The Woman He Traded Is Now His Equal novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Do the Math
Porter sells Natasha to a rival for one deal, and she answers him with a decision of her own and a drive to Greenwich. Byron opens the door and asks which of Porter's proposals she wrote.
Porter came home from a two-week trip on a Friday and kept me in his bed until almost two in the morning.
Afterward I lay there too tired to move.
His ulcer medicine was running low, so I reached for my phone and opened the pharmacy app.
Porter pulled the blanket up over my shoulder with one hand.
"You've done enough tonight. Give it here, I'll do it."
He kissed my temple and said it kindly, and he took the phone out of my hand.
I thought it was the nicest thing he had done all year.
I let him. He leaned back against the headboard and tilted the screen away from me while he typed.
He changed the delivery address with his thumb.
The new address was not ours.
"Whose house is that?"
"Byron Costello's. In Greenwich."
I looked at him. His face stayed flat while he typed.
"Why would your medicine go to Byron Costello's house?"
Porter glanced down at me and smiled, small and pleased with himself.
"Tash, how long have you been with me?"
My fingers curled into the sheet.
"Four years."
"That long." He laughed once, short and done. "Then it's time for a change."
I didn't say anything.
He tossed his own phone onto my stomach.
A message thread was open. The top message was from Byron Costello.
Byron: I'll give you the West Side project. One condition. End it with Natasha Brennan and send her to me tonight.
Under it, Porter had answered.
Porter: Deal.
The screen timed out and went dark. I kept looking at it.
"Don't stare at me like that," Porter said. "Costello won't hurt you."
"Why me?"
"He asked for you by name."
"No. Why did you say yes?"
He looked at me, honestly puzzled that I had asked.
"I've chased that site for six months. All it costs me is a thing I never put in writing. Add it up, Tash. I come out ahead."
He added, "Why wouldn't I take it?"
That was all of it.
Ten minutes earlier he had said my name into my hair.
Now he was passing me to another man in the time it takes to answer a text.
For four years I had made myself easy to keep.
I had even let him keep the password to my work email since my first month, because he said it saved me the clutter.
I felt sick.
A shopping bag sat on the carpet by my feet.
In it was a dark blue box with a pair of silver-gray cufflinks.
He had mentioned that his favorite pair was scratched.
I had spent weeks tracking down a match.
I had planned to give them to him tonight.
I took the box out of the bag and put it in my purse instead.
Then I stood up.
My decision was already made, and it was one plain sentence. I was not going to be delivered.
"Fine," I said.
Porter frowned.
"That's it?"
"You've decided, Mr. Aspinwall. What else is there for me to say?"
He flinched at the name. I had never called him that in his own bed.
I picked my clothes up off the floor and dressed, one piece at a time.
"Tash." He held out a hand and his voice went soft. "Come here. It's a done deal. Let's at least finish the night."
"Nothing's started."
I tied the belt of my dress.
"If I'm Costello's now, you don't get to touch me."
The ease went out of his face.
"You learn fast," he said.
"I had a good teacher."
I left him in the bed with his hand still out.
The doorman asked if I wanted the car Porter had already ordered.
He had arranged my ride before he had told me where I was going.
I told him no.
I hailed a cab on the street and gave the driver an address in Greenwich, Connecticut.
I was not going as a gift.
I was going because I wanted to see the face of a man who could name a woman in a text and get her handed over by return.
The house sat at the end of a long drive, with one lamp lit on the porch.
Nobody was waiting with a driver. Nobody opened a gate.
I walked up the steps and the front door opened before I could knock.
Byron Costello stood there in shirtsleeves with no tie. He was taller than his photographs, and a pale scar curved across the back of his left hand.
He looked past me at the empty drive.
"You took a taxi."
"I wasn't delivered," I said.
Something in his face eased, only slightly.
"Good," he said. "Then you can answer a question for me before you decide whether to come in."
"What question?"
"Which of Porter Aspinwall's proposals did you write?"
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