Forty-Five
ESSIE
H annington-Hale prickles with the energy of pageantry on Monday morning. All the interns are wearing their best business attire, and the bullpen has morphed from a moneymaking pit into a haven for pre-capstone jitters. Freshly roasted coffee permeates the air, and the usual sound of clacking keyboards and phone calls has been replaced with laughter and conversations.
Weston flinches when he sees me, but he tracks my movements. After I place my bag at my station and settle into my chair, he puts a coffee in front of me.
“Absolutely fucking not,” Dalton warns, appearing behind Weston. He drops the entire cup into the trashcan between our desks before his eyes meet mine. “Morning,” he says as if I didn’t sleep in his arms last night—as if he didn’t tell me he loved me eight times while he bent me over the bathroom counter and watched our bodies in the mirror’s reflection.
“Hi,” I reply, smiling.
Dalton smiles back before he looks down at Weston. “VPs are meeting in the big room before the presentations. Do you want me to save the spot next to me? I’ll be on your dad’s right. As usual.”
Weston’s jaw clenches. “Yeah, Cavendish. I’d love to sit right next to you.”
Dalton gives me a long look, checking to see if I’m okay. I am.
Once Dalton leaves, Weston leans in, eyes slivered. “You think you can humiliate me with that stunt? This is the last day you’re ever going to step foot in an investment bank,” he spits.
I scoff. “I give fewer fucks than a monastery.”
Weston’s glare darkens. “Didn’t have to be this way, Romero.”
“You’re wrong. It was always going to be this way because I planned it this way, Hannington.” I toss my hair over my shoulder. “See you in there.”
***
Intern presentations are fifteen minutes long: fifteen minutes to summarize why someone’s life is worth changing.
Shane Anderson’s capstone is dull and dispassionate, but he’s the only intern interested in defense contractors, so he doesn’t think it matters. And Morgan Carter’s first slide has three typos, which is surely an automatic disqualification. Honestly, I’m underwhelmed.
What isn’t underwhelming is Dalton Cavendish. Each time he introduces one of his interns, he stands at the head of the huge conference room, which is brimming with every intern, VP, senior VP, and managing director at Hannington-Hale. I’ve never been able to witness how the rest of the bank responds to him until today.
…I may be slightly jealous.
The way his colleagues track his body when he walks to the front—six times altogether—should spark HR violations across the board. And if it’s not attraction, it’s admiration. This is his bank.
Weston gets a slightly chillier reaction—and by slightly chillier, I do mean he’s the human equivalent of an arctic plunge.
When it’s my turn, Weston and I stand side by side near the projection screen, and I take him in. His outfit is polished, and he bears the hallmarks of a man who expects the world to fall at his feet. It’s unsurprising I didn’t figure out what was beneath his gilded outer layer sooner, and I don’t blame myself. Men make choices; Weston chose to deceive me.
He’s about to make another choice.
“I had the pleasure of managing Essie Romero,” he begins, smiling like an asshat. “As most of you likely noticed, Essie kept her head down and worked hard throughout her internship. However, she was lucky to be noticed by one of the bank’s most profitable clients, which will likely be the focus of her presentation today. She’ll also take you through the algorithmic model she built. And, if there’s time, I’m sure she’d be happy to answer questions about how she fucks herself on the internet.”
My jaw clenches. He did it. Weston actually did it.
And the burn of eyes scalds me before the whispers start. A lump forms in my throat, and I glance at Weston, who simpers back.
Everyone is looking, and my hands tremble under their scrutiny. But I find Dalton across the room, and his adoring gaze becomes the only one I see. Time and again, this man has believed in me.
He’s confident I can do this.
“Thank you, Weston,” I say as if he didn’t torpedo my career at Hannington-Hale before it started. Using the clicker at the front of the room, I open to the first slide in my presentation. “Obviously, forex rates for the US dollar have been phenomenal since the summer quarter closed—”
“Hold on,” Warner interjects, resonating across the packed conference room. “Weston, what did you say?”
“I said,” Weston replies, raising his voice as if he and his father are at opposite ends of a football field, “she fucks on camera for money. She’s a camgirl—and she’s fucking Cavendish.”
The entire room springs into a symphony of dull murmurs. Dalton doesn’t look anywhere but at me, and his hands grip the armrests of his chair painfully .
“This is a wild accusation,” Warner snaps, rising. “Can everyone— can everyone shut the hell up.” The conference room falls silent again. “What you’re saying is deeply inappropriate—”
“I can prove it,” Weston snaps. “I can—”
“I can prove it too,” I cut in. “And since I already have the clicker.” I wave it in the air and take an emphatic step back when Weston lunges. Staying out of his grasp, I advance to the next slide in my presentation. “Here’s a slide that shows the revenue I brought in,” I explain in a rush, continuing to back away. “And here—”
“Essie—” Weston warns, lunging for the clicker again.
“Here—”
“Give me the clicker.” Weston grabs my wrist. “Give me— shit .”
He releases my arm as Dalton hauls him backwards, lifting him like he weighs nothing.
Dalton’s glare—his expression of undiluted fury—subsides when our eyes meet. I know he’s biting his tongue to keep down countless snarky warnings for Weston ranging from, “ If you ever touch her again, I’ll flay you and use your skin to make an artisanal journal I’ll give your mother for Valentine’s Day” to “Give me a reason—any fucking reason.” But this moment is for me.
I click to the next slide and face the room when I say, “And here are three hundred fifty-six messages from Weston Hannington asking me for private camming sessions and begging me to fuck him.”