All In (13 page)

16

A
fter David had left her, Natalia had slept for a few hours, which meant she hadn't gotten to work until ten, which had caused a few raised eyebrows. It was actually crazy that everyone was so used to her always being the first to arrive and the last to leave.

J-O called her at eleven.

“Where are you?” Natalia asked.

“In Moscow. I'm having lunch with the minister of industry and trade.”

They coordinated, and then the day proceeded with an unrelenting stream of calls to sift through, documents to read, and analytical reports to write. She realized she hadn't looked up from her desk for several hours when, at two o'clock, she overheard a conversation in English. The office space outside of her own was open-plan, with standing desks where a sea of people were constantly moving around. A group of men from the main office in London stood around one of the desks, all with their laptops on, having an argument. She didn't know them, but that wasn't unusual; there were always people from different parts of the world here. So she stretched, got up, got herself some coffee, and then went back to work.

A few hours after a late lunch, Natalia asked her assistant to screen her calls and only bother her with the most important, which gave her a few relatively quiet hours. The deal Natalia was working on was one of the biggest the Bank of London's Nordic team had ever been involved in and her own first solo project. Investum's bank, Svenska Banken, was acquiring a chain of Danish banks. It was an unbelievably complicated deal, and Svenska Banken had chosen the corporate finance section at Bank of London as advisers. There were a myriad of possible pitfalls, and it was Natalia's responsibility to identify them all and to give solid financial advice throughout the process. Everything looked good on paper, but Natalia still couldn't shake the sense that it was being rushed through, that it was being driven by the desire for prestige—her father's dream of creating a Nordic super bank—and that more careful scrutiny of the whole thing would be a good idea. Investum, which was a major owner of Svenska Banken, was putting up a huge amount of capital.

J-O called again around four.

“How was lunch?” she asked.

“Warm vodka and caviar,” he said. “I hate that. I'm heading to Helsinki soon.”

“When will you be back in Sweden?”

“Next week, Stockholm. Then I fly down to BÃ¥stad.”

J-O was hosting one of the two biggest parties in BÃ¥stad during tennis week. The Bank of London party was the party that
everyone
—politicians, celebrities, tennis pros, and the financial elite—wanted to be invited to. Five hundred invitations had gone out, and no one had RSVPed no. Traditionally the party was always held on Thursday at J-O's massive mansion, the day after Natalia's parents held their own—just as traditional and just as large—barbecue at the De la Grip mansion. That's how it had always been, and that's how it always would be.

“I'll call tonight,” J-O said and hung up.

Natalia browsed the material she was going to report to the representatives of both banks, two men whose interpersonal chemistry wasn't the best.

The next time she and J-O spoke, early that evening when their Stureplan offices were beginning to empty out, he was already in Helsinki.

“I'm almost ready,” she said. “But I'm still thinking about talking to Dad,” she added hesitantly.

“I read the paperwork you gave me. Several times. I don't see anything for you to worry about. Could it just be that you're nervous?”

Was he right? Or should she listen to her gut? “I don't know,” she said uncertainly.

“My dearest Natalia,” he said in his occasionally awkward Swedish, which broadcast the fact that he spoke any and every language perfectly, the result of boarding schools on two continents and constant travel. “It's your nerves getting to you, right?” She could hear from his voice that J-O was there, really there. That he was focused, that he was filtering out everything except what was most important. He was eccentric and liked to hear himself talk, but he was a good boss.

“I'm sure you're right,” she said.

They didn't say it out loud, either of them, but they both knew that this deal was the one Natalia hoped would make her father appreciate what she could do. This deal would be her leverage to get herself onto Investum's board. There was no room for error.

“I've got your back,” J-O said calmly.

And Natalia knew he meant it. In this industry, where you were never better than your last deal, where even senior-level corporate finance types could be fired with an hour's notice, J-O would protect her. As long as she didn't screw up too much.

“I think I'm going to stay here,” he said. “I like Helsinki. Have you been here?” Natalia thought she heard laughter and glasses clinking in the background.

“It's a beautiful city,” she agreed. “I went to the Presidential Palace Ball there once.”

“I talked to David Hammar,” J-O said suddenly.

Natalia's heart skipped a beat. She had managed not to think about David for at least ten minutes, and now this. She waited impatiently while J-O covered the receiver and spoke to someone. It sounded like a woman.

“Are you still there?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Natalia. Each time she floated away on a meandering tangent related to David Hammar in some way—his smile, his body, their nonexistent future—she had to rein herself back in. She refused to be a woman who neglected her work and sat around daydreaming about a man. Simply refused. She was better than that. But J-O's comment caught her off guard.

“He's up to something,” J-O said, and Natalia thought this sounded like gossip. She pictured J-O at one of those trendy, fashionable restaurants he was so fond of, maybe with a chilled bottle of champagne in a bucket, maybe with a beautiful woman next to him, maybe two.

“Everyone's up to something,” Natalia said vaguely. That's how it was in this business: gossip, rumors. The trick was being able to analyze and sort out what was true and what was false.

“This is something big,” J-O said. More laughter and clinking in the background.

“I'm on my way out,” Natalia said. “Can we talk tomorrow?”

“Is anyone left in the office?”

Natalia looked around. The place was almost empty. “Most people are off on their summer vacations,” she said.

“It's impossible to get things done while everyone's gone. I think I'm going to go to St. Tropez this year. Have you been there?”

“It's nice.” She pictured palm trees and white sand. “But I don't tolerate sun for very long.”

“I'll go through your paperwork one more time, okay?”

“Thanks.”

 

Toward evening, when the last of the London guys had gone out on the town and all the assistants had been replaced by the night shift, Natalia called Åsa.

