New York Billionaires Series

We don’t talk about it until we leave Tristan’s. Carter is quiet by my side. That’s unusual, like he’s testing the waters. But when the car rolls through Midtown, I speak up.

“Could we go to Queens first, please?”

“Audrey,” he says quietly.

“I’d prefer to sleep at home tonight.” Alone, I think, though I don’t add it. My chest feels tight. Like I’m about to cry, and I don’t know why. Because of my own foolishness, perhaps, or for the dream that cracked at his words. The future I’d imagined.

“You won’t let me explain myself,” he murmurs, “or our business plan?”

“I thought I had. Many times before, and gotten the truth.”

Carter sighs. He’s quiet for a long time. Even as Michael changes lanes and starts heading toward Queens. “It’s not the outcome I want,” he says.

“But it’s not an impossible outcome.”

“No,” he says, “even if I wanted it to be.”

“Wanting something doesn’t make it happen.”

He runs a hand through his hair, the trademark smile nowhere to be seen. “Thought I’d already learned that lesson,” he mutters. “Look, kid, it’s a business. You know it is. At the end of the day, the four of us answer to the shareholders in Acture Capital as much as to our own wallets.”

“Right.”

“If the Globe isn’t doing what we want it to do…”

“If you’re not willing to give it enough time, you mean. Or investment.”

“Print media is dying.”

I turn to him, hands balling into fists. “Yes, and you told me you wanted to fix it! To modernize! Not butcher it.”

“We wouldn’t do that,” he says.

“No, but you’d sell it to someone who would. How is that different?”

He closes his eyes. “I’m twenty-five percent of Acture. I have one vote.”

He could have been honest about that too, I think. Or maybe I shouldn’t have been so naive. “Right. Well, tonight was very enlightening.”

“Audrey…”

“They’re lovely people. Well, some of them, when they’re not discussing stripping an entire workplace of its resources and personnel.”

His voice rises. “That’s my job. Part of it, at least. You know that.”

“I never knew you intended that for the Globe . You were the one who convinced me it wasn’t! You took me to that dive bar, and you told me… you told me you were different.” I bury my head in my hands. He charmed me, I think. Got what he wanted, and I bought all of it, hook line and sinker.

“Come back to mine,” he says. “We can talk about it. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, and tomorrow-”

I shake my head. “No.”

His hand tightens on the door handle. “Fine.”

We don’t speak for the rest of the trip. I’m acutely aware of Michael in the front seat, overhearing our entire argument, and my own stupid tears hiding in my throat. The wine is not helping the roil of emotions inside.

Carter speaks again when we drive onto my street. “I never wanted you to hear the Globe spoken about that way.”

“We should have stayed in the kitchen five minutes longer, you mean?”

“No. Fuck, that’s not what I meant.” His hand catches my arm, and he stares out at the brownstone. “Please don’t make me drop you here.”

“It’s a perfectly good apartment.”

“It’s an unsafe, vermin-infested shithole,” he says darkly. “Come home with me.”

I jerk my arm free, and he releases me immediately. “It’s all I can afford on my salary, boss,” I say acidly. “And this is my home.”

“Kid, I-”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I say, and close the car door behind me. I make it halfway up the stoop before the tears start falling.

The article is ready. Arguably, it’s past ready. Booker had asked for the first draft three days ago. “That thing you were working on,” she’d said, snapping her fingers. “What was it? Evictions, right?”

“Yeah, in Queens. A construction company has put it into practice.”

“That’s the one. I think it could work for a Sunday issue. Have it on my desk soon, yeah?”

I’d nodded, and inside, I’d almost passed out. The Sunday issue is the biggest of the week. If you want a story to get read widely, you put it in the Sunday issue.

Now my article is lying on my desk, printed and ready. The changes Carter had suggested were good. Minor, but good. They made it stronger.

Even if it was hard to incorporate them after the other night.

“You’re done,” Declan says by my side. “Come on, you just have to submit it.”

“Yeah. Will do.”

He leans back in his chair. His hair is artfully tousled today, but in a different direction than usual. It looks good. “She cut half of mine and asked Johnson to add it to his beat,” he says dryly. “We can’t be precious about our first stories.”Exclusive content from NôvelDrama.Org.

He’s right, of course. I know it too. The term I was student editor of my college newspaper, I’d made countless decisions like that. Not as high stakes, though. Not at all. I see the faces of the family being evicted in front of me, their bodega, the metaphorical wrecking ball coming closer.

I grab the papers. “You’re right.”

“Grab her by the balls, tiger,” Declan says.

I look at him, and he gives me a sheepish shrug. “Sounded better in my head.”

I laugh. “Thanks, though. I appreciate it.”