Bonus Chapter
FINN
The suit was a mistake.
I suspected as much in the store, and again in the car, when I saw myself in the rearview mirror at a red light. Now I’m certain, standing under a chandelier the size of a small vehicle while a woman in beige silk tells me for the second time tonight how well the color suits me.
Max had laughed for a full thirty seconds when I came downstairs in it. Ethan looked up from his tablet, took it in, and said, “That’s a choice,” which is pretty damning coming from Ethan.
Neither of them came. Max had a call with Singapore.
Ethan had a trial readout he refused to leave.
Both of them were lying, and both of them knew I knew, and I came anyway because Synthera’s name is on the sponsor board and somebody has to shake hands.
And who knows, maybe I’ll meet someone interesting tonight.
So here I am. In a green suit that could be seen from orbit, which apparently half this room finds charming.
The ballroom is exactly what I expected.
Crystal, string quartet, servers moving through the crowd with champagne balanced on silver trays.
I’ve been introduced to eleven people whose names I’ve already lost and handed two business cards with phone numbers written on the back of them.
A woman in emerald asks whether I came alone.
When I tell her I did, she smiles like that’s an opening, and I politely excuse myself.
I smile and I’m charming and I say all the right things, and underneath it I am counting down.
I check my watch. Forty minutes. I can leave in forty minutes without it being rude.
That’s when I see her.