{"id":1351,"date":"2012-05-30T22:22:05","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T03:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theproviso.com\/?page_id=1351"},"modified":"2026-03-31T21:45:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T02:45:34","slug":"magdalene","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/thebooks\/magdalene\/","title":{"rendered":"MAGDALENE"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"eddsection\">\n<div class=\"eddfloat_dl\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"eddcover_dl\">\n<figure class=\"b10mwx\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/b10mediaworx.com\/covers\/magdalene\/magdalene-200x300.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"b10mwx\">Tales of Dunham #3<br \/>\u00a92011 Moriah Jovan<br \/>150,000 words (490 pages)<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<article>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"eddtitle_dl\">Book 3 in the Dunham universe<\/p>\n<div class=\"linksbuyblock\" role=\"group\" aria-label=\"Buy Magdalene\">\n<p class=\"linksedd\">Buy direct:<\/p>\n\t<form id=\"edd_purchase_8282\" class=\"edd_download_purchase_form edd_purchase_8282\" method=\"post\">\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"edd_price_options edd_multi_mode\" >\n\t\t<ul>\n\t\t\t<li id=\"edd_price_option_8282_epub\"><label for=\"edd_price_option_8282_4\"><input type=\"checkbox\"  checked='checked' name=\"edd_options[price_id][]\" id=\"edd_price_option_8282_4\" class=\"edd_price_option_8282\" value=\"4\" data-price=\"7.99\"\/>&nbsp;<span class=\"edd_price_option_name\">EPUB<\/span><span class=\"edd_price_option_sep\">&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;<\/span><span class=\"edd_price_option_price\">&#36;7.99<\/span><\/label><\/li><li id=\"edd_price_option_8282_pdf\"><label for=\"edd_price_option_8282_3\"><input type=\"checkbox\"  name=\"edd_options[price_id][]\" id=\"edd_price_option_8282_3\" class=\"edd_price_option_8282\" value=\"3\" data-price=\"7.99\"\/>&nbsp;<span class=\"edd_price_option_name\">PDF<\/span><span class=\"edd_price_option_sep\">&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;<\/span><span class=\"edd_price_option_price\">&#36;7.99<\/span><\/label><\/li>\t\t<\/ul>\n\t<\/div><!--end .edd_price_options-->\n\t\n\t\t<div class=\"edd_purchase_submit_wrapper\">\n\t\t\t<button class=\"edd-add-to-cart button has-edd-button-background-color has-edd-button-text-color edd-submit\" data-nonce=\"29d03d8cc0\" data-timestamp=\"1775574100\" data-token=\"b028602f6d63bd1c9b9fdf657499358db6fccd23734c9045f728da7b998c0c87\" data-action=\"edd_add_to_cart\" data-download-id=\"8282\"  data-variable-price=\"yes\" data-price-mode=multi data-price=\"0.00\" ><span class=\"edd-add-to-cart-label\">Add to Cart<\/span> <span class=\"edd-loading\" aria-label=\"Loading\"><\/span><\/button><input type=\"submit\" class=\"edd-add-to-cart edd-no-js button has-edd-button-background-color has-edd-button-text-color edd-submit\" name=\"edd_purchase_download\" value=\"Add to Cart\" data-action=\"edd_add_to_cart\" data-download-id=\"8282\"  data-variable-price=\"yes\" data-price-mode=multi \/><a href=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/checkout\/\" class=\"edd_go_to_checkout button has-edd-button-background-color has-edd-button-text-color edd-submit\" style=\"display:none;\">Checkout<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"edd-cart-ajax-alert\" aria-live=\"assertive\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"edd-cart-added-alert\" style=\"display: none;\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<svg class=\"edd-icon edd-icon-check\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"28\" height=\"28\" viewBox=\"0 0 28 28\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<path d=\"M26.11 8.844c0 .39-.157.78-.44 1.062L12.234 23.344c-.28.28-.672.438-1.062.438s-.78-.156-1.06-.438l-7.782-7.78c-.28-.282-.438-.673-.438-1.063s.156-.78.438-1.06l2.125-2.126c.28-.28.672-.438 1.062-.438s.78.156 1.062.438l4.594 4.61L21.42 5.656c.282-.28.673-.438 1.063-.438s.78.155 1.062.437l2.125 2.125c.28.28.438.672.438 1.062z\"\/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAdded to cart\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!--end .edd_purchase_submit_wrapper-->\n\n\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"download_id\" value=\"8282\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"edd_action\" class=\"edd_action_input\" value=\"add_to_cart\">\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t<\/form><!--end #edd_purchase_8282-->\n\t\n<p class=\"linksedd\">&nbsp;<br \/>\n\t\t<span class=\"small85\">Amazon<\/span> <a class=\"magdalene\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B004XRAHM2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kindle<\/a> \u2022 <a class=\"magdalene\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0981769659\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">paperback<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t<span class=\"small85\">Barnes &#038; Noble<\/span> <a class=\"magdalene\" href=\"https:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/magdalene-moriah-jovan\/1101222357?ean=2940012424471\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nook<\/a> \u2022 <span class=\"small85\">paperback<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t<a class=\"magdalene\" href=\"https:\/\/books.apple.com\/us\/book\/id1147039242\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apple iBooks<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t<a