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She’s right. So is Worth, and it just makes me sink into my shoes. I really didn’t want this Fifth Avenue building to be a possibility.

“But Boston is a good option too,” Poppy says. She must have seen my expression. “It’s worth waiting to see how your meeting with Ben goes.”

“How much interest is there in this place?” Worth asks Sujoy.

“It’s been on the market a while, but I do have another very interested buyer who has seen the place,” Sujoy replies.

“And what is their timeline?” Worth asks.

I’m not quite sure why Worth would ask a realtor questions that the realtor has a vested interest in exaggerating.

“I’m waiting to hear back from them on when they can get more members of their team to visit,” Sujoy says.

I catch Worth’s eye and frown at him. What’s he doing?

At that moment, Sujoy’s cell rings and he leaves us to go and take his call.

“No doubt that call will be from the other interested party,” I say.

“I was just taking his temperature. I think there’s someone else in the mix, but at the same time, I don’t think we have to move quickly. Why don’t we get the designer in here and the contractor and they can give us some rough estimates of costs?”

“Can’t we just wait until we hear from Ben East?” I ask.

Worth shrugs. “We can do both.”

But the more invested Worth and Poppy get in this building, the less likely they’re going to want to have a hotel in Boston, that requires a plane or a train ride to even visit the place. I’ve got to make sure Ben and I keep things completely professional—and then he needs to prove he’s the miracle worker he says he is. I want the Boston hotel.

FIFTEEN

Ben

Why didn’t I just hold fast and tell Avril I wouldn’t help her? Then all this could have been avoided. I wouldn’t have a new roommate. I would be able to focus and I wouldn’t be wondering if I could get out of this dinner I’m supposed to be going to tonight so I could get home and hang out with her.

What is happening to me?

Someone knocks on my office door and I look up, a frown of frustration on my face.

“I can come back later,” Patti says from the doorway.

I reset my expression to the effortlessly happy one that I normally wear. “You caught me thinking. It doesn’t happen a lot.” I grin, and she smiles back. We’re back to normal. I’ve become really good at playing down everything about me. My business is built on making sure everyone around me feels good, that they feel like the stars in their own show. All I’m around to do is smooth, oil, grease. I make sure nothing goes wrong.

Patti takes a seat opposite me and we go through my call list. I’m the face of my business, but I employ a small, trusted team to help me support my clients. They don’t speak to the client, that’s all me. But without my team, I’d be lost.

“You had three emails from Jed on the San Francisco thing. You need to call him first. He’s freaking out because the investor is threatening to pull out unless they have signed contracts by the end of the week.”

I don’t react, I just make a small, neat note on the sheet of paper in front of me, half the size of the paper in a reporter’s notebook. I never write down loads of detail. I assume anything I write down, either electronically or manually, could be read, shared, or traded. Therefore, my note simply says Jed.

One of the best things I learned at university wasn’t on the syllabus. It was a workshop I had to pay for. Flyers had been posted all around campus about a course providing memory training. There were various conspiracy theories going around about it. Some said it was a cult trying to recruit vulnerable students. Others said it was an MI5 recruiting session. Others said it was pyramid selling. It cost fifty pounds, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be recruited as a spy.

Turns out, it wasn’t anything but what it said it was: a course on memory training. But it’s the skill I’ve used most since I graduated. In my line of work, it’s almost invaluable. I don’t forget names or faces, I can map out connections visually in my mind, and I remember pieces of information about people that surprises them, and makes them trust me.

“And you really need to speak to Gerald. He’s spiraling if his emails are anything to go by. You didn’t respond to him yesterday.”

I don’t react, but I hear the implied question in Patti’s tone: Why didn’t you call him? That’s not like you.

The fact is, Gerald spirals regularly. But it’s true, I ignored three calls from him yesterday, which is completely out of character for me. I just wanted to tune out of work for a while. I was enjoying hanging out with Avril and I didn’t want the real world intervening.

The big downside to my job is that I never feel off. I field calls in the middle of the night and I never know who I’m going to cross paths with when I’m out for a run or going to buy milk at the grocery store. Which is a big reason why I don’t go to the grocery store to buy milk. People buy into me when they become my client and they get access to me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.