Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Two weeks in, and Bea had found a rhythm. Early alarms, coffee from the machine that hissed like a warning, twenty-two-minute walk from Nico’s pool house to her office in Northgate.
The office was colder than expected, bright and sterile, as high-stakes places often were. Bea had no door, no title. But there was a desk with her badge clipped to it, a login that worked, and a break room with a mug she’d already decided was hers.
The first few days, she’d caught the glances. Curiosity. They hadn’t asked how she got here. She was pretty sure everyone knew who she was dating. They were waiting to see if she was here to work or to cruise.
By the end of week one, her supervisor had started including her in internal calls. The start of week two, she was drafting summaries and sending them without being asked. She was learning to keep pace, even if the terrain was unfamiliar.
And she loved it.
Not every hour. Not every meeting. But the quiet exhilaration of finishing something she didn’t know she could, of not being coddled, but just included, made the days speed past.
She was getting somewhere. Her team had stopped double-checking her math. Today, her supervisor handed her a live brief with no warning, no explanation, just a: “Take a crack at it.”
She brought it with her to Gage’s penthouse. Her laptop glowed on the kitchen island, surrounded by annotated printouts and a nearly empty glass of sparkling water.
Gage leaned back on the island beside her, a slim deck of French vocabulary cards fanned neatly at his elbow.
Bea turned her screen toward him. “It’s not landing.”
He barely glanced at it. “You’re presenting data. Not a decision.”
“It’s a market analysis.”
“It’s noise. What’s your conclusion?”
She bit her lip. “That we should pivot marketing spend to Solution B.”
“Then lead with that. Everything else is backup.”
“That’s slide five.”
“That’s where the problem is,” Gage said. He turned over a card, murmured the word under his breath, and set it down. Bea watched him for a moment, distracted.
Trust Gage to study French while telling her she was wrong. If this were a text chain it would be the moment she’d put the deadpan emoji.
“You want me to start with the answer?” she asked. “What if I’m wrong?”
“Make sure you’re not wrong,” he said simply, gathering the cards into a neat stack. “Most people present everything to protect themselves. Don’t. Present to win.”
Bea looked at him. The glow from her screen caught the edge of his jaw. He wasn’t even trying. Just standing there, critiquing her presentation like he’d done it a hundred times in better suits, bigger rooms, with people twice her age. Because he had.
It was slightly infuriating. And unbelievably hot.
She worked on her deck while Gage showered. ‘Present to win’ was a much clearer objective than ‘present the options.’ She already knew her work was better because of him.
When he returned, he picked up one of her printouts. She watched the way his eyes moved over the page. He didn’t skim. He absorbed.
“Were you always like this?” she asked.
“Like what?” he said, still reading.
“Competent. Certain.”
He gave a small shrug. “Not always.”
“Serious question…” She waited until he locked eyes with her. “How does someone turn into Gage King?”
“Which version do you want, the summary or the truth?”
“Whichever one you don’t give most people.”
He set the paper down and ran a hand over it once, flattening the page into place. “I was twelve the first time my father took me into a general meeting at King Global.”
She pictured him—small, silent, out of place at a boardroom table. “What did you do?”
“Took notes. Memorized the numbers. Rebuilt the table at home. He checked every cell.” A beat passed. “I made mistakes.”
“And?”
“He didn’t let me sleep until I got it right.”
This time, she tried to imagine a barely pubescent boy staying up all night working on a spreadsheet. “When did you start working at King Global?”
“Fourteen. Nate, too. Summer breaks. Winter holidays. After school. No PlayStation. Just decks, due diligence, and watching grown men beg for capital.”
“But you were both in high school,” she exclaimed.
“Did deals. Did math homework. Did the social circuit with my mother.”
“And then the military?”
“Mandatory. No shortcuts.”
“Not even for a King?” she teased.
“Not for anyone.”
In the UR, every man served three years of compulsory military training—the longest in the developed world.
The reasons were threefold: protection, balance, and culture.
Defense was nonnegotiable for a nation this prosperous.
The draft gave young women space to grow, too.
In a place where the ratio was so askew, the buffer was essential.
And after three years, the boys they used to know returned from service as men: stronger, smarter, more disciplined.
It sounded like a social experiment, but it wasn’t. And in the UR at least, it worked.
She leaned forward, fascinated. “What did you and Nate do in the military?”