class=\"magdalene\" href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/books\/details?id=iV0DrxUcHx0C\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google Play Books<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t<a class=\"magdalene\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kobo.com\/us\/en\/ebook\/magdalene-tales-of-dunham-3-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kobo eBooks<\/a>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"eddsum_dl\">Mitch, the widowed bishop of a Mormon congregation, falls in love with Cassie, the woman hired to restructure his steel mill. Meanwhile, a man in Mitch\u2019s congregation plots to take over the position of bishop using Cassie\u2019s past profession as a prostitute as his weapon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"eddsumcenter_dl\">A Mormon bishop.<br \/>\nAn ex-prostitute.<br \/>\nA man with a vendetta.<br \/>\nLet the games begin&#160;\u2026<\/p>\n<div class=\"navblock\">\n<p class=\"leftnavblock\"><a class=\"arrowsmall\" href=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/thebooks\/stay\/\">\u2190 Book 2<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"rightnavblock\"><a class=\"arrowbig\" href=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/thebooks\/dunham\/\">Book 4  \u2192<\/a><br \/>The Revolutionary War pirates who<br \/>spawned all these drama llamas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wingding\">\u203b<\/p>\n<p class=\"magdaleneepigraph\">But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.<br \/>\n<span class=\"nobold\"><span class=\"noitals\">\u2014I Corinthians 7:9 (KJV)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">&#8734;&nbsp;MAY 2007&nbsp;&#8734;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">I DIDN\u2019T GO into prostitution because I was desperate; I did it because I was bored: Bored with my hausfrau existence, bored with my husband both in bed and out, bored with my ingrate daughters who don\u2019t (yet) understand what it means to be the sacrificial lamb in the nuclear family setup and that being a wife and mother can be its own category of prostitution. They will. And I\u2019ll laugh.<\/p>\n<p>I was never the stereotypical whore with a heart of gold, which seems to be used as point and counterpoint: If you\u2019re pure in heart, being a whore is tolerable, forgivable even; if you\u2019re just a mercenary bitch who likes sex and, moreover, getting paid for it, it\u2019s the unforgivable sin. Ultimately, however, I had to choose my clients on their ability to pay my exorbitant prices and leave the good sex to my carefully selected lovers.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t quit prostitution for some sort of wish fulfillment of born-again virginity; I quit because I was bored. Fucking for money involves a certain amount of acting ability and while I\u2019m a very good actress (thus, a very good whore), it takes some amount of concentration that is not usually conducive to having a real orgasm.<\/p>\n<p>With a healthy bank account, one ex-husband whose current partner sports genitalia similar to his own, four grown daughters, my forty-third birthday on the horizon, and with professional ennui setting in, I had to find something else to do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">NEVER AN HONEST WORD<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptdate\">November 9, 2010<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">IT WAS TUESDAY night at church, and Mitch could tell: The sound of twenty teenagers\u2019 laughter echoed from the gym. Toddler squeals came from the nursery and carried across the building. Murmurs and chuckles drifted from the kitchen where women gathered to learn the art of creating decent meals out of food storage.<\/p>\n<p>They weren\u2019t doing so well.<\/p>\n<p>He headed out of the room to escape the cooks who knew the food was bad but were determined to brazen it out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s right! Leave us to our misery!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch tossed a grin over his shoulder at the woman who\u2019d spoken. \u201cSelf-induced, Prissy,\u201d he called back. \u201cYou get no sympathy from me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chuckling, he looked down at his phone and nearly barreled into another woman. He stifled a groan and stepped back immediately. \u201cExcuse me, Sister Bevan,\u201d Mitch murmured, refusing to use her first name.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBishop, can I talk to you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n<p>But he would.<\/p>\n<p>Because he had to.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCertainly,\u201d he said politely, and gestured toward the hall that led to the bishop\u2019s office. She preceded him and once inside, he closed the door behind her and checked a second door to an adjoining room to make sure his clerk was present and puttering about with church records. Mitch left that one open an inch.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Sally had made herself comfortable in the chair across from Mitch\u2019s desk. As usual, she had dressed in her best, something approaching a cocktail dress, but not quite making the look work for her. She should probably not wear red.<\/p>\n<p>He dropped into his chair, leaned back, and intertwined his fingers behind his head. \u201cWhat can I do for you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>What can I do for you?