The Woman He Traded Is Now His Equal novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Rule Two

Byron offers the Costello seat across the table from Porter, and Natasha sets her terms. Porter texts her to come home by noon, and she lies to him exactly the way he taught her.

"All of them," I said. "Every one that beat you."

Byron Costello looked at me for a long moment.

Then he stepped aside and let me in.

His study had one green lamp, a wall of rolled drawings and a desk with nothing on it but a phone.

He did not offer me a drink or tell me to sit.

I stayed standing.

"You wrote that text," I said. "You knew what he would hear when he read it."

"I knew he would answer fast."

"You wrote 'tonight.'"

"Yes."

"He took it to mean the worst thing a man can mean by it."

"He took it to mean what he is," Byron said.

I waited for the apology.

It did not come.

"You made me read it on his phone," I said. "You made me watch him say yes."

"I did."

"Why?"

"Because you would never have believed it from me." His voice stayed even. "You had to see him do it."

My hands were shaking, and I pushed them into my coat pockets.

I hated that he was right.

For four years I had told myself that Porter was only hard to read. I had never once given myself the proof.

Now I had it, on a screen, with his answer under it.

"So what do you want?" I asked. "Say it plainly. I took a cab at two in the morning to hear it."

Byron walked to the desk and picked up a single sheet of paper.

"The West Side project is mine," he said. "Aspinwall Capital builds it. Porter keeps what I promised him."

"That's it?"

"No. The partnership has a board, and I get one seat on it. That seat has the deciding vote on every budget, every contractor and every change."

He held the page out to me.

"I'm putting you in it."

I did not take the page.

"You want me to sit across a table from Porter."

"I want him to have to ask you for things."

I thought about the budget for that tower. I had written half its cost model on my own kitchen floor in March, and I knew exactly how thin the margins ran.

Porter would be sitting at the head of that table pretending he had written them.

I wanted that seat more than I had wanted anything in years.

"I'm not your pawn," I said. "I'm not your prize either."

"I'm not offering either."

"Then offer me terms."

His eyebrows lifted slightly.

"Go on."

I had learned how to bargain from the best.

"A written contract tonight, with my name and a salary at what the work is worth. I'll tell you the number tomorrow."

"Agreed."

"Porter hears nothing until the first partners' meeting on Monday. Not from you, not from your people."

"Agreed."

"And I am not here for your bed."

For the first time, something moved at the corner of his mouth.

"I didn't send for you to be anyone's bed," he said.

"Then you won't mind putting it in writing."

He crossed to the desk, took a pen out of a cup and wrote a line at the bottom of the page.

He turned it around so I could read it.

No personal terms. Her call, not his.

"Rule two," he said.

"What's rule one?"

"You never walk in a room again as someone's employee."

I looked at the scar across the back of his hand while he held out the pen.

It was a thin pale curve and it drew my eyes more than it should have.

I took the pen, and our fingers did not touch.

I noticed that they did not.

I signed my name under his on the first page I had ever signed for myself.

"There's a guest room upstairs," Byron said. "The door locks from the inside."

"I'll use it."

"There's a bag by the door with a toothbrush in it. I ordered it for whoever came."

"For whoever Porter sent," I said.

"For whoever walked through that door." He did not look away. "I didn't expect it to be you in a taxi."

The room had a lock, a clean bed and a window over a dark lawn.

I lay awake until the sky went gray.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand a little after seven.

I knew the name before I read it.

Porter: Be at your place by noon. I'll bring the Costello packet by. Need it redrafted before Monday.

He had not asked whether I was all right.

He had not mentioned what he had done.

He was treating the night like a small errand that had gone to plan, and he wanted his paperwork.

I read it twice.

Then I came downstairs.

Byron was standing in the kitchen with a mug in his hand.

He had not slept either.

I held up my phone.

"He wants his proposal redrafted."

Byron's jaw set. "Don't answer."

"I have to."

I typed with my thumb.

Of course. I'll be home. Take your time, Mr. Aspinwall.

I sent it.

Byron had read it over my shoulder.

"You lie like him," he said quietly.

I put the phone in my pocket.

"I learned from him."

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