PROLOGUE
NATE
Indigo is unusuallyquiet this evening. The Regent Hotel’s upscale penthouse-level club is typically packed every night, even during the most exhausting Manhattan workweek, but this gloomy summer Thursday seems to be a rare exception.
For once, I’m inclined to appreciate the lack of guests. I’m dealing with a rough blow that impacts The Quattuor Group’s bottom line, and I don’t need an audience while I brood alongside my business partners.
We always hold our monthly status meeting here at Indigo since we own the hotel, but this time I wish I were anywhere else. There’s no way I can hide this fuckup from the company’s other three partners—and I know more than anyone that QG’s financial success rides on my shoulders, since I’m the CFO. I’m going to have to come clean, and pronto. The bad news is still fresh enough that it hasn’t hit the media outlets just yet, but it will be screaming from the headlines tomorrow.
Swirling my scotch in the glass before taking a drink, Itell myself that the situation isn’t as dire as it seems. It’s just one sour deal. We’ll be fine. Plenty of other irons in the fire, as they say.
Problem is, I hate failing. And this was a really fucking nice iron.
My colleague Theo must pick up on my dour mood, because he glances at me across the table and says, “Wipe that pathetic look off your face, man. The Knicks will dominate next time.”
He’s referring to the Knicks-Lakers game we went to last night. Courtside seats, complimentary booze all night long, and yeah, we were close enough to the City Dancers to argue about whether or not we could see the cheerleaders’ panty lines through their hot pants. But instead of reveling in a glorious victory, we had to watch those punks from L.A. wipe the floor with our team.
“It’s not about basketball,” I say.
“If you say so,” Theo says, shrugging his beefy, gym-rat shoulders, clearly not believing me.
“Enough chitchat,” Becker cuts in. “Let’s get down to business.”
Beck is our CEO and head idea guy. While he doesn’t lord his job title over us like the tyrant he could be, we all know he runs the show. After he got his MBA from Yale, he founded a fledgling business called the Becker Agency that bought and sold bonds and equities. After a few years, he was rolling in money, but he was also bored as hell, so he came up with some unusual ideas for expanding the business that he eventually presented to me, Theo, and our friend Sebastian. The thing was, he said, he’d need help tokeep all those moving parts running cleanly and independently.
Let’s just say he made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.
Not that I was having the time of my life at Ernst & Young as a private equity tax operations senior. Try saying that job title five times fast. I’d been drowning in the monotony of my day-to-day as it was and had even been considering a move back to Connecticut to work for my parents’ hotel group again, where I had gotten my start right after college. Thank God I didn’t. Becker swooped in at just the right time.
Renamed The Quattuor Group (quattuorbeing Latin for ‘four,’ of course) with the addition of myself, Theo, and Sebastian as co-owners, Beck’s new business flourished. His acumen and interest in diverse ventures has kept us all on our toes for the last few years. We work hard, we play hard, and we have more money than we know what to do with most days.
But don’t mistake me—the work isn’t easy. In many ways, our jobs are our whole lives. Theo practically lives here at The Regent, which he runs, and Sebastian spends his time managing The Quattuor Club, our resort-slash-matchmaking agency in the Bahamas, and laboriously vetting all the matchmaking clients that I secure when I’m not juggling our financials. We’re all a bunch of shameless workaholics.
Though I have to admit, Sebastian has changed recently. He’d been grieving the death of his first fiancée for years, morphing over time into a grouchy, withdrawn hermit that we barely recognized…but when he met Blair, it was like he found his way back to his old self practically overnight. Ever since those two got married, he’s been maintaining a pretty healthy work-life balance with the help of his new wife. Must be nice.
Not that I’m jealous. I’m proud to be espoused to my job. It’s what got me where I am in the first place, and I’m happy where I am. Usually.
Just not today.
Not since the moment I found out about the Barclay scandal.
If I’m honest with myself, I have to admit that the biggest gut-punch is that I never saw this coming. And Ishouldhave. I pride myself on my skill at reading people, knowing how they think and what motivates them, being able to work them. How did I miss the red flags? Am I slipping? Wooing matchmaking clients is my second job, my unofficial job, myfunjob. Anybody could be our money man, but nobody hustles like I do. This was a major blow to my ego.
Fighting a scowl, I take another drink of my scotch and sink lower into my chair as Sebastian drones on about whatever is going on at the resort. He hired a new concierge a few months ago and apparently she’s shaping up into potential future assistant manager material. Woo. Good for her.
Theo subtly slides out his phone and taps on a notification. His eyes widen, his gaze swivels to me, and suddenly I know without a doubt that the fucker has just read the damn Barclay news.
“Hold on a sec, Sebastian,” he says, turning his phone screen toward us so we can all see.
Shit.
“Did you know about this?” Theo asks me. “We’ll have to cancel the contract now, right?”
“Unfortunately yes,” I admit. “I was waiting to drop the bomb, but I guess you scooped me.”
Sebastian leans across the table to look, but his expression doesn’t change. Becker’s lips press into a thin line. The only one who looks surprised is Theo.
Becker pulls a breath through his nose and glances at me. “Tough break, Nate.”
