Madly (New York 2)

“Ms. Lewis.”

Winston cleared his throat. His executive assistant didn’t move or look up from her computer. He shifted

his weight from one foot to the other and considered whether it would be more foolish to continue standing here or to go back into his office and emerge a second time, trying her name again.

At his worst, in London, in those last few dark years, he would have pounded the call button on his phone and barked at his assistant, not caring who in the open office heard the chastisement. Thinking of it, he felt the shame burn the tips of his ears.

“Excuse me? Ms. Lewis.” Nothing. He raised his voice and used her given name. “Chasity.”

“What?”

She’d asked without turning to face him. He’d never had an assistant so affectless, so artless and insubordinate. He’d never had one so good at her job, either.

Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea. She would see through his questions to the purpose behind them.

But he’d been playing and replaying his dreadful breakfast with Beatrice on a loop, and Bea was right: Allie needed help. He needed to help her. Somehow.

“Could you come in here for a moment?”

“Yeah, I’ve just got to finish this first.”

Winston waited on the threshold of her space, unclear whether she’d intended him to. After a few moments she finished typing. “What is it?”

“If you could come into my office.”

“Do you have an idea how long this will take?” She finally backed up her athletic-looking, all-black wheelchair and spun it partway around with her muscled arm, but not to look at him: to grab her bale of red curls into her fist and whip-snag them on top of her head with a pencil.

“Not terribly long, I shouldn’t think.”

“I’m in the middle of a chat with legal.” Today her T-shirt was black and full of holes and said IRON MAIDEN. When he’d chosen her from a group of internal candidates cleared by HR, she’d told him her position was not in the public, and so she would not dress or perform for the public. He could barely remember agreeing with her, but obviously he must have.

To Winston’s relief, she grabbed her iPad and began gliding into his office.

“I’d like to do a review of our current client list.”

“No.” Chasity pivoted and wheeled out of the room.

“Wait.” Winston rose, stumble-slaloming his hips around the corner of his desk. “It’s not a waste of time.”

“It’s an utter waste of time. It’s not something we do unless there’s some kind of massive problem, like last year when accounting misapplied that percentage to every client. I know for a fact there isn’t any massive problem. I take smoke breaks and don’t smoke so I can be on the ground floor of what problems to anticipate. Smoking is boring but those fuckers gossip. You didn’t put this little exercise into your Outlook calendar, so it’s officially not on my calendar, and not a part of any life I’m living today.” She turned to her computer with her back to him. “Namaste. Talk to you later.”

It took him a while to release his hands from the fists they’d balled themselves into. Another passage of seconds to unclench his jaw, and a full minute to talk himself out of a lecture that would have included the phrases bloody Americans, no sense of proper hierarchy, and if you worked at the London office, you’d have been canned by now.

This wasn’t London. This was an American corporation that the bank had purchased just a few years ago, and which continued to operate largely independently. On paper, yes, Winston’s family owned a controlling share of the whole show, and this had translated into him being given a work visa, an office, and a portfolio of the most important clients. But his arrival hadn’t changed the way these people did their jobs.

Nor should it have. He was the one who had to adapt to new realities. Like his terrifyingly intelligent workaholic assistant who scared the cheese out of him.

He approached Chasity’s desk and selected a clear space along the edge to sit.

“Get off my desk.”

He stood, but very, very slowly so that she would look up. He felt like the cat in a YouTube video Bea had showed him who deliberately swatted at the nose of a crocodile.

“What is it already, Tea and Biscuits?”

“I met a woman.” If he was going to swat at the crocodile, he might as well die.

“A rich white man meets a woman and it’s an emergency. Big fucking surprise.”