The Woman He Traded Is Now His Equal novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Wear the Gray Suit

Porter shows up at Dee's building sure she'll be back, and Natasha plays obedient. Dee finds the cufflinks and decides to keep them as evidence.

Dee was sitting on the bottom step of our building in her scrubs, eating cereal out of a mug.

She had just come off a night shift in the ER. She looked up and stopped chewing.

"You're in last night's dress," she said. "And you took the train. You never take the train."

"Come inside," I said. "I'll tell you upstairs."

She followed me into my apartment, still holding the mug.

I told her all of it standing at my kitchen counter.

Dee did not interrupt once, which for Dee was a medical event.

When I finished, she set the mug down very carefully.

"He traded you."

"Yes."

"For a building."

"For the right to build one."

"That is worse," Dee said. "A building I would understand. This is a yard sale."

I laughed, and then I was crying, and then Dee had me by the shoulders with a dish towel.

"Okay," she said into my hair. "Okay. Get it out. Then tell me what you're going to do, because you're not going to do nothing."

I wiped my face.

"I signed a contract with the man who bought me."

"The man who tried to buy you."

"Byron Costello didn't pay for anything. Porter sold." I took a breath. "He's giving me a seat on the West Side board. It has the deciding vote."

Dee stared at me.

"On Porter's project."

"On Porter's project. And Porter doesn't know."

A slow grin spread across her freckled face.

"When does he find out?"

"Monday, nine o'clock. In his own boardroom."

"Can I watch?"

"No."

"Can I wait outside the door with a folding chair?"

"Dee."

"I'll bring snacks."

I checked the clock on the stove.

"He's coming at noon. I told him I'd be here."

Her grin disappeared.

"You're going to let him in?"

"I have to. If he suspects, he'll get to Monday before I do."

Dee took a long moment to decide.

"Fine," she said. "But I'm staying on the stairs. And if he touches you, I'm going to practice my chest compressions on him with no patient present."

At noon sharp, I heard his dress shoes on the stairs.

Porter came in without knocking.

He had a leather folder under his arm and his sunglasses pushed up in his hair. He looked rested.

He glanced around my small kitchen and did not comment on it.

"Here." He dropped the folder on the counter. "The Costello packet. Redraft it by Sunday night."

I opened the cover.

It was the term sheet I had written myself, with one line changed in his handwriting.

"Of course," I said.

Porter leaned against the refrigerator and studied me.

"So. How was he?"

The question took a second to land.

I understood, with a cold clearness, that Porter truly believed I had spent the night in Byron Costello's bed.

He had sent me there. He had not asked whether I was all right.

He was asking for a review.

Out on the landing, a stair creaked, and Dee, who was supposed to be silent, coughed.

"He was a gentleman," I said, and kept my voice flat.

Porter smirked.

"Then he's an idiot. But a useful one."

He pushed off the refrigerator and came toward me.

I did not step back.

He put his hand on my chin, and I let him.

"Don't sulk, Tash. It was one deal. You'll still be the best part of my week."

He kissed my forehead.

"Good girl," he said.

I kept my face still.

Out on the stairs, something thudded against the wall.

Porter heard it too and glanced at the door.

"Who is that?"

"My neighbor. She's a nurse."

"Does she know?"

"Know what?"

"Anything."

"No," I said. "I don't tell her anything about you."

It was a lie, and it came out of me as smoothly as his own lies did.

I had told Dee all of it an hour ago, standing at my kitchen counter.

He relaxed.

"Good. Monday, nine, the boardroom. Costello is sending someone to represent him at the partners' meeting. I want you in the room taking notes."

"Who are they sending?"

"A junior. It doesn't matter who." He checked his watch. "Wear the gray suit. The one you bought for the Hendricks closing."

"The gray suit," I said.

He nodded once and left.

I stood in the kitchen until his footsteps faded.

Then the door opened, and Dee came in with her fists clenched.

"I kicked the wall so I wouldn't throw the mug."

"I know."

"'Good girl,'" she said. "He actually said it. To a grown woman. Out loud."

"He's said it before."

"That's not the comfort you think it is."

She reached for my purse on the counter to hand it to me, and the dark blue box slid out onto the tiles.

Dee picked it up and opened it.

Silver-gray cufflinks lay in the velvet, a matched pair.

"Whose are these?"

"His," I said. "I spent weeks finding them. I was going to give them to him last night."

Dee closed the box and held it out.

"So what do we do with them?"

I thought about it.

"Put them in your freezer," I said. "Behind the ice cream."

"For what?"

"For Monday."

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