Winner Takes All (9 page)

When he paused for breath she jumped in. “I cleared it with Elliot.”

Ben blinked in surprise. He wasn’t expecting this at all. “What?”

“Ethan was traveling so I spoke with Elliot last night. He agreed that in this one case it was necessary. He’s fine with it.”

A slow smile spread across her boss’s face. “Well, I’ll be damned. I wonder how Ethan’s going to take that.” But it was obvious he knew exactly how he’d take it: He would be furious his policy had been violated—and powerless to do anything about it, since it was his own father who had approved the breach.

Eva saw the smirk and knew what it meant. Ben didn’t like Ethan. Ever since the younger man had taken the reins, he had butted heads with Ben over a hundred minor details.

“Excellent job, Eva,” he said, although it wasn’t readily apparent if he meant pitching the Hammond collection or thwarting Ethan’s commission policy. “We’ve cleared the first hurdle.”

Regardless of the cause, she liked the praise. “Thanks, Ben.”

“Will your contact call to let you know what Hammond is thinking?”

“I expect to hear from him any minute,” she answered truthfully. Eva had no reasonable expectation of a call, but reason had nothing to do with it.

“Let Devorah know the moment you hear something,” he said, glancing at his watch. “My meeting is starting in seconds, so I’ve got to run. Don’t forget to cc me on any emails you send to Ethan.”

Ben was a huge fan of cc’ing. He never trusted anyone—particularly Ethan—to give him credit for his ideas. “Of course.”

He nodded. “Good. I don’t have to remind you, do I, Eva, how important this account is to us,” he said as he gathered his folders for his ten o’clock. “Wyndham’s is an old respected firm with a long and glorious history, a history of greatness and achievement. To be entirely candid, I was surprised when Ethan gave you the assignment because I didn’t think you were ready for it, or your promotion, for that matter. Nothing could make me happier than to be proven wrong. Keep up the good work.”

Although she didn’t doubt that her boss meant this speech to be inspiring, Eva found her confidence undercut by his lack of faith in her and wondered briefly if Reed’s comment about Wyndham’s taking a different tack than Davidge’s and Brooks’s could be accurate. Had she been entrusted with the proposal because of her looks? Could something so far-fetched be true? The thought was almost too ridiculous to entertain, but she indulged it for a moment. Without being vain, Eva acknowledged that she was an attractive woman. But it was that sort of average pretty woman attractive—even features, clear skin, nice eyes—that most of her friends were. There was nothing supermodel about her, nothing that stopped traffic or launched ships or caused intelligent men to make bad business decisions.

He was wrong, Eva thought, as she left Ben’s office determined not to get hung up on the cynical speculations of a jaded man.

On the way back to her desk, Eva stopped in the kitchen to pour herself a fourth cup of coffee. Although she usually tried to limit her caffeine to a reasonable amount, she knew all bets were off today. Four and a half hours’ sleep had left her groggy and dazed, and she cast a resentful, bleary eye on all her fresh coworkers just sitting down at their desks. She had already been there for three hours.

“Handed it off to Joely from the mailroom without a hitch,” David said victoriously when his cube neighbor returned.

“Excellent,” she said. “It was the Hammond proposal. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to put the ball in their court for a little while.”

“The Hammond proposal?” he said, turning back to his computer screen. He was currently reading a listicle on the best cat-playing-piano videos on the Web. “How nice for you.”

Eva recognized a snide tone when she heard it, even if she was clueless as to its cause. “Is something bothering you?”

“No, I was just saying how nice it must be for you to get such a big important assignment when the rest of us have to content ourselves with photocopying and filing and calling the mailroom.” He clicked on one of the videos and laughed as a well-fed tabby leaped onto the keys from the nearby staircase.

Although this wasn’t the kind of work Eva and her coworkers did, she got the point. “I didn’t ask for it,” she said, defensively. “Any one of us could have gotten it.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ve earned it,” he said in a knowing way.

Eva could practically feel the quotes around the word
earned
. She walked over to his desk and spun him around in his chair so that he was facing her. “Just what are you implying?”

