The note said. Board meeting Thursday. They're coming for everything. I need you to understand what you agreed to before it's too late to walk away. Darius read it three times in the elevator going back down to his floor.
Then he folded it into quarters and put it in his shirt pocket right against his chest where it sat like a coal for the rest of the afternoon. Hot and heavy and impossible to ignore. He did not call her. He did not text. He sat at his desk and worked through 4 hours of reports with the mechanical focus of a man who has trained himself to function under pressure.
And when 5:00 came and his co-workers began filtering out, he stayed. He stayed until the floor was quiet, until the cleaning crew had come and gone, until the only sound was the hum of the building's ventilation and the faint noise of traffic 40 floors below. At 6:45, he picked up his jacket, took the elevator to the parking garage, and drove to the address written at the bottom of the note. He told himself the whole way there that he was going to listen. Just listen.
He hadn't agreed to anything yet. Not really. Not in any way that counted. A man could hear a proposal without accepting it. He could walk into a room and walk back out again with his life exactly as it was.
He told himself that. He almost believed it. The building was on the north side of the city. One of those glass and steel towers that didn't need to announce themselves because everyone already knew what they were. The doorman knew her name.
The elevator required a key card that Victoria had apparently arranged to be waiting at the front desk for him. In an envelope with his name written in handwriting that was precise and told you everything about the person who produced it, the elevator opened directly into the apartment. Victoria was standing at the floor to siling windows with a glass of water, not wine, not anything that softened the edges looking out at the city. She was still in the suit from work. She hadn't changed.
She turned when she heard the elevator and looked at him with an expression that had no performance in it whatsoever. You came, she said. You knew I would, he said. I hoped. She gestured toward the sitting area.
Please, he sat. She sat across from him. No desk between them this time. No professional architecture to organize the dynamic. Just two chairs and the truth.
Before you say anything, Darius said, I want to ask you something. All right. The note said, "It's not too late to walk away. Were you giving me an exit or were you testing me to see if I'd take it? " Victoria was quiet for a moment. "Both," she said.