Page 104 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“I did. Sorry to wake you.” He held the glass carafe under the tap and filled it halfway, then slid it into the complicated coffeemaker.

“That’s okay. I want to catch some morning light. I talked to my papa last night.”

“Yeah?” He felt a jolt.

“Our apartment should be ready in a week or so. He says his crew is working full speed.”

“That’s great. It’s . . . Does he know we don’t want the décor to look like his town house? I mean, we agree, don’t we?”

She laughed, a sound high and lilting. “We’ve talked about it a million times. He knows we have a different aesthetic.”

He looked around at her apartment. “Do we have one? An aesthetic, I mean.”

“I like things simple and basic, and I think you do, too.”

“No gold fixtures.”

“Ha ha ha, very funny.”

“Have you seen it yet?”

“No,” she said, vaguely exasperated. “I asked, but he won’t let me. He wants it to be a surprise.”

*

Paul arrived at the office shortly before eight. He’d showered and tried to make himself look presentable, but the lack of sleep showed on his face, especially under his eyes. Margo wasn’t there yet; she normally came in at eight thirty.

The morning meeting took place in a glass-walled conference room with a long, coffin-shaped conference table made of dark hardwood. All the firm’s principals were in attendance, the twelve most important people in the company. When Paul got there, people were talking about the New York Giants game that weekend and some high-profile, over-the-top wedding in the Hamptons that a few of them were invited to. As soon as Eugene Frost arrived in the room and sat down at the head of the table, all conversation stopped. Mr. Frost was a buzzkill and ran a tight ship. Not like the morning meetings at Aquinnah, which were looser and leavened with schmoozing and joking.

Almost everybody was drinking coffee, and no one touched the breakfast pastries arrayed on the sideboard. Either they’d already had breakfast or they were watching their glycemic profile. Dunlap’s disease and all that.

Mr. Frost began the meeting right on time by clearing his throat.

“I have an important announcement,” he said somberly. “Our network was accessed last night in the ‘wee hours.’” He said “wee hours” with audible quotation marks. “We are currently conducting an investigation. We know a few things right now. We know that the attack was not done remotely. It was done locally. From within our offices.”

People were glancing around, murmuring. “Wow. Was anything taken?” someone said.

Paul tried not to show his terror.

“Can you tell who signed on?” asked Ivan Matlovsky.

“We know which computer was used. Our investigation is proceeding quickly, and we will find the intruder. If any of you knows anything, please consider it your urgent responsibility to notify me at once.” He paused. “And now to work.”

Then each principal gave an update on his area. There was some high-level stuff on the market in general. The meeting was over in an hour and a half.

As it came to a close, Mr. Frost turned to Paul. “May I speak to you a moment?”

Paul’s stomach went taut. “Of course.” He drew closer to Mr. Frost, smiled expectantly, concealing his panic.

“An interesting deal possibility has come in. From a friend of mine I saw at a Hamptons party yesterday. I’ll forward you the PowerPoint deck on them. I’d like you to take a look at it. It’s an online gambling company called FanStars.”

“Sure,” Paul said. Mr. Frost peeled away, walking quickly down the corridor.

*

When Paul returned to his office, his colleague Ethan Carswell knocked on his door, entered, and then closed the door behind him. He’d been at the meeting moments earlier.

“I overheard Frost mention FanStars,” he said.

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