“That you got the Hammond assignment because you’re sleeping with Ethan,” he said accusingly, as if he expected her to confess from the shock of being confronted, like a murderer in a dime-store novel.

Instead of confessing, Eva laughed. Even though she was the victim of serious character assassination, Eva laughed hysterically until tears fell down her cheeks. The thought that she was sleeping with Ethan to get ahead was just
that
absurd. She didn’t even know the man. They had met only twice—at a company-wide meet-and-greet two years ago and at the summer picnic—and she had failed on both occasions to make an impression. Ethan had barely glanced at her as he moved on to the next candidate. Eva didn’t take offense. She wanted to impress the boss, of course, but she didn’t feel comfortable in his presence. There was something a little too entitled about him.

“You’re not supposed to laugh,” he said, peevishly.

Trying to catch her breath, she said, “I’ll be outraged soon. Just give me a second.” When Eva had herself under control, she asked David where he had heard such a ludicrous thing.

“Nowhere, “ he admitted. “I made it up in order to deal with the extreme disappointment I felt in not getting promoted.”

“It’s not true,” she said seriously. Now that the initial surge of laughter had passed, she felt a slow anger begin to burn. Her professional reputation was at stake. “There’s not a speck of truth in it. I’ve never even smiled at him. Who have you told?”

“Nobody.”

She gave him a suspicious look.

“I swear nobody. I wanted to try it out on you first to gauge your reaction. Geez,” he said, turning back to his computer screen, “you know, the next time you debunk a totally fabricated and completely defamatory rumor, you could be a little kinder.”

Eva rolled her eyes and took a sip of her coffee. She didn’t have the energy to press David further and hoped that he had spoken the truth. If he’d told anyone that she had slept with Ethan to get ahead she would…she would.… Well, she was too tired to think of what she would do, but it would be creative and would involve fire, tree branches and lighter fluid.

“Really, Eva, I haven’t told a soul. Stop giving me the evil eye,” he said. “You’re freakin’ me out.”

Although she hadn’t realized that her dazed stare could pass for the evil eye or freak anyone out, she returned to her desk and thought about issuing further threats. Well, as long as he was already freaked out.… “If you tell anyone,” she said menacingly, “I’ll have you deported.”

Even though he came from an influential family who knew people who knew the Queen of England, he took this warning seriously. “I never really believed it myself. No offense, but you’re not his type. Ethan’s too much of a snob to go for a bloody colonist.”

She took no offense at the observation. Although her contact with the new boss had been slight, rumors about him had been circulating for months—he only dated British supermodels, he was trying to oust his father from the company, he considered New York City to be a colonial outpost on the edge of the empire. Eva thought this last one was the most entertaining. Elliot Wyndham had sent his son here to learn the ropes. It was not exile, no matter how much his son complained about being banished to Siberia.

The source of much of their information was Ethan’s younger brother, Edward, who’d worked part-time in the New York office while pursuing his graduate degree at Columbia. The youngest Wyndham was friendly and personable and enjoyed telling stories about his older brother over pints during happy hour in the building’s lower level. It was obvious from his tone that he both envied and admired Ethan.

Eva, having gained David’s compliance, was sitting at her desk, wondering what to do next, when her cell phone rang. Her heart leaped in her throat and for a moment she thought that it was Reed calling to let her know that not only had the package arrived but also that Hammond was completely sold on Wyndham’s handling the sale. But that was impossible. The package hadn’t even left the building yet.

Seeing the caller, she sighed and answered the phone. “No, you can’t back out.”

“I was drunk last night and exhausted. I didn’t realize what I was agreeing to,” Mark said.

“Tough. We have a binding verbal agreement, the terms of which were clear to both parties. We shook on it,” she reminded him, as she took another sip of coffee. “It will hold up in court.”

“What court?”

“The court of public opinion. Do you want me to poll the office?”

Mark sighed. “But I was drunk and exhausted,” he said weakly.

“There are forty-seven men on my floor and thirty-five women. Seven percent are over the age of fifty. Forty-nine percent are between the ages of thirty-five to sixty. And forty-three percent are between eighteen and thirty-five. Seventy-nine percent made less than one hundred thousand dollars last year.”

“What are you doing?”

