Chapter 2 - JUST ETHAN
Ethan had negotiated acquisitions worth more than the annual budgets of small cities.
Yet Maya Collins’s simple question made him hesitate.
“What do you do?”
Lily stopped dipping a french fry into ketchup.
Maya waited.
Ethan could have told the truth.
Founder and chief executive officer of Mercer Dynamics.
Estimated net worth: six billion dollars.
Penthouse overlooking Lake Michigan.
Homes in Aspen and Manhattan that he visited so rarely they felt like expensive storage units.
Instead he said, “Technology.”
Maya smiled.
“That was suspiciously vague.”
“I’m involved in software.”
“Programmer?”
“Sometimes.”
“Sales?”
“When necessary.”
“Management?”
“Unfortunately.”
Maya laughed.
“So you’re one of those people who answers a simple question with three nonanswers.”
“I’ve been accused of worse.”
Lily leaned forward.
“Do you make video games?”
“No.”
“Then your job sounds boring.”
“It often is.”
Maya shook her head.
“Please stop insulting our guest.”
“He agrees with me.”
“She has a compelling argument.”
Ethan smiled.
Something strange was happening.
He was comfortable.
Not the carefully engineered comfort of a private club where the staff knew his preferences before he arrived.
Not the strategic friendliness of investors who laughed half a second too loudly at his jokes.
This was different.
Maya had no idea who he was.
Lily cared even less.
To them he was simply a lonely man who had been denied a table.
For the first time in years, Ethan wondered whether anonymity might be the most expensive luxury he had ever experienced.
At 9:16, his phone buzzed again.
Maya glanced at it.
“You can answer.”
“I don’t want to.”
“That serious?”
“Probably.”
“And you’re ignoring it?”
“For another five minutes.”
Lily nodded approvingly.
“Good.”
Maya smiled.
“Apparently she’s your life coach now.”
“She charges reasonable rates.”
“One cookie.”
Lily held up a finger.
“Per advice.”
“Inflation is brutal.”
Their server arrived with the check.
Maya reached for it.
Ethan was faster.
“No.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“You’re our guest.”
“Exactly.”
“You don’t pay when someone invites you.”
“I ate half your fries.”
“Three.”
“I counted seven.”
“You counted?”
“Occupational hazard.”
Maya pulled the check toward herself.
Ethan held the other end.
Lily watched them like a tennis match.
“Split it,” she announced.
Both adults looked at her.
“That seems fair,” Ethan said.
Maya sighed.
“Fine.”
They split the bill.
Ethan liked her more because she insisted.
By ten, Bellweather Grill had grown louder.
A DJ began playing old pop songs near the bar. Children danced between tables.
Lily joined them.
Maya watched her daughter with the exhausted tenderness of someone whose entire world occupied one small body.
“She’s wonderful,” Ethan said.
Maya smiled.
“She’s chaos.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“No.”
Something sad flickered across her face.
Ethan noticed.
“Her father?”
Maya looked toward him.
He immediately regretted asking.
“You don’t have to answer.”
“He died.”
Ethan went still.
“I’m sorry.”
“Four years ago.”
She looked back at Lily.
“Car accident.”
Ethan said nothing.
He knew the uselessness of language around death.
His own mother had died from cancer when he was twenty-eight.
For weeks afterward, people had offered phrases polished by repetition.
She’s in a better place.
Everything happens for a reason.
Time heals.
Ethan had hated all of them.
So he simply said, “That must have been hard.”
Maya looked at him.
“It still is sometimes.”
He nodded.
She studied his face.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Who were you supposed to spend tonight with?”
Nobody had asked him that.
Not his board.
Not his assistants.
Not his sister.
“I wasn’t supposed to spend it with anyone.”
Maya’s expression softened.
“By choice?”
Ethan looked at Lily dancing beneath paper snowflakes.
“At first.”
Maya understood.
“That’s different from wanting to be alone.”
“Yes.”
At 10:47, Lily returned to the table, exhausted.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sleepy.”
Maya checked the time.
“We should go.”
Something in Ethan sank unexpectedly.
He stood while Maya helped Lily into her coat.
Outside, snow had begun falling harder.
Maya frowned at her phone.
“What?”
“My bus is delayed.”
“You took the bus?”
She looked amused.
“Some of us live without chauffeurs, Just Ethan.”
His stomach tightened.
Had she recognized him?
Then he realized she was joking.
“My car is nearby.”
Maya hesitated.
“You don’t have to.”
“It’s snowing.”
“We’re fine.”
“Maya.”
She studied him.
Ethan added, “You invited a stranger to dinner. Let me at least make sure that stranger doesn’t watch you wait forty minutes for a bus.”
Lily yawned.
“Can he drive us?”
Traitor, Maya’s expression said.
Five minutes later, they reached Ethan’s car.
Maya stopped.
The black Mercedes cost more than her annual salary.
She looked at him.
“Software?”
“Successful software.”
“Clearly.”
Ethan opened the rear door for Lily.
The ride took twenty minutes.
Maya lived in a modest apartment building in Logan Square.
When they arrived, Lily was asleep.
Ethan helped Maya carry her upstairs.
He had not carried a sleeping child since his sister’s son was small.
Lily’s cheek rested against his shoulder.
Her hand curled into his coat.
Something inside Ethan shifted.
At Maya’s apartment, he gently laid Lily on the couch.
Maya covered her with a blanket.
“Thank you.”
“For dinner?”
“For carrying thirty-nine pounds of unconscious dictator up three flights of stairs.”
“Anytime.”
Maya walked him to the door.
“Happy New Year, Just Ethan.”
“You too.”
He hesitated.
“Could I see you again?”
Maya looked surprised.
“Why?”
The question was so direct that he laughed.
“Because I’d like to.”
She studied him.
“No mystery wife?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Criminal enterprise?”
“Not currently.”
That earned a smile.
Maya took his phone and entered her number.
“One coffee.”
“I’ll take it.”
He walked downstairs feeling absurdly lighter.
Then his phone rang.
His chief operating officer, Daniel Ross.
Ethan answered.
“This had better matter.”
“It does.”
Daniel sounded panicked.
“Someone accessed the Helix acquisition files from inside headquarters.”
Ethan stopped.
“What?”
“Security badge logs show someone entered the executive floor at 9:03 tonight.”
“That floor is locked.”
“I know.”
“Whose badge?”
Silence.
“Daniel?”
“The badge belongs to Maya Collins.”
Ethan stared back toward the apartment window.
Maya’s silhouette appeared behind the curtain.
May you like
The woman who had just invited him into her life worked security in his building.
And according to Mercer Dynamics’ system, while she had been sitting across from him eating a turkey sandwich, her badge had been used to steal confidential files worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
