Ramirez?”

“Who's Juan?”

“The first employee,” she said, proud of herself for thinking of this argument. “Juan immigrated to California when he was eight with his widowed mother, after his father was shot in Juárez. He grew up in the projects while his mother cleaned houses for wealthy VCs in Atherton. He stayed out of gangs and got a scholarship to Berkeley and now, because of his Hook shares, he's going to have money for the first time in his life.”

“How much?”

“If we go out at twenty-six dollars a share? Over two hundred million.” She smiled as she said it. “It's the American dream.”

“And if I, as the bad old Englishman, cash out my position, he'll only get a hundred and fifty million,” he said, then corrected, “Or seventy-five after taxes.”

“Right.”

Callum lifted his eyebrows, considering. She sipped her martini, pleased that she'd won.

Callum didn't say anything, just studied her, sipping his drink.

“What?” she finally asked.

“A twenty-something-year-old kid is going to have seventy-five million dollars and you're telling me I'm a bad guy because he doesn't have twenty-five more?”

“You have two billion!”

“Who gives a shit? That kid's life is fucked.”

“No.” Tara shook her head and sat forward in her chair. “That kid is finally getting what he deserves.”

“You know what he gets for seventy-five million? An in-box full of e-mails from wealth managers and real estate agents and people from college pretending to be his friend. And when he doesn't respond—because how can you respond to five hundred e-mails a day?—they say he's an arrogant ass who's gotten too big for his britches. Meanwhile, he buys his Escalade and retires, only to discover three years from now that he has no real friends, no purpose in life, no edge over the programmers who have kept in the game, and he's spent half his money on shit that doesn't make him happy.”