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“I have dinner with colleagues, and you’ll be joining me.” He checks his watch. “We leave in ten minutes.”
“I can’t just—” I gesture helplessly at my disaster of a desk, the spreadsheets bleeding across my screen, the cold coffee, thegeneral sad-sack state of my existence. “I have deadlines. Your son’s deadlines, actually. Which are already overdue.”
“Kir’s deadlines can wait.”
“He specifically said?—”
“I specifically don’t give a fuck what Kir said.” Lukas’s gaze sweeps over me, cataloging every rumpled inch. The wrinkled blouse, the mascara I’m sure has migrated halfway down my face. “You look exhausted.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.” He drags my chair back from the desk, and I scramble to my feet keep from toppling out of it. “You have eight minutes left to compose yourself. I suggest you use them wisely.”
I spend six of those eight minutes in the bathroom trying to make myself look like a person who hasn’t been rotting at her desk for the past ten days. The remaining two minutes, I waste staring at my reflection and wondering what new nightmare I’m being dragged into.
The car ride is silent. Lukas spends the entire time on his phone, thumbing through emails with the focused intensity of a man who has forgotten anyone else exists. I watch the city through the window and try not to think about the last time we were alone in a vehicle together. I’m mostly unsuccessful.
Our dinner companions are already seated when we arrive. It’s a range of all types: tall, smug-looking Wall Street financiers,some grizzly, bearded captains of industry, and a few slick tech bros wearing pricey t-shirts beneath their tailored blazers. A dozen or so in total, including us.
“Lukas!” The eldest of the group stands to clasp Lukas’s hand. “And who’s this?”
“My assistant,” Lukas says. “Ms. Everett will be taking notes.”
That’s the full extent of my introduction. Not even a first name. I’m so tempted to give a mocking curtsy and say,I serve at the pleasure of our liege.
But I doubt that Lukas would appreciate my humor, so instead, I smile tightly and take a seat at the far end of the table, pulling out my phone to dutifully document whatever pearls of wisdom these titans of the world choose to dispense.
What follows nearly puts me to sleep.
The conversation orbits around Series B funding rounds and market penetration strategies and something called “synergistic value creation” that makes me want to claw my own ears off. I nod along and type notes that grow increasingly sassy as the evening progresses.
• Guy with too much hair gel thinks AI will “revolutionize the grocery vertical.” Does he even know what that means? Does anyone?
• Second bottle of wine uncorked. Nobody has offered me any. Rude.
• Balding one just said “move the needle” for the sixth time. I’m now considering “moving a needle” into his eyeball.
But worse than the mind-numbing business talk is Lukas himself.
Because he’scordial.
He laughs at their jokes, smiling with teeth and everything. He discusses market trends with genuine engagement. He orders the wagyu tartare for the table and remembers everyone’s dietary restrictions.
He is, in every possible way, a completely normal person having a completely normal dinner.
And, just like in the conference room and the gala before then, he doesn’t look at me once. Not even the briefest acknowledgment that I exist beyond my capacity to transcribe their tedious conversation.
By the time dessert arrives, I’m vibrating with a toxic cocktail of exhaustion and confusion. One of the tech bros comes over to trade seats with his friend to my right as the baked Alaska arrives.
“You look like you’d rather be anywhere else,” he murmurs, low enough that the others can’t hear.
I glance up from my phone, caught mid-snark. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only to someone paying attention.” His eyes crinkle at the corners. He’s handsome in a flashy, young-rich way—dark hair, unshaved jaw, a tan that saysyachtrather thantanning bed. “I’m Preston, by the way. Though I suspect you already knew that.”
Now that he mentions it, I do, actually. He bid on me at the auction. Half a million dollars, if I remember correctly, before Lukas swooped in with his unlimited checkbook and a warning.
There’s a trail of gibbering, broken girls in psychiatric hospitals across the country courtesy of him.
