CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DOMINIC
The day after the opening, the press covered it.
The coverage was exactly what his communications director had predicted: the building, the work, and a significant amount of text about the interior architect who was also the CEO’s ex-wife and the speech in which he’d named her.
His phone rang eleven times before nine in the morning.
Board members, primarily. Whitfield twice.
He answered Whitfield once.
“The speech,” Whitfield said.
“Yes,” Dominic said.
“You understand what the press is doing with it.”
“They’re covering it accurately,” Dominic said. “I said something true. They reported it.”
“Dominic.” Whitfield’s voice was the voice of a man trying to be careful. “There are people on the board who are — concerned about the nature of the personal declaration.”
“The personal declaration was about an architect’s work,” Dominic said. “The personal context is — accurate. I’m not going to argue with the press about what’s true.”
“And the other part? The part about your life?”
Dominic looked out his window.
“Also accurate,” he said.
Whitfield was quiet.
“You’re not going to manage this,” Whitfield said. It wasn’t a question.
“No,” Dominic said. “I’m going to let it be what it is.”
“Which is?”
“A man saying something true about a person who matters to him,” Dominic said. “In a room where I can’t take it back.” He paused. “Whitfield. I’ve spent two years managing the wrong things and not managing the things that mattered. I’m done doing that.”
A pause.
“All right,” Whitfield said. Not warm. Not hostile. Just — accepting.
He hung up.
He texted Isla: The press coverage. I want to make sure you’re prepared for it.
She replied: I’ve seen it. I’m fine.
He wrote: Are you actually fine or are you managing it.
A pause. Then: Both, slightly. But more fine than managing.
He smiled.
He wrote: Good. Can I bring dinner tonight?
She wrote: Yes. Thai.
He wrote: I know.
He brought dinner.
He brought it to her West Village apartment because she’d given him the key three days ago — quietly, without making it a production. She’d pressed it into his hand on a Thursday evening and said: So you don’t have to wait at the door.
He’d held it for a moment.
He’d said: This means something.
She’d said: I know what it means. That’s why I gave it.
He let himself in.
She was in the kitchen, still in her work clothes, reading something on her laptop.
She looked up.
“Pad thai?” she said.
“And the dumplings you like,” he said.
She closed the laptop.
They sat at her kitchen table.
They ate and talked about the coverage — which publications had covered it, which had focused on the architecture and which had focused on the personal angle, what it meant for the firm.
“It’s going to bring commissions,” she said.
“I know.”
“Big ones,” she said. “The speech was — it was specific. In a way that the press understood as a professional endorsement from someone whose opinion carries weight in the industry.”
“It was also a personal endorsement,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “It was that too.” She looked at him. “You knew it would do both.”
“Yes,” he said.
She looked at her food.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to,” she said. “I want to.” She looked at him. “You did something public for me. You said the true thing in the room where it cost you something. That means something.”
He held her gaze.
“It was the least I could do,” he said.
She smiled — the real one, the full version, the one he’d been waiting twelve months to see.
“It was considerably more than the least,” she said.
He thought: there she is.
He thought: there’s the full size of her.
She was back.
All the way.