Chapter 6

Eric POV

THE CONFERENCE ROOM on the thirty-second floor faces east. By two in the afternoon, the light has shifted far enough to expose every thumbprint on the glass table and every correction made too hastily in the margins.

I noticed the effect during my first week in this office. I have scheduled difficult meetings in the afternoon ever since. People make fewer optimistic errors when the light is unflattering.

Today's particular honesty reveals a problem on page fourteen.

Vickers, a senior analyst who has been with Perry Pharmaceuticals for eleven years, is presenting projected sales for the Hartwell compound as though regulatory approval has already been granted. He moves through the slide with the confidence of a man who expects confidence to survive contact with arithmetic.

“Stop there.” His hand stills on the remote.

“You're counting Hartwell revenue in the third quarter.” I turn the bound report toward him and tap the figure with my pen. “On what basis?”

“The average review period for comparable—”

“These aren't comparable applications. Hartwell's final trial has a conditional completion.”

He glances toward the finance director. She looks down at her copy of the report, which is the correct decision under the circumstances.

“We built in a conservative delay,” Vickers says.

“You built in the delay most convenient to the projection.”

Silence settles around the table. Eleven people wait for me to decide how unpleasant the next minute will be.

I cap my pen. “Send page fourteen back to finance. I want two models—one assuming approval this quarter and one without it. The board can discuss possibilities after we've shown them the risk.”

Vickers gives a stiff nod.

“And don't present a compound as available before we know we can put it in a patient's hand. A difficult quarter doesn't make that distinction optional.”

No one argues. The meeting ends six minutes later, and I take the report with me.

Markus is waiting near the conference-room door. He usually gives it enough distance to suggest he has not been listening; today he stands close enough that I know the information he is carrying will be inconvenient.

“Mrs. Perry is in your office,” he says. “She arrived forty minutes ago.”

I press two fingers to the bridge of my nose. The pressure behind my eyes remains exactly where it was.

“Did she say why?”

“She asked whether you had eaten lunch.”

“So no.” Markus's expression stays professionally neutral.

“She brought coffee.”

“For herself, presumably,” I say.

“She didn't offer me any.”

That is as close as he will come to expressing sympathy. I hand him the report. “Have finance correct page fourteen before tomorrow morning.”

My mother has found the coffee machine and made herself comfortable in one of the chairs across from my desk. Her legs are crossed, a porcelain mug balanced on one knee, and she looks like a woman who has never entered a room without assuming it would be pleased to have her.

It is the first week of July. She wears pale linen and a string of pearls that belonged to my grandmother.

“Mom.” I close the door behind me. “You could've called.”

“I did. On Sunday.”

“I was working,” I remind her.

“Which is why I'm here on a Tuesday.” She takes a measured sip of coffee. “Your father asks about you every weekend. Calling him would cost very little.”

“The board has been difficult this quarter.”

“The board has been difficult since your father appointed the first member.”

I move behind my desk but don't sit. “Is that what you came to discuss?”

“Must there be an agenda?”

“With you, usually,” I say.

Her mouth tightens, though there is affection inside it. “A friend of your father's has a daughter. Penn, then Wharton. Very accomplished, by all accounts, and apparently charming enough that Katherine has mentioned it three times.”

“Katherine Hargrove,” I say.

“You did read my message.”

“I read all your messages.”

“Answering one occasionally would make that more convincing.”

She places the mug on my desk. “She's in Lockwood through the weekend. Dinner isn't a proposal, Eric.”

“I'm in the middle of the Hartwell transition. Several board members already think I'm too young for this office. I'd rather not give them a reason to question my focus.”

“Having dinner doesn't constitute corporate negligence.” Her expression softens in the way that has always made refusal more tiring. “You've spent two years proving you can do this job. You're allowed to have a life outside the building.”

Four days have passed since Blue Tears.

In that time, Evan Dalton has entered my thoughts at inconvenient intervals: while I fastened my cuff links on Saturday morning, during a call on Monday when someone used the phrase acceptable terms, and today when Vickers looked at me with the same stubborn refusal to yield, though considerably less appeal.

No call has come to the private number printed on my card.

I turn toward the window. “There may be someone.”

My mother becomes perfectly still. “May be?”

“They're not interested,” I add.

“In you?” Her offense is immediate, as if a stranger's lack of interest reflects poor upbringing. “That seems unlikely.”

“Not everyone considers me irresistible.”

“I didn't raise you to fish for compliments.”

“You raised me to expect accuracy.”

She studies me over the rim of her cup. “And this person has said no?”

The memory is precise: Evan behind the sofa, face warm with anger, telling me I would be waiting a long time. “For now.”

“You sound remarkably pleased about that.”

“People who fall over themselves to impress me become tedious.”

“Of course. You would choose someone difficult.” She stands and gathers her bag. “Don't leave it too long, though. The right woman won't wait forever.”

I pick up her empty mug without correcting her.

At the elevator, she touches my cheek as the doors open, the same gesture she has used since I was a child. For a moment, her eyes search my face with more care than the conversation warrants.

“Dinner soon,” she says. “Your father misses you.”

“I'll call him,” I say.

“You always say that.”

The doors close before I can repeat myself.

I return to my office with the mug in one hand. My mother has already supplied the unknown person with a woman's education, family, and likely opinion of marriage. Correcting her would have required describing Evan, and there is very little I can say with certainty.

He is twenty-three. He has brown eyes, a cut on one finger, and enough pride to refuse money he appears to need. He looked at me as though attraction, if there was any, only made him angrier.

The last detail has occupied more of my attention than it deserves.

I am two-thirds of the way through the revised projections when my personal phone rings.

The sound cuts cleanly through the office. The number on the screen is unfamiliar. I let it ring a second time before answering. “Perry.”

There is a controlled breath on the other end. “This is Evan Dalton.”

My pen stops above the page. The response is small, physical, and immediate: pressure releasing somewhere beneath my ribs, followed by the sharper satisfaction of having been right. “Yes?”

He is silent long enough for me to hear faint traffic behind him. I picture him on a sidewalk with one hand in his pocket, though the image has no evidence behind it.

“The offer you made on Friday,” he says. “Does it still stand?”

I lean back in my chair. Four days, then. Whatever number he has been trying to defeat has survived longer than his refusal.

“You'll have to be more specific, Mr. Dalton.”

The silence changes. I can almost hear the door closing in it.

“Never mind,” he says. “Sorry to bother you.”

“Dalton.” He doesn't hang up.

I let one beat pass, no more. “Pearl Hotel. Room 1014. Nine tonight.”

Another pause follows, shorter than the first.

“I'll be there.” The call ends.

I set the phone beside the projections. Afternoon light lies across page fourteen, catching the corrected figures in Vickers's handwriting.

I read the first line twice before any of the numbers hold.