The restaurant is fancy, one of those places I only know about because I’ve booked other peoples’ reservations but I’ve never actually come here myself. Unless you’re somebody, you don’t even try to get reservations at Mori’s.
Daniel walks in like he has casual brunches here on a weekly basis, totally at ease. Though I put on my best professional demeanor, I take his arm a little tighter as the maître d’ leads us over to a table, where a half-bald man slightly older than Daniel and a woman I assume is his wife are sitting.
“Paul,” Daniel greets easily, and both get up.
“Daniel, it’s a pleasure,” Paul says. Noticing me, he gives me a curious smile. “Paul Montgomery, and this is my wife, Gina.”
“Tiffany Young,” I greet in reply, sticking to the plan and letting Daniel take the lead. I’m used to that. After all, at work, my job is to be mostly invisible. Explaining that to Daniel was a whole hour of revelation to him, and now I get to put it into use here.
“Paul is the President of TRE,” Daniel explains to me as if we didn’t discuss him at length earlier. He doesn’t offer up an explanation of who I am to Paul and Gina, not girlfriend or friend, but also not a mere work colleague. It’s mysterious and attention getting, and I can see the other couple’s eyes tracking us to figure out how I came to be here.
Daniel pulls out my chair, and I sit primly. As I do so, Daniel places an intimate hand on my shoulder, communicating wordlessly exactly how important I am to him.
It’s more than enough, and Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery meet eyes, silently communicating in that way couples who’ve been together for decades do.
And to me? I can’t help it, I’m melting. He touched me in public. Claimed me.
I want to stand up in this fancy place and scream out in excitement, likely shocking everyone into dropping their heavy forks and spilling their expensive wine. But I won’t care because I’ll be whooping some more.
But I refrain like the fucking boss I am. Because that’s the plan. Our plan.
“Lovely to meet you both. Your brooch is beautiful,” I compliment Mrs. Montgomery. “Is it an heirloom?”
“It is, and thank you,” she says. “And please, call me Gina.”
“Of course, Gina. And please, Tiffany for me?”
She smiles congenially, obviously accustomed to accompanying Paul to business dinners over the years.
“So I have to ask the story of the brooch,” I quip, smiling lightly as I make small talk. “I mean, once you say it’s an heirloom, you’ve piqued all our interest in the story.”
Gina laughs quietly, and for the next five minutes, she tells me about her French lineage and how the brooch was passed down through the family, supposedly starting with a court noble for Napoleon III. “Of course, I seriously doubt that,” Gina says as she wraps up her story, “but it’s a nice daydream.”
The appetizers come, and part of me idly wonders how much we’re paying for what’s essentially crostini with fancy pesto on it. But I don’t have time to ask because as soon as the waiter leaves, Paul gets down to brass tacks.
“Okay, Daniel,” he says, ignoring his food, “tell me, what’s got you spooked?”
I’ll hand it to Daniel, he plays it cooler than James Bond as he casually picks up a crostini and takes a small bite, savoring the flavor for a moment before setting it down and wiping his lips. “What makes you think I’m spooked?”
This is all calculated and designed to put Paul on edge and make Daniel appear calm and collected. I’d been a bit surprised by how sure Daniel was about predicting Paul’s actions and reactions, but so far, he’s right on the money.
“We have a contract in review, yet you called my office and said dinner tonight was of the utmost urgency,” Paul expands. “Now, you pull out all this fancy stuff to make sure I know exactly who I’m dealing with. So therefore, spooked.”
Daniel takes a sip of his scotch, unhurried. “Perhaps. Your company is interesting. Strong financials and innovative technologies.” Even I can hear the ‘but’ coming after that compliment. “It was initially brought to me by a team in my acquisitions group. Everything I saw, every bit of data looked good. Yet, there was something in my gut giving me pause. Do you get those gut feelings?”
“I’m more a man of science,” Paul says. “Science can be wrong, but it doesn’t lie. Your gut can. Me? I started with tech, live by tech, and will die by tech. Hopefully, even live on in perpetuity by technologies created by my company. Gut instincts don’t stand up to science, so I don’t put any stock in them. I’m honestly surprised a man like you would.”