A man can give a company his blood, his sweat, and his youth, and they'll still ask for his weekends. Roland spent six years as the right hand to a woman who owned half of Manhattan. He bought her clothes, fired her executives, and kept her secrets. But when she asked him to miss his daughter's birthday for a board meeting, he handed over his badge and walked away. He thought he was finally free.
Then at 11 or0 p.m. His doorbell rang. There stood his billionaire boss, shivering in the rain, holding a single suitcase. The coffee in the breakroom always tasted like burnt copper, but Roland drank it anyway. It was 6:15 a.m.
On a Tuesday. The fluorescent lights of the 42nd floor buzzed a low, irritating hum that he had long ago learned to ignore. He stared out the floor to ceiling windows. Below the city was just waking up. A grid of yellow cabs and gray pavement.
Up here in the executive suite of Croft Holdings, the day had started 3 hours ago. Roland rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling the familiar throbb of attention headache behind his left eye. He checked his phone. No text from the babysitter. Which meant his seven-year-old daughter Khloe was still asleep.
Roland. He didn't flinch. He just turned. Viven Croft stood in the doorway. She wore a tailored charcoal suit that cost more than Roland's car.
Her dark hair pulled back into a severe clasp. She didn't look tired. Viven never looked tired. She was 34, a billionaire, and ran the private equity firm her father built with the ruthless efficiency of a machine. She didn't do small talk.
She didn't do good morning. The Japanese investors are stalling, Viven said, walking past him toward her corner office. Roland followed, his notepad already in hand out of sheer muscle memory. They want to renegotiate the manufacturing terms. Call Kyoto.
Tell them if they don't sign by noon their time, we pull the funding. It's 2 a.m. In Kyoto, Viven, Roland said, his voice flat. Then wake them up, she dropped her leather briefcase onto the mahogany desk. Also, the merger with Synthics is moving up.
We're flying to Zurich tonight. Pack for 3 days. Get the jet ready for 8:00. Roland stopped writing. The pen hovered over the paper.
He looked at the date on his watch. October 14th. I can't go to Zurich tonight, Roland said. Vivien didn't look up from her monitor. Her fingers flew across the keyboard.
I didn't ask if you could. I told you we're going. It's Khloe's birthday, Roland said, the words heavy and quiet. She's turning seven. I have a cake sitting in the bakery down the street.
I promised her I'd be home for dinner. I promised her I'd be there for the first time that morning. Viven stopped. She looked up, her expression a mix of genuine confusion and mild irritation. She wasn't a monster.
She was just entirely disconnected from the reality of people who couldn't buy their way out of a problem. Roland, this is a $2 billion acquisition, she said, enunciating slowly as if speaking to a child. I need my chief of staff in the room. Buy her a pony. Buy her a trip to Disney World.