Walk out the door, Margot thought. She felt like a suckling pig, one that had been spit-roasted to Edge’s liking. He had set her up. Get in a cab, go home, change your phone number.
But she was too weak. She went back to the table, drank her wine and then a glass of port with the apricot tarte tatin that Edge ordered for them to share, and when she slid into the back of a taxi, it was with Edge. They sped uptown to his apartment, and there Edge took his time with her. It was, by far, the best lovemaking of their relationship; it was almost as if he hadn’t been trying before. Later, he brought her a robe and a glass of ice water, and he rubbed her back until she fell asleep.
In the morning, she was up and out, but she felt like the issue of Seth LeBreux needed addressing, so she said, as she kissed Edge good-bye at the door, “It’s in the client’s hands now, but I’ll see what I can do for Seth.”
“Thank you, Margot,” Edge said. “You don’t know what it would mean to me.”
Margot didn’t explain all of this to Griff, however. What she said was: “The guy I was dating, a man I thought I was falling in love with… his nephew was a competing candidate for that Tricom job.”
Griff stared at her levelly. She loved the complexity of his eyes, but she couldn’t let herself get distracted.
She said, “Tricom loved you, you know they loved you.”
“Yes,” he said. “I thought I was in. I thought it was fit and finish. I thought I was their guy. And then out of nowhere… I got signed off.”
Margot said, “I threw you under the bus so that Seth would get the job.”
Griff said, “You’re kidding.”
“Oh, God,” Margot said. “I wish I was.”
The final slate of three for the Tricom job had been Griff, Seth, and a woman named Nanette Kim. Nanette Kim was phenomenally brilliant (Georgetown, Harvard Business School, fifteen years at AT&T, she had a ten out of ten on her handshake, she was a woman, and she was Asian). Margot couldn’t not send her. But Margot also knew that Drew Carver, the CEO of Tricom, was as chauvinistic a human being as had ever been born, and Margot knew the new hire was going to be a man. It would be Griff or Seth.
Drew and his team at Tricom were leaning toward Griff, and Margot couldn’t blame them. Seth wasn’t going to win on his own merits; she was going to have to cut Griff down.
Margot had thought Drew might have concerns about Griff’s abrupt departure from the Masterson Group. Griff had been adamant in only saying it was for “personal reasons.” He didn’t want Drew or anyone at Tricom to know about his wife’s affair or the baby. Margot had been prepared to explain the situation to Drew sotto voce if the issue arose. But Drew had been content with “personal reasons.”
However, in the final phone call, the one where Margot suspected Drew would be offering the job to Griff, Drew said, “I do have some concerns that maybe this guy lacks gravitas. The golfing, the partying. Maybe the frat boy in him is a bit too pronounced.”
Margot had been shocked by this statement. Drew Carver, like Harry Fry, was known to love the golfers, the partiers, the fraternity presidents, the captains of the hockey team. Drew Carver was giving Margot an opening. She could slip right through to the dark side undetected.
“Well, I wasn’t going to mention this before,” Margot said. “But now that you bring it up…”
“Yes?” Drew said.
“In his original résumé, he listed that he had been voted homecoming king at Maryland. And I thought the same thing, Drew. I thought, What kind of person lists that as an achievement on a professional résumé twenty years after the fact? I told him to strike it, and he did, but the fact that he chose to list it initially shows questionable judgment, I think. I mean, really, homecoming king?”
“Oh,” Drew said. There was a long pause, then he said, “Yes. Thank you for letting me know.”
And with those words, Margot knew that Griff was out and Seth was, most likely, in. She could call Edge that very night and tell him that she’d worked her magic. She had single-handedly landed Seth LeBreux a job he didn’t deserve.
“You were the better candidate,” Margot said. “And I stole that job from you.”
“You did,” Griff said. “You did. God, I can’t believe it.”
“I did,” Margot said. “Professionally, it was abominable. I hate myself for it.”
Griff tented his hands and bowed his head. “Jesus,” he said. A string of seconds passed, then he said, “And you did it for some guy? Some guy you thought you were falling in love with?”