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>His life\u2019s refrain.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, he didn\u2019t have to be told what he could do for her. She\u2019d made herself abundantly clear in the last year, and hadn\u2019t been too subtle before that.<\/p>\n<p>She launched into her usual litany of complaints against her husband, Dan, most of which involved his inability to find or keep a job. But jobs at Dan\u2019s level were scarce and the man was overeducated and overqualified for anything he could get in Allentown or Bethlehem. Apparently, he hadn\u2019t told Sally he was looking for jobs in Manhattan, Chicago, and Atlanta\u2014and not just because there were better opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>Dan wanted to get Sally away from Mitch, and Mitch was perfectly happy to assist him in that endeavor. They\u2019d never talked about it, but the knowledge lay heavy between them.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch wasn\u2019t listening to her. He\u2019d heard it before and didn\u2019t believe a word of it, so he stared at a spot just to the left of the woman\u2019s ear and said \u201cuh huh\u201d and \u201cno\u201d and \u201cyes\u201d in all the appropriate places.<\/p>\n<p>A knock sounded on the door, and with far too much gratitude, he said, \u201cCome in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It opened and a seventeen-year-old girl stuck her head in his office. \u201cHi, Bishop.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHi, Hayleigh.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs Trevor here tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s at the mill.\u201d Which she knew. It was code for <em>I really need to talk to you now, Bishop<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t you think it\u2019s kind of weird that the bishop\u2019s son doesn\u2019t come to the youth activities?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That stung, but she didn\u2019t know. Mitch didn\u2019t need another reminder that Trevor hated church\u2014everything about it, from doctrine to culture\u2014and would rather clean rest-stop toilets with his own toothbrush than come to church.<\/p>\n<p>But he did attend on Sundays and, to the kid\u2019s credit, he did everything he was asked with a smile and without complaint.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch might have been happier about that were it not for the stab of guilt he felt because he\u2019d farmed the kid out to someone else to raise during his most impressionable years. Now it was too late.<\/p>\n<p>Sally rose abruptly, obviously offended that he had allowed her to be interrupted. \u201cThank you, Bishop,\u201d she said tightly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re welcome, Sister Bevan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hayleigh Sitkaris opened the door fully and moved out of Sally\u2019s path. She waited until the older woman had disappeared, then slipped into the office and plopped herself on a chair. \u201cBishop\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He waited, but she looked down at the floor. Twisted her diamond bracelet around with her finger. Swallowed. Maybe tonight would be the night she\u2019d confide in him the way a few of the other kids did, the ones who didn\u2019t trust the charismatic youth leader\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u2014Hayleigh\u2019s father.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2014 Uh, I need\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou better tell me quick, because your dad\u2019s going to be here any minute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She paled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHayleigh,\u201d he said abruptly, no-nonsense. Her head snapped up. \u201cWhatever it is, I can help you. You have to trust me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNobody believes me,\u201d she whispered, casting a glance at the cracked clerk\u2019s door. Mitch leaned over and gave it a gentle push until the latch clicked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExcept Trevor?\u201d It was a stab in the dark.<\/p>\n<p>She paused. \u201cHe&nbsp;\u2026 doesn\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Well, Mitch hadn\u2019t understood it himself until recently, either, and the girl had no faith that he ever would.<\/p>\n<p>A sharp series of raps on the door made the girl stiffen. \u201cJust a moment,\u201d he called. \u201cHayleigh,\u201d he said softly, leaning over his desk to offer her the ever-present tissue box. \u201cMop up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She obeyed. Mitch waited and watched as she struggled to pull herself together. Finally, she took a deep breath and nodded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCome in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Enter Hayleigh\u2019s father. He stilled when he saw the girl, and said smoothly enough, \u201cHayleigh, dear, your mother\u2019s looking for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, Daddy,\u201d she said brightly, popping out of her chair and acting for all the world that she was happy to see him. But she never met his eyes, and cast a glance at Mitch. \u201cThanks, Bishop.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She squeezed past her father, who watched her, then closed the door and looked at Mitch. \u201cAppropriating something else of mine, Mitch?