“How are you?”

“My therapist says I'm depressed, but I don't know. I'm thinking about buying shoes. Or a new condo. What are you doing?”

“I'm thinking.”

“About work?”

“Partially. I've got such a funny feeling about this bank deal. J-O says I'm nervous because I've never done anything like this. But I don't know.” Natalia paused. “I think I have to talk to Dad.” She made a face to herself. “And Peter, I guess.” She hated having to report to her older brother. She waited for a second and then added: “Oh, and I slept with David Hammar.”

“J-O might be right, you know. He's been doing this for a while. And you've always been a worrywart. Or should we call it neurotic? Or maybe you're depressed, like me? Lord knows if I'd been with Jonas as long as you were, I'd be depressed.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Does the pope wear a funny hat?”

Natalia scratched the back of her head. “Did you hear what I said? About David?”

Åsa scoffed loudly. “Well, the way you two were looking at each other and the way you look every time someone mentions his name, I can't say I'm surprised. How was he?”

“I don't know if I can talk about such things,” Natalia protested, although it felt like the only thing she wanted to talk about. About David. About the magical sex. She looked around her office and lowered her voice even though she was practically the only one around. “This was totally on a scale of its own. Not good or bad if you know what I mean, but completely off the charts. Have you ever experienced anything like that?”

“Sweetie, I'm afraid you're going to have to be a little more specific than ‘like that.' We have different frames of reference. I sleep with people all the time. You do it, like, basically never.”

“I slept with Jonas,” Natalia pointed out. They'd been together for four years and had a completely normal sex life. Not crazy, scream-out-loud sex, but normal.

Åsa made another scoffing sound. “You do know that Jonas is the most boring man in the world, so we can't include him in this discussion?”

“How can you know that Jonas is boring in bed?” Natalia protested, and then a thought struck her. “Did you sleep with him?”

“Nah, I don't think so,” said Åsa, sounding as if she had to think about it for a minute. “Quit trying to change the subject.”

“I think it was just a one-time event,” Natalia said, finally allowing herself to do what she'd been avoiding all day: analyze her relationship with David Hammar. “I'm almost sure it has to be—we haven't been in touch since.”

And Natalia realized that this was exactly what people did. They were attracted to each other, slept together, then parted ways, and moved on. Why did it feel so unfinished?

She had never been party to anything like what had happened between her and David. She'd been a late bloomer, and maybe or very definitely she'd been a little inhibited sexually, marked by her old-fashioned upbringing, which she'd never managed to shake off. She'd slept with guys in London, finance guys who were just as focused on their careers as she was. And then with Jonas, who had also been a late bloomer, inhibited by
his
upbringing and some weird Madonna/whore issue. But they
had
done well in a caring, cautious way. Nothing out of the ordinary, just nice, normal vanilla sex. But David ... Natalia suspected there was no limit to how wild she could get with that man. Just the memory of what they'd done and how he'd touched her made her ...

“Did he say anything about seeing you again?” Åsa asked.

“No. And neither did I. I don't expect anything else.”

“You'll just end up sorry if you get too attached.”

“I know,” Natalia said sharply. This was exactly the reason she refused to open herself up. “I'm not dumb,” she said. “And he is so incredibly hot, it's almost annoying.”

“You're hot, too, Nat. You just don't know it,” Åsa said, her voice taking an unusually serious tone. “I think Jonas really wasn't good for you. You two weren't good for each other. And what he did to you ... No, you have to move on.”

“Yeah right, because I'm such a catch,” Natalia said dryly, hating how self-pitying she felt.

“Enough of that,” Åsa said. “So, are there any down sides to David? Sexy, rich, and good in bed.”

“I don't know. He can be really hard. And he's quite good at manipulating people. And everything that's been written about him can't have been made up.” She remembered the articles about competitors who'd been ruined unscrupulously, infidelities and marriages that fell apart, noble houses leveled to the ground. It couldn't all be exaggerated, could it?

“What else did you do? I mean, aside from the amazing sex. What did you talk about?” Åsa sounded indifferent, but Natalia wasn't fooled.

“If you're wondering if we discussed anything in specific, ask me, would you? Just what is it you want to know?”

“Damn it, Natalia, I hate it when you do that. There must be something wrong with you. This is super hard for me.”

“Michel isn't married,” Natalia said. “And clearly he feels something for you.”

“Did David say that? What does he feel?”

“No idea. I was busy having fantastic sex.”

“Michel's family wanted him to marry a pretty Lebanese girl, and he always did what his family wanted. You know: honor, morality, responsibility, and all that crap. He always had a lot of opinions about right and wrong, black and white, even back in college. Good qualities in a lawyer or an economist, maybe even for a coworker or an adviser to Super David, but kind of tiresome. He was a typical patriarch.”

“While you were more of a typical tramp?”

“I was sure he was going to have kids by this time, chubby Lebanese kids, eight of them.”

“I don't think he has any kids, either chubby or otherwise. In terms of David . . .”

“I don't like kids,” Åsa interrupted. She sounded almost panic-stricken. As if someone were standing over her demanding that she start reproducing immediately. “I don't understand how anyone can want kids. I don't get it.”

Well, to each his own.

“Sorry, fuck. I know how it was for you,” Åsa said. “Sorry.”

“No biggie,” Natalia said, but she wasn't up to talking about kids. Not now, not so soon. It was only a year ago; she wasn't over it, no matter what Åsa thought, not that they ever discussed it. If Åsa had any kind of slogan, it was: Never look back. Followed closely by: Never get attached to another person. They'd both been hurt by their experiences, although in totally different ways.