“Besides learn how to shoot?” He took a sip of water. “Strategic rotations. Defense planning. Shadowed command briefings, spent a year inside the Ministry. Learned when to speak. When not to.”
“So even there, you were being shaped for King Global,” she surmised.
“If we weren’t learning about numbers, we were learning about power,” Gage said, pragmatic. “Our fathers made sure of it.”
“And then St. Ives.”
“Freshman year, we got live portfolios. Started running acquisitions,” he said, shuffling his language cards again. Found one that said débutant, laid it face up on the table. “We once lost fifteen million because we were distracted by exams. That didn’t happen twice.”
Bea studied him. Chiseled over decades—rough edges sanded down, soft parts forged into steel. The kind of man who could dismantle her slide deck and her heartbeat in the same breath.
His name was his ship. And his cargo. It was hard not to admire him.
“Your parents,” she said softly, “they’ve prepared you well.” Her words sat there. True. And nowhere near big enough.
He took a while to respond. “It wasn’t about making me happy. It was about making sure I could carry what came next.”
The boardroom was smaller than the ones in Gage’s building. Still, it felt large and looming, filled with the quiet hum of open laptops and expensive pens. Her team was already gathered: three analysts, her supervisor, and two interns who eyed Bea with disinterest.
She breathed once, twice, then started. “I’m recommending we pivot the next quarter’s marketing spend to Solution B,” Bea said, clicking to the first slide.
“The data suggests it’s already outperforming baseline projections by eight percent, and with reallocation, we can double brand visibility in one of our softer territories. ”
One of the analysts, a sharp-looking woman in a tan blazer, tapped her pen. “What’s your source on the visibility metric?”
Bea clicked forward. “Slide four. Based on last quarter’s campaign tracking and sentiment review. I’ve included both consumer and wholesale response.” She paused. “The full sheets are in the appendix.”
The woman didn’t nod, just underlined something in her notes.
Her supervisor pursed her lips, then looked at the others. “Not bad.”
Another analyst grunted. “It’s more than I thought we’d get.”
Bea was just about to let herself exhale. But as she went to shift to her final slide, the man seated nearest to the door—Dev, senior analyst, expensive watch, reputation for being the one who “cut the interns’ teeth”—closed his laptop with a quiet click.
“Sorry. Can we circle back for a second?” His voice was mild. His expression wasn’t. “You said Solution B boosts visibility. But visibility doesn’t equal conversion. So unless you’re proposing we move goalposts, I’m not sure I see the upside.”
Bea’s brain scrambled. “I’m not moving goalposts,” she said, her voice steadier than her spine felt. “Visibility isn’t the end goal, but in this region, it’s the most immediate hurdle. Awareness has to rise before conversion can. We’re treating this like a two-phase play, not a standalone metric.”
Dev leaned back, unimpressed. “And you’re confident the correlation holds?”
Bea clicked again. Her pulse kicked. “Pages eleven through fourteen. We mapped it across a control group and used comparative markets to isolate the trend.” A breath. “It’s not perfect, but the confidence interval sits above industry average.”
A long silence followed before Dev exhaled through his nose. It seemed he’d finished his bite and didn’t need another.
“Alright.” He didn’t nod, exactly. More like he relented.
That time, she exhaled for real.
When the meeting ended and everyone filed out of the conference room, her chest buzzed with residual adrenaline. She hadn’t drowned. She’d been tested. And she’d held, just.
No one clapped, but no one shredded it either. In this place, that was praise.
She was halfway back to her desk when the elevator chimed. Bea glanced up, and stilled. Immediately the warmth drained from her face.
Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, Catherine Vale walks into mine.
Hair in a sleek ponytail, cream floral blouse tucked into Oxford-blue trousers, heels sharp enough to leave marks. Her gaze swept the floor, clearly not expecting to see Bea.
The moment of surprise was real. Contained. Irritation swiftly followed, muted but there. Then finally, the smile. Like a woman who’d already decided where the knife would go.
“Well,” Catherine said, approaching her desk. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Thought you’d be in Europe or something,” Bea said, trying to sound bored.
“No, I was at Gage’s for Christmas,” Catherine said pointedly. “I thought you were going to be in Toronto all summer.”
“I was. The plan changed.”
“Interning?”
“Mhm.”
“How enterprising,” Catherine mused. “I didn’t realize they were taking interns this quarter.”
Bea shrugged.