\u201d he said low. \u201cRaising two daughters of your own wasn\u2019t enough that you feel the need to raise mine, too, or are you into teenage girls?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSiddown.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll stand, thanks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Of course he would. But those tactics didn\u2019t bother Mitch in the least, and he simply relaxed back into his chair again. The hostility was ever-present and had been for the last twenty-five years, but now there were no illusions\u2014or at least, there weren\u2019t any now that Mitch had something approaching proof, though not of the right type.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhaddaya want, Mitch? The kids are waiting for me, and you know I don\u2019t like being at your beck and call.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can help you with that,\u201d Mitch drawled, making a point to look straight into Greg\u2019s soulless gray eyes. \u201cI\u2019m releasing you from the Young Men\u2019s presidency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou <em>what<\/em>?\u201d Greg asked, shocked. It was the first time Mitch had seen him show a genuine emotion in years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYoung Men\u2019s president. You\u2019re out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greg\u2019s face contorted with the anger of perpetual frustration. \u201cWhy?\u201d he ground out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoes the name Rohm mean anything to you?\u201d Mitch asked.<\/p>\n<p>Greg\u2019s rage didn\u2019t abate nor did he fall to justifying, explaining, reasoning. \u201cSo what if it does?\u201d he snarled. \u201cYou can\u2019t prove anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch shrugged. \u201cDoes it matter? I don\u2019t have to have proof. Maybe I just want somebody else to have a crack at such a&nbsp;\u2026 <em>prestigious<\/em>&nbsp;\u2026 calling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNobody in this ward can do that job better than I can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That, in fact, was true, but Greg had an ulterior motive: In this neck of the woods, Young Men\u2019s president was seen as the stepping stone to the bishopric and above all else, Greg wanted to be a bishop.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStill waiting to sit in this chair, eh?\u201d Mitch said, just to twist the knife a little. It wasn\u2019t very Christlike of him, but he couldn\u2019t resist.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDave\u2019s going to hear about this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sure he will, bright and early tomorrow morning at tee time. Does Shane know you\u2019re a thief?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greg barked a humorless laugh. \u201cAh, your father-in-law. He\u2019s always been a tool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch totally agreed, but there was no satisfaction in knowing that Shane was as blind to Greg as everyone else.<\/p>\n<p><em>Almost<\/em> everyone else. There was a minority of people who either understood or had instincts enough to steer clear:<\/p>\n<p>A couple of the kids.<\/p>\n<p>The Relief Society president and her husband.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch\u2019s first counselor and his wife.<\/p>\n<p>His second counselor, who had had a few run-ins with Greg when they worked together at Jep Industries years before.<\/p>\n<p>Somehow Mitch had managed to surround himself with the few people in the ward who understood what Greg was about\u2014and he had never noticed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo tell me something,\u201d Mitch said abruptly. \u201cHow does it feel, knowing you were the flunky at J.I.? What\u2019d they promise you? A million? Two?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greg\u2019s face flushed and he balled his fists. Mitch knew Greg wouldn\u2019t dare punch him, because Mitch was bigger, stronger, and he had authority over Greg. Getting arrested for assault would take the shine off Greg\u2019s fa\u00e7ade.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, how Mitch wished he had enough proof to take to the D.A., but since he didn\u2019t, he had to settle for punishing Greg ecclesiastically\u2014and even there his options were limited.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd leaving the country without you, after you\u2019d done their dirty work? Nice touch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch couldn\u2019t bar Greg from going to the temple. The stake president\u2014Mitch\u2019s superior\u2014would have to okay the decision, which would oblige Mitch to explain. Without proof, explaining to a man that his best friend had been the linchpin in a large-scale embezzlement scheme would be&nbsp;\u2026 awkward. At best. And explaining it to most of the people in Mitch\u2019s ward\u2014even if he could\u2014would cause no end of trouble for Mitch.<\/p>\n<p>Better to release Greg quietly and not call him to anything else. Caught between the most popular man in the ward and the stake president, it was the only thing Mitch could do\u2014and he\u2019d get hammered for it from every side.<\/p>\n<p>Ah, well. Perhaps then President Petersen would release Mitch from the bishopric so he could go on with his life and do something&nbsp;\u2026 different.