Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [18]
“Downtown,” I said. “But I’ve got an event here tonight.”
“Oh, yeah? What kind of event?”
“A cocktail party for a client. She’s introducing a new line of necklaces made with semiprecious stones. Fun and functional,” I recited from the press release I’d written.
He frowned, broad forehead creasing. “Is jewelry ever functional?”
I widened my eyes, feigning shock. “I’m doomed.” I clutched his arm and lowered my voice to a whisper. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
I laughed, low and throaty. My wrap dress was cut short enough to show off my legs, waxed just a few days before. My hair was freshly colored, and I was wearing one of my client’s pieces, a heart-shaped chunk of amber on a lacy gold chain. I felt good, my muscles warm and loose after my morning run, a six-mile loop through Central Park. It was a day full of promise, one of those perfect New York mornings where the city looked like it had been power-washed, the sky a rich blue, the trees thick with glossy green leaves, a gentle breeze blowing. The taxicabs honking their way up Sixth Avenue glowed golden. The people on the sidewalk were fit and scrubbed and full of purpose. And here I was, alongside the kind of man I’d moved to New York City to meet, my reward after all the pain and expense I’d endured. The apple was hanging from the tree, warm and ripe in my hand. All I had to do was pluck it.
Marcus had taken my elbow as we had crossed the street. Later, I would learn that he had a car and driver, which he’d left at the corner, waiting, and that the only reason he’d been in the Starbucks in the first place, puzzling over the difference between a grande and a venti, was because one of his assistants was in the backseat on the phone to a broker in Tokyo, and the other had been sent ahead to Teterboro, making sure the catering company had arrived to provision his private jet.
“Here’s my stop,” I said when we’d reached the hotel’s revolving glass door. I pulled his coffee out of the carrier and handed it to him, noticing how small the paper cup looked in his big hand.
“Would you like to have dinner sometime?” he asked.
“I could be convinced.” I gave him my business card. He rubbed it between his fingers, reading out loud: “India Bishop, President, Bishop PR.”
I nodded demurely. “That’s me.” I loved the name India. My mother had named me Samantha, but I was a long way from the place I’d been raised, from the girl I’d been. I’d taken the name from a book I’d read, Mrs. Bridge, about a married, settled midwestern lady with a name that was the most exotic thing about her. India suited me better, and so India was what I’d become.
“India,” said Marcus Croft. “I’ll be in touch.”
Upstairs in the ballroom, waiting for the banquet manager to go over the menu one last time, I flipped open my laptop, slipped off my shoes, and typed “Marcus Croft” into my search engine. The computer spat out eleven thousand hits—the Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Businessweek, the Robb Report. It didn’t take me long to learn that the man who’d been so nonplussed by the Starbucks offerings was the real deal, an arbitrageur who’d launched one of the world’s most successful hedge funds, a man who owned pieces of everything from sports teams to fast-food chains to clothing factories in China. Married once, to his college sweetheart, the former Arlene Sandusky; divorced for five years, three children, almost grown. He was fifty-five. That was older than I thought, but I could work with it. I figured that, barring an early and lucrative divorce, we could be man and wife for twenty years, and if he was considerate and didn’t linger, I’d have plenty of years to be a very merry widow.
But that was getting ahead of myself.
I dug deeper, refining my search, typing in his name along with the name of his wife. It didn’t take me long to learn that the ex–Mrs. Croft had