Chapter Four Hunter
Chapter Four
Hunter
I often blow through lunch. I’m either on calls or in meetings.
My assistant will leave a salad on my desk, and I won’t even get the chance to look at it, let alone eat it, before most people leave for the day.
I don’t notice the hunger. I’m too busy.
Too caught up in making Portis Investments a success.
I’ve always been focused, but seeing a business fail and being at the helm while it sank focuses the mind.
If I can add value, I’d rather do that than stand in line for a pastrami on rye.
But today my meeting finished early, everyone in the office keeps going on about what a nice day it is, and my assistant ordered me outside to get my own lunch. She insisted it was her way of supporting my mental health.
She may have been right. Even though I feel slightly guilty about not returning the ten calls I have on my call sheet, it feels good to be out in the daylight.
People are everywhere, rushing in every direction.
Others are sitting on the bits of walls or steps that have escaped the shadows.
They clearly don’t have time to make it the five blocks to the park but want to be outside.
Cabs are honking. Traffic is at a standstill.
It feels so . . . normal. But I don’t usually see any of it.
I get to the office when it’s still dark, and I haven’t left before midnight more than twice in the last six weeks.
It’s ironic that both those times were because of Ed and Katherine.
First, I met the happy couple for dinner when they came down to New York a month ago.
Then I had to catch a flight up to Boston for the engagement party on Friday.
Their engagement and wedding planning is pulling away my focus as well as Ed’s.
It’s only Portis Investments that’s going to suffer.
We can’t both be mentally checked out at the same time. Someone’s got to keep us afloat.
I head to my favorite sandwich shop, Stranger than Fiction. Each sandwich is named after something book related. It’s designed for tourists, but move over Holden Caulfield, I love a Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted milk. It isn’t much, but you get quite a lot of vitamins in the malted milk.
I take my place in the line, which stretches out the door, and check my phone to see what I’m missing on my email.
The first one is from Ed. The subject is “Sorry bud”—never a good sign.
I scan the email and do my best not to swear or put a fist through the nearest wall.
He’s not coming to the dinner with FMCH tomorrow.
He knows how important it is. Landing a client like FMCH could add thirty percent to our revenues next year.
What is he thinking? I look more closely at the email.
He has an appointment to taste food for the wedding.
I reread it to make sure I’m not hallucinating.
He can’t seriously be skipping an opportunity to sit down with the decision-makers at FMCH to eat fucking chicken.
So far, I haven’t said anything to Ed about the way I think his focus has been pulled away. But now? It’s gone too far. I can’t call him right away. I’m too wound up. I take a steadying breath and glance at the front of the line. Something or someone is taking a long time.
I pull up an email from an old college buddy, Jack.
He’s from old New York money and has a really nice place on Martha’s Vineyard where I stayed one summer back in college.
He knows the area, so I emailed him to see whether he knew of a good place for the party.
I had my assistant scour all the usual websites, but everything is fully booked or just not big enough.
I’m just opening the email when I hear a shrill voice say, “Shouldn’t you be looking for a beach house and not hanging out in the sunshine on a random Tuesday?”
I look up and come face-to-face with Lucy.
I groan inwardly. I thought I’d left her behind in Boston. “What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I work in that building.” She points at the mirrored building next to the one Portis Investments is in.
Of course she does.
“I’m getting a sandwich, so shoot me,” I say.
“Happily, but I don’t own a gun.” She shrugs. “And plus, orange isn’t my color.”
“I suppose that’s my fault too?”
She looks at me like she’s weighing how difficult it would be to strangle me.
“So have you found anywhere?” she asks, her tone softening a little. “This joint bachelor/ bachelorette party is in three weeks. We need somewhere to stay, and Katherine has her heart set on a beach house on the Cape. We can’t let her down.”
“We can’t keep calling it ‘the joint bachelor/bachelorette party.’ It’s too much of a mouthful.”
“Call it whatever the hell you want when you find a house for us.”
This woman hates me. I don’t understand her problem. Okay, so I was a little drunk the first time we met and a little hungover the second. But it’s not like I got drunk to piss her off. Why is she taking it personally?
“I’ve been reaching out to some contacts to see if I can find anything.”
“I don’t care about what you’re doing. I want results. Don’t give me inputs. I want outputs.”
The corners of my mouth twitch slightly. She sounds a little like me when I’m looking over people’s work and they give me all the background—all the research they’ve been doing—when I only want to see the conclusion.
“I want a house!” Her voice is growing louder. People in line are starting to side-eye our little tête-à-tête.
“Shouting at me won’t make real estate listings magically appear.” I look back at my phone to see if the email from Jack says anything that will get Lucy off my back.
Lucy’s still talking at me as I read through Jack’s response. His family house . . . blah blah, he’s just bought a place as an investment . . . blah blah . . . and there’s a hyperlink.
“Are you even listening to me?” Lucy snaps at me.
“No. I’m trying to read an email about a rental for this goddamn prewedding party.
” I squint at the screen. The pictures on the website are beautiful, and it’s on Martha’s Vineyard.
Not the Cape, but near enough. I flip back to the email from Jack to make sure it’s available.
It’s newly refurbished and hasn’t been up for rental until last week, which is why it’s available for the weekend we need. I just hit the goddamn jackpot.
“Sure you are,” Lucy says. “But seriously, get off ESPN or whatever the hell you’re messing with on your phone and problem-solve. We need to figure this out.”
I groan. Why is she still complaining? I’m not going to tell her I just came up with a solution to our house-rental problem. Let her sweat it out a little longer.
I drop my phone and look directly at Lucy.
For a moment, I’m stunned. I’d forgotten how completely mesmerizing her eyes are.
She’s got a little more makeup on than I saw her in this weekend.
She looks kick-ass. I scan her body. She’s in a tightly fitted dress and high heels, her hair pulled back into one of those styles that makes her look like a forties movie star.
Something trips in my chest, and I can feel a blush creeping up my neck.
How can looking at a girl make me blush?
Especially a woman as annoying as Lucy. Does she give everyone a hard time like this, or does she save all her energy for me?
For a second, I visualize grabbing her by the wrist, pressing her up against the wall by the sandwich store, and kissing her, just to stop her from talking.
“Hunter!” she says, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“What?” I snap back, irritated by her sniping, irritated by Ed’s email, irritated that I’ve been standing in line for twenty minutes for a goddamn sandwich.
“You are hopeless,” she says. “I’m giving you forty-eight hours to find us the best beach house on the Cape.
I don’t care how much you have to pay or who you have to kill.
Just get it done.” She turns and heads off, her heels clipping the ground like they’re telling me to get. It. Done. Get. It. Done. Get. It. Done.
Does she understand who she’s talking to? I run a business of thirty employees and invest assets of over three hundred million dollars. I don’t take orders from anyone.
The line starts moving, but I’ve lost my appetite. Everything feels overwhelming. Not only am I now shouldering Ed’s contribution to Portis on top of my own full plate, I’m also party-planning. This isn’t how I saw my year going.