“Not because of my last name.”
Grace nodded vigorously, alcohol clearly loosening her body parts. “I get that, but you are where you are. Max is saying he didn’t know. Are you going to cut your face off to spite your nose by quitting?”
“I definitely won’t be cutting my face off, or even my nose, but I do think I have to quit. It’s all too humiliating. Everyone’s going to know who my father is and why I got the job, and I can’t work with the man who fucked me to get ahead.”
“You’re thinking like a woman. You need to think like you have a penis.” She slapped her hand on the bar and the bartender jumped before setting down a cheese plate on the counter. “However you got this job, you need to prove you deserve it because you’re good at what you do, not because of your last name and not because you’re banging the boss.” She took a sip of her cocktail. “Men have been getting ahead using the old boy’s network for years. You have to take opportunities when you can get them. So not only can’t you quit, you need to go in there and tell Max that you should be working on your father’s pitch because of your name.”
She made no sense. “How would that help? That would only make everything worse.”
Grace set her glass down, her drink sloshing over the sides. “This, as they say,”—she threw her hands in the air—“is a win, win, win.”
I shook my head and checked the time on my phone. I should be getting home, job or no job to go to in the morning.
“Are you listening?” Grace asked.
I wasn’t, because she wasn’t making any sense, but I put my phone down and gave her my full attention.
“King & Associates does the kind of work you want to do, right?”
“Correct.” I nodded.
“And they’re good at it, right?”
Why were we recapping this?
“Correct again. Another and you’ll win a set of steak knives.”
“So, why would you leave a company like that?”
She interrupted me before I could speak. “You just need to shift.” She grabbed my barstool and pulled it toward her. “You need to shift your focus. King & Associates is the best place for underpinning capitalism, feeding corporate greed, and all the geeky stuff you do. Am I right?”
I rolled my eyes and took another sip of my drink.
“So stay there. And demand to work on the project. Because your dad is the best at what he does, so the person who lands that account is going to get huge kudos, right?”
“You get the steak knives, yes.”
“So play this smart by sticking around. And, while you’re at it, prove to your dad why he should have offered you a position in his company over his children who have penises.”
I set my empty glass down as I took in what she was saying. Was she on to something? “You’re saying I keep working at King & Associates?” Could I bear to keep working with Max?
“Yes, because however you got the job, you’re there. So make the most of your opportunity.”
“And demand to work on my father’s account?”
“As you’ll be a star if you land it, right? And you’re flipping the bird to your father at the same time. Like I said, it’s all win for you.” Grace indicated to the bartender that we wanted the check.
“Unless we lose the account.” That would be even more humiliating.
“When have you ever lost at anything you wanted?” she asked as she slipped off her stool and handed her black American Express card to the bartender.
“You didn’t need to pay,” I said.
“I didn’t. That was courtesy of my daddy.”
“Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Park Avenue,” I called out. “You might be on to something about not quitting. This could be my opportunity to prove to my father that I can do more than stay at home and lunch for the rest of my life. I’ll show him that I’m worth more, and that he should have been begging for me to work for him and his stupid investment bank.”
I jumped off my chair. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” I grabbed Grace’s face in my hands and gave her a smack on the lips. “You’re a genius.”
Somehow between leaving the bar and getting back to my apartment building, all my patience had disappeared and the cocktails I’d consumed over the evening had convinced me it was a great idea to tell Max I would work on the JD Stanley account immediately.
“I’ll do it,” I said as Max opened his front door.
“Harper, hi.” He rubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes and yawned. “I wanted to speak to you earlier, but you ran off.”
What was I doing? Standing at my boss’s front door in the middle of the night, clearly a little drunk. Did I want to get fired? I stepped back until I hit the wall, but let my eyes trail down Max’s hard, naked torso and follow a trail of hair gathering at his belly button before disappearing beneath his pajama bottoms.
“I think you’d better come in,” he said, his voice gravelly and deep.
I shook my head in an exaggerated way and slipped my hands behind my back. He stepped toward me and pulled at my elbow. “I said come in.”
I lost my balance and toppled toward him. Reaching out to save myself, I pressed my palms on the hot, tight skin of Max’s chest. I pushed away, but he pulled me closer, spun us around, and walked us back into his apartment.
“You’re drunk,” he said as he pressed me up against the wall in his entry and kicked the door shut with his foot. His face was just an inch from mine. I wanted him closer.
“A little,” I confessed.
“Why did you run off? You’re not quitting, if that’s what you think,” he said as he dragged his nose against my jaw.
“Tell me when you knew,” I said, placing my hands on his bare shoulders.
“Knew?” he asked as he began to kiss my neck.
“Who my father was.”
He pulled back and braced himself against the wall, his hands on either side of my head. “I swear to you, I found out today. I think Donna assumed there was a connection but she didn’t mention it to me until I got the phone call.” He paused and his eyes flickered over my face, as if he were trying to figure out whether I believed him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
I dipped under his arms and walked across the entry. “I don’t speak to my father. I don’t have anything to do with him.” I fiddled with my thumbnail.
“Okay. Well you don’t have to work on the pitch. I just thought . . . JD Stanley is the only investment bank on Wall Street I’ve never done business with.”
“So,” I replied, and I glanced up.
“Well I can’t turn down the opportunity.”
“I don’t want you to turn it down.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I want you to win that fucking account—and I’m going to help you.”
“What changed your mind?”
My eyes hit the floor. “It doesn’t matter. You got what you want.”
He took a step forward. “Tell me, Harper.” I knew I shouldn’t say anything more, but there was something in his tone that made it impossible not to comply.