Page 87 of Dial F for Finance

I’ll be collecting on some of those tonight.

Dominic:

I love it when you talk dirty to me.

CHAPTER 20

Dominic

Six months ago, I got Thomas Canning to clear his packed schedule and meet at The Metropolitan Club with one phone call and one sentence: hear my friend out, and when you raise your next fund, Cruz Financial writes the anchor check.

Tonight, in my boardroom, with the city coming on gold through the glass and the signature pages stacked like a finished meal, I made good.

“Two hundred million,” Thomas says as we come out into the corridor, still shaking his head slightly. “Anchor commitment, first close, no side-letter games. You know what the last guy who promised me an anchor check did?”

“Made you chase him for eleven months,” Xavier Field says from my left, without looking up from his phone. “I billed the emotional damage to the fund.”

Xavier is the other half of the Canfield name—younger than Thomas, watchful where Thomas is warm, the kind of man who says one sentence for every ten he audits internally and makes the one count. He flew in from San Francisco this morning, reviewed our diligence file like he was grading it, and found the single error in two hundred pages. I already like him even though I don’t think he gives a shit about being liked.

“You showed up and heard David out when it would cost you a hell of a lot more than money,” I tell Thomas, referring to the custody battle between David and Michaela’s biological mother, Kelsie. What was revealed during that meeting ended Thomas’s marriage to her. “The check was always coming. The fund’s good. Don’t make it weird.”

“I’m a twice-divorced man pushing fifty, Dominic. Weird is the remaining inventory.” But he says it with that steady, unhurried dignity that made me trust him across a whiskey bar in the first place, and there’s a shade more life in him than there was six months ago. Not much. The man is rebuilding at his own pace, brick by brick, and he doesn’t pretend otherwise, which is exactly why I’d hand him two hundred million of my own money.

“And the Pacific piece?” I ask Xavier. “Nakamura’s people land back in Chicago later this summer for the implementation review. I could use eyes that know the terrain.”

Xavier gives me his full attention, which I suspect is a rationed resource. “I’ve done four deals with entities Nakamura controls. I know which of their VPs actually has authority and which ones are furniture. Send me the file.” A beat. “Reyes is in Singapore through the month, but if it grows legs I can pull him in.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Don’t appreciate it yet. I’m expensive and I don’t laugh at jokes.”

“He’s lying,” Thomas says. “I’ve seen him laugh twice. Both times a competitor was filing for insolvency.”

And that’s when I look up, and forget what we’re talking about.

Down the corridor, at Roz’s desk, my wife is laughing.

Jenna’s perched on the edge of it, coat still on, and Roz has her reading glasses down on the end of her nose and her phone out, walking Jenna through what is unmistakably the grandchild slideshow—the full director’s cut, six kids deep—and Jenna is laughing, head tipped, whole face lit, gold band catching the corridor lights every time her hand moves. Roz got the news on Monday like everyone else, iced me until Wednesday for the crime of eloping without her logistical oversight, then transferred her entire allegiance to Jenna in a single afternoon.

I watch for a beat, and it does something to me. It always does, when she’s happy in a way that’s not about me, not forced or filtered. That laugh—unguarded, like she forgot for one second the business of defense—feels more improbable than the number of zeros on the check we just wrote.

Thomas follows my stare. “How the hell did you poach Jenna Pemberton from Bennett Mercer? I’ve been in the market for an EA since April—mine’s retiring on me, moving to Sedona to make pottery, it’s a whole betrayal—and I wouldn’t even know what to offer a woman like that.”

“I didn’t poach her.” The grin arrives from somewhere around my sternum. “She still runs Bennett’s empire. She’s up here because I married her.”

Thomas blinks. Xavier looks up from his phone.

“You—” Thomas recalibrates, and then it breaks over his face, slow and real, the first entirely uncomplicated smile I’ve seen on the man since before that day at The Metropolitan Club. “Married. Well, hell, Dominic.” He shakes my hand again, warmer this time. “Congratulations. Truly. Take it from a man who got it wrong—when it’s good, it can make up for a lot of the rest.” He glances down at his bare left hand, and something flickers across his face. “You chose well, my friend.” Then he smirks. “But I am a little disappointed you didn’t figure out how to poach her from Bennett’s team. She’s the best damn EA I’ve ever met. I’d sell one of Xavier’s internal organs for someone of her caliber.”

Xavier cocks an eyebrow. “Glad the partnership remains strong.”

I chuckle. “I’ll pass on your compliments.”

“If she knows anyone half as competent,” Thomas says, “send their names our way.”

“I’m sure she’ll be able to recommend someone. I’ll get Roz to forward their CVs to you.”

“Send it to Xavier,” Thomas says. “He handles all our executive recruitment personally.”