Catherine’s laugh was light, practiced. “Of course. Some paths do open more easily—when you’re connected.”
Bea’s spine straightened. “And you’d know all about easy paths,” she said. “You were born on one.”
The smile faltered. Just slightly.
Bea noticed how everyone around them had gone still. No one was even typing anymore.
Catherine’s eyes arced toward the conference room Bea had exited. “Client briefing?”
“I was presenting.”
“Oh.” Catherine tilted her head. “I suppose if I were in your position, I’d be just as eager to prove I belonged.”
Bea held her ground. “It seemed to go well.”
“I’m sure it did,” Catherine agreed. “Most interns just observe. But then again, most interns have something to lose.”
Bea didn’t answer.
“You’ve been here what, two weeks?”
“A little more.”
“I do admire that kind of confidence,” she said, smooth. “Jumping straight in. I spent years building the credibility to speak.” Then Catherine turned, passing two analysts by the corner as she left. “Be kind to her,” she murmured, sugar-rich. “She’s trying her best, I’m sure.”
Bea didn’t bother responding. She’d been at the pointy end of Catherine’s blade multiple times before. At galas, at the beach, at the Winter Regatta last year. But this was…different than usual.
Catherine was rattled. Rattled meant threatened, which probably meant Bea had done something right. Maybe the one thing she wasn’t supposed to do—she’d come back. To Gage.
The screen blinked once, then filled with Claire in grainy Toronto light.
Claire was sitting cross-legged on her bed, hair in a messy bun, one AirPod in. “Tell me everything. Start with Gage, end with your breakdown. Go.”
Bea curled her legs under her on the couch. “There’s no breakdown.”
Claire squinted. “So you’re thriving? Killing it? Loving the internship?”
“I was.”
Claire gesticulated, encouraging her to continue.
“I mean, it was fine at first. I was nervous, but my team’s okay. They stopped treating me like I was about to burst into tears every time someone said ‘deck.’ I was doing fine.”
“And now?”
“Catherine Vale is consulting at my firm,” Bea muttered.
Claire sat up straighter. “No. Way.”
“She walks in like she owns the place. Every time I think I’ve done something decent, she appears with that voice—”
“—like poison wrapped in honey?”
“Yes!”
Claire chortled. “I missed this drama.”
“She does this thing where she smiles and tilts her head like she’s handing you a compliment, but what she’s actually saying is, ‘You don’t belong here, and I hate you.’”
“And the worst part is, everyone knows what she’s implying. But no one says anything.”
“Exactly,” Bea groaned. “And I can’t call her out, because if I do, she’ll say I’m being sensitive, or overreacting. Like I’m the one who misunderstood.”
“Sweet mercy, she’s so good at it I want to slap her.”
Bea gave a tired laugh. “She said my charts were ‘intuitive.’”
“No.”
“It’s refreshing to see someone rely on intuition over accuracy.”
“That witch.”
“She’s not saying I’m unqualified. She’s calling me a charity case. Like I only belong if someone powerful lets me in.”
“No way, Beya Slaya.” Claire leaned in. “It’s just that you were supposed to be in Canada this summer. She thought she had the whole runway to rebrand herself as Mrs. Gage King.”
Bea sighed. “I’ve got a bit less than two weeks left, and I feel like I’m back at square one. Like all anyone sees again is Gage’s girlfriend.”
Claire took a sip of something from a mug that said World’s Okayest Barista.
“What does Gage say?”
“Nothing. He doesn’t know.”
Claire’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “Seriously? Still? Why not?”
“She’s a family friend. Their parents are close. I don’t want to come off like I’m insecure or jealous or…whining about another girl.”
“You’re not whining,” Claire said flatly. “You’re telling him so he can handle it.”
“He can’t handle everything for me, Claire Bear.” She closed her eyes. “If I have to ask him to fight this for me, then maybe I really don’t belong here.”
Claire’s mouth compressed, like she was trying not to swear. “I get it. But it kills me that I’m not there to casually spill something on her blouse for you. She sounds like the human version of a dried-out whiteboard marker. Useless, but still leaving marks everywhere.”
Bea managed a weak laugh, but the knot in her chest hadn’t loosened. “She has this…unique ability to make me feel like I’m visiting.”
“Please. If you’re the visitor, what does that make her? The Airbnb host who forgot it’s not her honeymoon.”
Bea snorted.