“Breaking down the court by demographics,” she explained.

“What’s the missing one percent?”

“We have a high school intern.”

Mark was silent for a moment. “Has she called yet?”

“It’s too soon.”

“Are you sure she hasn’t texted?”

“Ruth doesn’t get into the office until ten-thirty. It’s only ten-seventeen. Right now she’s waiting in line at Starbucks to buy a decaf soy latte. In five minutes, she’ll cross the street and buy a toasted bagel with cream cheese from the deli next to her office,” she said, flipping through her mail for things of interest. “In six minutes, she’ll tell the man to give her more cream cheese. In nine minutes, she’ll enter her building and press the elevator button. In thirteen minutes, she will arrive on the thirty-ninth floor.”

“Uh, Eva, is there something you want to tell me?”

She found an envelope with NYU’s insignia. “No, like what?”

“I don’t know. Like you’re stalking Ruth?”

It was an invitation to an alumni event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She had no idea how her college had tracked her down at work. Still puzzling over the university’s network of spies, she threw the mailer into the trash. “It’s nothing like that. We used to work in the same building.”

“That’s right. I forgot,” he said. “But that was years ago. People’s habits change. Are you sure she’s not in her office yet?”

“Look, Mark, I will let you know the second I hear from her,” Eva said, tossing away a menu announcing delivery service from the awful Chinese place on the corner. Why wouldn’t they leave her alone? “Don’t worry about it. Everything’s going to work out just beautifully.” Her assurances were met with silence. “How many times do I have to say trust me?”

“I don’t know—”

“It’s your first full day home after being away for, like, six months,” she pointed out. “Surely there’s something else you need to be doing. Don’t you have to file a story or do the laundry or get your hair cut?”

“Actually, I do have a deadline—”

“Great.” She cut him off. She didn’t want to hear another
but
. “Go meet your deadline and I’ll call as soon as I speak to Ruth. And you must chill. I can’t talk you down every ten minutes.”

“All right. I’ll try.”

“Good. So I’ll talk to you later.” She was about to hang up the phone, when he cried, “Wait!”

“What?” she asked impatiently. She couldn’t imagine what else they had to talk about. They’d already covered everything—twice.

“What’s wrong with my hair? Did Ruth say it was too long?”

Eva rolled her eyes. “I’m hanging up now, Mark,” she said and put down the receiver.

Taking a sip of coffee, she checked her personal email just to make sure there were no messages from Ruth. Nope. Nothing from her friend yet, just some sales announcements and a Groupon for the Circle Line. She clicked over to her work account and answered the few emails she’d gotten during her long lunch. Her workload was unusually heavy, thanks to the Hammond account, but she didn’t mind. The advantages of the opportunity far outweighed its disadvantages, even the jealous speculations of smarting coworkers.

She glanced at David, who was making a paper airplane out of a recently distributed memo while talking on the phone. After folding the wing evenly, he launched the plane. It hit the wall of his cube and fell to the floor. Eva smiled before turning away. Although still deeply offended by his despicable suggestion that she would have an affair with the spoiled Ethan Wyndham to get ahead, she wasn’t very surprised that he’d made it. He was the office clown and he liked attention, sometimes going to extremes to get it. Still, it was clear to her that he had just been taking a stab in the dark. She was reasonably sure he hadn’t shared his pet theory with any of their colleagues.

A text from Ruth came around three.

“Great party,” it said. “Fun had by all, especially Jenny. Was she surprised? Claimed to be even after 4 mojitos. If nothing else, surprised to see Mark. Didn’t know myself he’d be there until he walked through door. Hope he got home okay. So tired he didn’t seem to know what he was doing.”

“Bingo,” Eva said quietly, as she read this last line. Ruth was trying to be subtle, but Eva saw right through her. “You’re not fooling me, kid.”

Her response was brief but chatty: “Mojitos like truth serum. Couldn’t have sustained story after 4. M got home fine. Called me 1st thing this morning. Sounded well rested, focused on looming deadline.”

She thought the detail about the deadline looming was particularly well placed because it was unlikely that Mark had even mentioned it to Ruth. When he was home, he preferred not to talk about work.