Six Months Ago:
“I just don’t understand why you can’t tell me.”
Thea resisted the urge to rub her forehead again. Or possibly bang her head on the nice mahogany desk. “Because I can’t.”
“You work for a hedge fund, D. It’s not as if it’s a state secret.”
“Just because it’s a hedge fund doesn’t mean they don’t make me sign a non-disclosure agreement.” They didn’t, because how would that have even worked? It was a secret society. If they couldn’t trust you to keep their secrets than you probably shouldn’t be in it at all. Its existence was secret, even if it wasn’t a particularly well kept one.
“I’m pretty sure those don’t apply to your life partners.”
Well, not if I’m serious about them. Thea swallowed, and didn’t say the words because that wouldn’t make this agreement go away. If anything it would make it a million times worse. It wasn’t that she didn’t like David. He was generally interesting, bright, unthreatened by the fact she presumably made more money than he did. From the outside, with all the criteria she was supposed to be considering--he was attractive, solid and dependable—he was definitely a catch, especially for a thirty-something woman with a pre-teen in tow.
They hadn’t been together long enough for her to figure out if the consistent need to know everything she was doing was a trust issue, or a control issue. The fact was she didn’t have a lot of space for either of them.
“How hard is it to tell me where you’re going?”
An ambulance chased down the street below her window and she stopped for a second, hoping he didn’t realize it didn’t sound right. European sirens still threw her a little, and somewhere in all the moves she and Seb had lived in London for six months.
“All I can tell you is that I’m out of town for meetings until next week.” She’d told him that three times already. “If you’re still speaking to me when I get back and you’d like to go to dinner then, great.”
“And you can’t tell me where.”
Thea pinched the bridge of her nose. “Goodnight, David.”
“Well, I hope you have a safe flight to wherever, and yeah, I’ll see if they can move the reservation to two-weeks from now. Goodnight, D.”
She swallowed the desire to tell him to stop calling her “D,” too. She did like David.
A knock fell on the door right as she hung the phone up, and her Interpol connection waited with strained patience. She was supposed to meet them in the front lobby five minutes ago.
“I wanted to be sure you had not been kidnapped,” the stoic German woman said. Erika Strauss was about her age, working fraud cases for Interpol about as long as Thea had been…whatever she was. They’d bumped heads a few times.
Erika certainly didn’t like Thea, but she seemed to trust Thea’s ability to get results.
“I apologize, I am ready,” she answered in probably broken German.
Erika blinked. “It’s better but you should still stick with English.”
Come back tomorrow for N:? Um...so I promise I haven't run out of planned plot. Just, you know, letter associations. I've got oodles of time, right?
“I just don’t understand why you can’t tell me.”
Thea resisted the urge to rub her forehead again. Or possibly bang her head on the nice mahogany desk. “Because I can’t.”
“You work for a hedge fund, D. It’s not as if it’s a state secret.”
“Just because it’s a hedge fund doesn’t mean they don’t make me sign a non-disclosure agreement.” They didn’t, because how would that have even worked? It was a secret society. If they couldn’t trust you to keep their secrets than you probably shouldn’t be in it at all. Its existence was secret, even if it wasn’t a particularly well kept one.
“I’m pretty sure those don’t apply to your life partners.”
Well, not if I’m serious about them. Thea swallowed, and didn’t say the words because that wouldn’t make this agreement go away. If anything it would make it a million times worse. It wasn’t that she didn’t like David. He was generally interesting, bright, unthreatened by the fact she presumably made more money than he did. From the outside, with all the criteria she was supposed to be considering--he was attractive, solid and dependable—he was definitely a catch, especially for a thirty-something woman with a pre-teen in tow.
They hadn’t been together long enough for her to figure out if the consistent need to know everything she was doing was a trust issue, or a control issue. The fact was she didn’t have a lot of space for either of them.
“How hard is it to tell me where you’re going?”
An ambulance chased down the street below her window and she stopped for a second, hoping he didn’t realize it didn’t sound right. European sirens still threw her a little, and somewhere in all the moves she and Seb had lived in London for six months.
“All I can tell you is that I’m out of town for meetings until next week.” She’d told him that three times already. “If you’re still speaking to me when I get back and you’d like to go to dinner then, great.”
“And you can’t tell me where.”
Thea pinched the bridge of her nose. “Goodnight, David.”
“Well, I hope you have a safe flight to wherever, and yeah, I’ll see if they can move the reservation to two-weeks from now. Goodnight, D.”
She swallowed the desire to tell him to stop calling her “D,” too. She did like David.
A knock fell on the door right as she hung the phone up, and her Interpol connection waited with strained patience. She was supposed to meet them in the front lobby five minutes ago.
“I wanted to be sure you had not been kidnapped,” the stoic German woman said. Erika Strauss was about her age, working fraud cases for Interpol about as long as Thea had been…whatever she was. They’d bumped heads a few times.
Erika certainly didn’t like Thea, but she seemed to trust Thea’s ability to get results.
“I apologize, I am ready,” she answered in probably broken German.
Erika blinked. “It’s better but you should still stick with English.”
Come back tomorrow for N:? Um...so I promise I haven't run out of planned plot. Just, you know, letter associations. I've got oodles of time, right?
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