I got the best night sleep I’ve gotten in years, even though we didn’t do much sleeping.

The sunlight streams through the small window across the room, dancing on Scarlett as she sleeps. We must have gone to be after midnight, even though we showed up at her place around seven. Five hours of sex. I stifle a small chuckle as I sit on the edge of the bed and run a hand through my hair. Even in my younger years I never had sex for five hours straight.

I cross the room, careful to be quiet, and check my phone. I left it on the coffee table all night and never woke up once to check it. That’s another first for me.

And when I look at my email, I feel a sudden dread seeping into my veins. I scroll through my emails, seeing I have several from the firm. Most are replies to an original email from a couple of days ago, when we hammered out the details of the deal we were preparing to show Scarlett.

I don’t have to fully peruse the content of every email to know we are in deep shit.

My stomach drops as I sit down on the bed. A light rustling comes from across the room, where Elliot puts his arm over Scarlett’s shoulder and nestles into her.

And right there at the bottom of the last email is a separate reply one of our attorneys sent to just me and Elliot.

Call me as soon as you get this.

I feel my pulse beating in my ears as I walk over to the door, slipping my feet into my loafers and grabbing my hoodie from the back of one of her small kitchen chairs.

When I get outside into the morning sunshine, I call my attorney and brace myself.

“Where are you?” he barks into the phone. He was never one for subtlety. That’s why I hired him. He’s a pitbull in a suit. And though I know he’s a gentle guy on the inside, he’ll scare you to your knees. That’s why I like him.

“I’m at our office,” I say, crossing the street. Across from Scarlett’s apartment, there is a small grass clearing with tall trees, a small narrow hiking path and a few benches. But I can’t sit down right now.

“Bullshit,” he says, “where are you really?”

“I’m telling you I’m at the office,” I repeat, getting a little pissed off.

“You’re not at your office,” he says, “because I am standing outside and there is no one here.”

“Shit,” I say, sitting down on a green painted bench.

“I don’t know how carefully you read the emails you were on, but you’ve really stepped in shit this time. Did you try to fuck the deal on purpose? Do you have some kind of subconscious desire to fuck yourself over?”

“No,” I say, “I don’t have a subconscious desire to fuck myself. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

“When you take a seller out to dinner,” he says, “when you’re trying to woo someone into a deal, when you’re trying to make money off them, you probably shouldn’t be playing footsie. Or if you do, don’t make it so fucking obvious. Because man, I know what you were thinking. You probably wanted to get into her good graces, right? Screw her into submission?”

“No,” I spit at him, “no. We didn’t do it to get her to sell to us. That’s fucked up.”

“So you actually like her?” he replies incredulously, “that’s even worse. That’s what I was afraid of. Do you know how this looks?”

“Yeah,” I sigh, “I know how it looks. But I don’t give a shit.”

Elliot warned me about this.

“Listen asshole, you’re not the only one involved here. You don’t get to make decisions with your dick. You don’t get to do whatever the hell you want. The deal is going to go to shit, and the investors have zero confidence in you right now. Both of you. You and Elliot. You’re fucked.”

“Listen, asshole,” I repeat back to him, my blood coursing through my veins, “you don’t talk to me like that. You work for me.”

“I’m well aware of that Mark. I work for you. It’s my job to tell you to get your head out of your ass. As soon as our attorneys looked at the contract you and Elliot drew up, everything began to make sense. You gave her a position as a consultant? You know how bad that looks? Some girl with barely any education, and you give her this? You just did that as a favor to her? That costs money.”

“Who gives a shit if our attorneys don’t like it? How the hell does that involve our investors?”

“You are naive,” he laughs, “you know how this shit works. People talk. Everyone talks. The draft wasn’t confidential. You know every step of the process has to be vetted carefully to avoid issues just like this. So of-fucking-course the attorney for our investors got wind of this. I don’t know if you thought you could just slip in that little clause about keeping this Scarlett person on without anyone noticing, but between people seeing you out to dinner with her and this little move, which for your sake I hope is a prank, you are on a goddamn sinking ship, my friend. And you’re taking the rest of us with you. This whole thing reeks of corruption.”

“Let me clue you in,” I say calmly, standing up, “she is not some random person off the street. She brings years of experience with her. This is a risky investment. It was from the start. But Elliot and I convinced the rest of the firm it was the right decision to pursue it because we have this way of making people listen to us. And you know why that is? It’s because we are the bosses, and because we know what the hell we are doing. Scarlett’s involvement going forward will only strengthen us. We don’t have to prove that to you. And we aren’t doing it as a favor to her. Fuck, if anything we are getting her at a discount. She’s fucking priceless.”

There’s silence on the other end of the call.

“I knew this wouldn’t look good if it got out,” I continue, “fuck, Elliot even told me we were playing with fire here. But it doesn’t matter now.”

“I’m sorry, how the hell is Elliot involved in this?”

I swallow thickly. I’m not coming out with the whole truth. Not right now. No, I need to hold it in until we are able to talk to her.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “We will meet you at our office in a half hour. Just stay there.”

I end the call and look across the street to Scarlett’s apartment above the bakery.

Elliot and I have some things to sort out.