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cConsidering our history, I don\u2019t know what possessed me to call you in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s because you\u2019re such a damned fool, Mitch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sure Senator Oth would believe me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greg planted his hands on Mitch\u2019s desk and leaned over it. \u201cGo right ahead and tell him. He\u2019s as stupid as your father-in-law is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t disagree with that,\u201d Mitch said blithely. \u201cBut Roger has the power to make your life miserable whether I can prove it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greg\u2019s mouth twitched as he slowly straightened to his full height. \u201cYou would never go to Oth,\u201d he murmured. \u201cYou and your wolf pack aren\u2019t exactly his favorite people, and to him, I\u2019m a nobody. He wouldn\u2019t understand it if you carved it in his skin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was true, too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have no conscience, do you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greg answered Mitch\u2019s question with a smirk, his temper evening out into a vague humor. Fake, all fake. Except the rage. The rage would manifest as \u201cslips\u201d of the tongue and gentle, slyly penitent tidbits of gossip, little seeds of contention planted in the minds of three quarters of the people in the ward and stake.<\/p>\n<p>Why was Mitch only seeing this <em>now<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe I do, maybe I don\u2019t,\u201d Greg said, \u201cbut <em>I<\/em> don\u2019t keep company with women who pose for nude portraits. Or modern-day Gordon Gekkos. Or <em>murderers<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJesus did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greg\u2019s rage resurfaced and he reached for the doorknob. \u201cYou\u2019re going to regret this, Mitch,\u201d he snarled. \u201cYou just can\u2019t be happy unless you\u2019ve taken everything that belongs to me, can you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI never took anything away from you. Mina didn\u2019t belong to you. Neither does my car, my house, my kids, my company, my bank account, my friends, my calling. Never did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll find a way to destroy you, Mitch. When I\u2019m done with you, you won\u2019t be able to walk into a church building anywhere in the world. You think anybody will believe you over me? You could have mountains of proof, and nobody would believe I\u2019m capable of anything less than perfection, and you\u2019d get crucified for daring to suggest that I am\u2014starting with your father-in-law and the stake president.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAaannd while you\u2019re trying to figure out how to do that, I\u2019ll be turning your life inside out and upside down, finding all your little schemes, starting with Jep Industries. Let\u2019s see who finishes first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t play chicken with me, Mitch,\u201d he growled. \u201cYou\u2019ll lose, just like the Rohms Just like Senator Oth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch smirked. \u201cDo your worst.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greg turned in a fury, but his demeanor changed the instant he opened Mitch\u2019s office door and stepped out in the hall to find a cadre of teenagers awaiting him. \u201cAll right, guys,\u201d he boomed, as jovial as always, \u201c<em>Now<\/em> we can get back to the fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The excited chatter dimmed with the close of the door, and Mitch picked up his phone. \u201cSebastian,\u201d he said without preamble. \u201cI know you\u2019re up to your eyeballs in problems right now, but we need to go over those Jep Industries documents again. ASAP.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh,\u201d said the man on the other end of the phone after a long pause. \u201cWhy? It\u2019s been six years. We\u2019ve gone through those a million times.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have something to look for now. Guy in my ward, one of the HR execs we didn\u2019t rehire. He was in on it. I just can\u2019t prove it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian put him on speakerphone. \u201cName?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGreg Sitkaris.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Keyboard clicks. Mouse clicks. \u201cOkay, I see him, but nothing pops out at me. What are you thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to get together. Lay it all out with the new information, re-map it. And the sooner the better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo what did he do? Why now?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch hesitated, wondering how much he could say. Being a bishop held the same responsibility of confidentiality that every other ecclesiastical position did. But in this case&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the foundry\u2019s foremen\u2014 He\u2019s a bishop of another ward. Two weeks ago he tells me about a family in his ward whose financial situation isn\u2019t adding up, and Greg\u2019s name kept popping up. I took the liberty of having my people check into this family\u2019s situation, and all roads point to some annuities Greg sold them\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut that\u2019s not illegal,\u201d Sebastian said with some impatience, and Mitch could tell his attention was beginning to wander. \u201cAnd annuities are notoriously bad instruments to begin with. <em>Caveat emptor<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSebastian!\u201d he snapped. \u201cStay with me. This is important.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pause. \u201cSorry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce the new information is added in to what we already have, it turns into a different picture. I just don\u2019t have a clear idea of that picture. I want us all there so we can brainstorm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Silence, except for the sound of a fingertip tapping on wood. Finally, Sebastian said, \u201cOkay. We can do that, but not in the next couple of weeks. I\u2019m trying to hold Knox together while the media drags him through the mud over Vanessa.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch felt a thud deep in the pit of his stomach. The stake president would demand to know why Mitch had released Greg from such a key position in the ward, and Mitch had hoped to have figured it out before that happened.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re going to Whittaker House for Thanksgiving, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course.\u201d Mitch only wished Mina had been well enough long enough for him to have taken her to Whittaker House Inn, in the heart of the Missouri Ozarks. It was only a hundred miles southwest of Rolla, the town where he and Mina had truly, finally fallen in love and spent eight years, where they\u2019d built their life and family.<\/p>\n<p>Mina would have adored it.<\/p>\n<p>Under normal circumstances, Mitch would have never gone to one of Vanessa Whittaker\u2019s holiday masquerades, with Mina or without. Those parties were way too decadent for his comfort zone, but this time, his attendance was necessary. Vanessa was mired in media mud and nursing a broken heart, to boot. She needed all the support she could get, and he owed her for the sweetly quiet way she\u2019d taken care of him this past year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can do it then,\u201d Sebastian was saying. \u201cBring what you have. See if you can gather more. We can spend the weekend going over it all. That okay?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No. Possibly too little. Definitely too late.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch couldn\u2019t even <em>enjoy<\/em> the thought of finally solving this riddle and putting Greg in jail because of the dread settling over him. He\u2019d bested Greg for almost twenty-five years, time after time, and his winning streak had to end somehow.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch knew this would be it, and it wouldn\u2019t be pretty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, that\u2019s fine,\u201d he said with a confidence he didn\u2019t feel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, bullshit,\u201d Sebastian drawled after a split second. \u201cThere\u2019s something else going on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not for the first time Mitch wished he could lie to his best friend as well as he could lie to the rest of the world. \u201cI just released him from the Young Men\u2019s presidency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe wants to be bishop. Always has. And&nbsp;\u2026 compared to him, I have a bit of a credibility problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian grunted. \u201cBecause of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat and Greg is&nbsp;\u2026 charismatic. In the charlatan televangelist way. Whole ward loves him, especially the kids. He plays golf with the stake president and softball with three quarters of the stake high council. My father-in-law\u2019s still in love with him, and you know how Shane feels about <em>me<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut he\u2019s also got his daughter wrapped up in knots, his wife is a little too Stepford for my comfort, and the few people who understand what he is stay far, far away from him. It\u2019s been explained to me, but I never got it until lately. I started really watching him, tracking his behavior through the way other people act and treat each other. He can stir up trouble without seeming to and make it seem like everybody else\u2019s fault.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, I get it. Like my Aunt Trudy. She could\u2019ve gaslighted a frog.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, exactly. Gaslight. That\u2019s it. I couldn\u2019t think of the word.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo what na\u00eff called him to be Young Men\u2019s president?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh&nbsp;\u2026 that would be me,\u201d Mitch muttered. \u201cHe\u2019s useful. Does everything he\u2019s asked and does it well. He\u2019s heavy into Scouting, does all the high adventures in grand style. I wasn\u2019t going to let that go to waste just because he and I have history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you can\u2019t stand him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not that&nbsp;\u2026 It\u2019s\u2014\u201d Mitch sighed. \u201cI never knew him. Never thought about him enough to care. I\u2019ve never looked past his act because it doesn\u2019t affect me one way or another, and I was too busy with my life. Mina tried to explain it to me for years, but apparently I wasn\u2019t listening.