“Four times. My father gave it to me for my twenty-first birthday.”
I think back to Davis telling me that his father once gave him a list of self-discovered business principles when he was a teenager. “Your father is truly the worst gift giver in the history of the world.”
“He’s not that bad,” Davis replies as he puts down the book. “For my thirtieth birthday, he took me out to a pretty nice dinner.”
“A dinner?”
“It included the world’s most expensive pizza. We flew to Italy for it and he spent, like, twelve thousand dollars on the pizza alone.” Davis pauses for a few beats as his eyes drift to the side. “I’ve never said that aloud before, but you might be right about him—that’s an absurd gift. But anyway.”
“Anyway.”
“I like game theory,” he continues in explanation as he rests his hand flat on the book like he’s taking an oath. “Do you?”
Game theory is the application of math to strategy. It’s a way to apply structure to social interactions. More succinctly: It’s the study of mindfuckery and how to predict your opponents’ next move using probabilities and outcomes.
“Sometimes.”
“Well, what I like about it,” he muses as he glances down at his old-ass book, “is that it’s an objective way of making decisions. You take emotions out of it, and you focus on net benefits and net losses. You follow?”
“I follow.”
“Good. Well, with this offer I believe there are benefits for me. I work a lot—a hell of a lot. When I’m not working, I have company obligations, appearances, and interviews I have to do. I have to schedule my workouts three-weeks in advance, I never get to travel for fun, and I can’t even tell you the last time that I went on a date. But I have needs, like you. I pay someone to clean my home, cook my food, drive me around, and deliver my groceries. Tell me why I should feel any hesitation to pay someone to ride my cock?”
“Then buy an escort,” I snap, doing my best to gather all the vitriol in the universe. “And while you’re at it, pay a therapist to unpack all of this shit.” I gesture my hand over him. “Because if you’re still trying to teach me a lesson for taking the money eight years ago, you need serious help.”
“So you don’t want ninety thousand dollars?” He eyes me like he can strip me bare if he tries hard enough. “Just so we’re entirely clear, you’re turning down ninety thousand dollars because you don’t feel like fucking me again. I mean, come on, Olivia. You could do a hell of a lot worse than me.”
Reluctantly, I register that he’s right. If anything, I would be fighting the odds to do better than Davis Ridgeway. The man is brilliant and hot and looks like a fucking stallion. Hell, I already know that he screws magnificently—that I’ve already taken this specimen of a man for a test drive. But my dignity continues to jump up and down on my shoulder, shouting Bitch, are you out of your mind? This isn’t you!
“If you agree to this, we both win,” Davis goes on, back to the deal on the table. “My needs are met, and you get ninety thousand dollars—plus your needs met. If you don’t agree to this, my needs don’t get met and you get nothing. We both lose.”
“And why did you bring up game theory?”
“Oh, because let’s not forget that we can both have our needs met elsewhere. If you don’t agree, I can find another woman to sleep with me. She won’t be the one that I want—that would be you and only you, Olivia—but my needs would still get met. A win, but not as big a win as I wanted. And you can make money elsewhere. You can take out another hundred grand in student loans and start accruing the interest in six months. You still get the money…sort of. You just have to pay it back for the next thirty years.”
I inhale sharply through my nostrils, but I don’t speak. Whenever possible, I like to pretend that the loans simply don’t exist. Davis has a point though: They do exist, and I will have to pay them back for the rest of my adult life.
“So here’s the game, Olivia: Your options are me or the predatory private loan providers. My options are you or another woman—probably one for free, but the money doesn’t matter to me. So really, do we both want to win or not?”
The fact that he’s making a point is overshadowed by his offer of ninety thousand dollars. He could have stopped there and had me in the very tailspin where I find myself at that moment.
“Let’s try this one more time,” he continues, focusing his attention on me like we’ve resumed our negotiation. “You have my address and you know exactly where I’ll be on Saturday night. Let’s do seven. I’ll have dinner ready.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“You’ll be there.”
“I won’t.”
“You will, Olivia,” he asserts. “You will, because not only do you need the money, but you’re likely very curious about what else has changed with me in the last eight years. Let me show you.”
“And if I don’t show up?”
“See if I care.” Davis raises a shoulder. “I told you: I have options.”
I force myself to ignore the flippancy of his words because surely he doesn’t mean that. Not Davis—not the Davis I knew.
“I’ll think about it.”
“You’ll be there,” Davis repeats before opening his laptop. “Now, are you ready to talk about acquisition prospects?”
“If you don’t agree, I can find another woman to sleep with me. She won’t be the one that I want—that would be you and only you, Olivia.”
Me. Davis Ridgeway wants me.
His proposition stays with me for the rest of the week, practically breathing down my neck as I try to pull together more research on the two acquisitions that Davis is currently tracking. When Lana comes into my office for daily updates, I can feel his words colliding with every corner of my brain. It’s practically clinical, the kind of ailment that I would need to douse with downers to forget. My brain succumbs to him against every fiber of my being.
I should have known when I got this internship that it was too good to be true. It was the closest I’d ever been to celebrity. My classmates were equal parts proud and envious of me, and I instinctually knew that all of the former finance bros who lost out to me were seething and speculating about how I got the most desired M&A internship in the country. Now I know: It’s because I fucked the right guy eight years ago.
Davis wasn’t surprised to see me when I walked into his office. Not in the slightest. He clearly knew I was coming and he clearly arranged it all so that he could entangle me in this game. And that’s exactly what this is: a game. I’m no economist, but I know enough game theory to know that I’m out of my league going toe-to-toe against Davis Ridgeway.
Sighing heavily, I scroll through a PDF of the most recent annual return for a company called FundRight, trying to find their net expenses amid a sea of numbers that blur together as my eyes start to water. Alarmed, I push my seat away from my desk. I’m crying? No. No way. I learned a long time ago that crying over men is a waste of hydration, and the last man that I cried over was…
…shit, it was Davis. Eight years ago.