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More guilt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you\u2019re worried about what he could do to you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch paused. \u201cNot&nbsp;\u2026 <em>professionally<\/em>, no.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian laughed then, a booming laugh that made Mitch crack a reluctant grin. \u201cAw, c\u2019mon, Elder. Have a little faith. This isn\u2019t Paris, and we\u2019re not twenty, getting dressed down by a mission president with the IQ of a cr\u00eape. This guy has no power, no connections, and nowhere near the money you have. What\u2019s the worst he can do?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">LADY MARMALADE<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptdate\">November 30, 2010<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">MY EMAIL DINGED and the sender\u2019s name shocked me.<\/p>\n<div class=\"tb30\">\n<div class=\"lr12\">\n<p class=\"emailblog\"><span class=\"calb\">TO:<\/span> cjsj@blackwoodsecurities.com<br \/>\n\t<span class=\"calb\">FROM:<\/span> S. A. Taight<br \/>\n\t<span class=\"calb\">REPLY-TO:<\/span> kingmidas@taight.com<br \/>\n\t<span class=\"calb\">SUBJECT:<\/span> [no subject]<br \/>\n\t<span class=\"calb\">DATE:<\/span> 11\/30\/10 2:11 PM EST<\/p>\n<p class=\"emailblog\">Cassie,<\/p>\n<p class=\"emailblog\">Even though you neither called me to rescue you from your cockeyed theories about my Fix-or-Raid protocol nor presented yourself for my anointing as my ideological successor, I want you to reorganize the Hollander Steelworks\/Jep Industries operation. Need it fast and I hear you specialize in fast. Please give me date and time we can get this done. Pref next week. Pref Mon. Pref 10am. Pref @ Hollander\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"emailblog\">SbnT<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>kingmidas@taight.com<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What an ego that man possessed. But I laughed, delighted that <em>he<\/em> had come to <em>me<\/em>, albeit with the infamous arrogance that he could snap his fingers and the financial world would jump.<\/p>\n<p>I hit <span class=\"calb\">REPLY<\/span>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"tb30\">\n<div class=\"lr12\">\n<p class=\"emailblog\"><span class=\"calb\">TO:<\/span> kingmidas@taight.com<br \/>\n\t<span class=\"calb\">CC:<\/span> jack@blackwoodsecurities.com<br \/>\n\t<span class=\"calb\">FROM:<\/span> Cassandra J. St. James<br \/>\n\t<span class=\"calb\">SUBJECT:<\/span> How high? Re: [no subject]<\/p>\n<p class=\"emailblog\">I would prefer Monday next, 10 a.m., Hollander\u2019s office. Please make the appropriate arrangements.<\/p>\n<p class=\"emailblog\">St. James<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Within minutes, Jack Blackwood, my boss, stormed my office with his usual frenetic energy. I was clearing my calendar. Susan, my assistant, was on the phone with the document storage company to get a rush delivery.<\/p>\n<p>I held up a hand. \u201cDon\u2019t start.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo <em>not<\/em> piss off Mitch Hollander,\u201d he growled.<\/p>\n<p>That caught me off guard. \u201cPissing people off is your <em>raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em>. Why does Hollander deserve coddling?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot <em>coddling<\/em>,\u201d he said testily. \u201cRespect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe only person you respect is your wife.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHollander\u2019s pretty damned close. Do not make his life any harder than it has to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was oddly specific, but Jack had vanished and I would probably never get an explanation.<\/p>\n<p>The banker\u2019s boxes started arriving within a half hour. They were <em>still<\/em> arriving at close of business. When Susan and I got to work the next morning, we had to practically squeeze into my spacious office suite.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d The head of Blackwood Securities\u2019s corporate bond department stood in the doorway staring at Mt. Boxmore.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNew project,\u201d I said when I realized Melinda had come to whisk Susan away so they could watch their favorite cooking show\u2014<em>Vittles: Gourmet Roadkill and Weeds<\/em>\u2014together. \u201cI need her right now, so DVR it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>What<\/em> project?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI suspect that Hollander Steelworks can no longer support the old Jep Industries operation by itself and needs to be cut loose.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh,\u201d Melinda said, blinking. \u201cThat\u2019s&nbsp;\u2026 interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWant to help?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d she said flatly. \u201cI have about as much interest in restructuring as you have in bonds. Plus, I have plans for the weekend and they do not include\u2014\u201d She waved a hand. \u201cThat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOkay, then,\u201d I said pointedly. \u201cBye.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Melinda left in a huff, and Susan and I set to work moving and slinging boxes so we could start finding all the documents I needed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy aren\u2019t these digitized?\u201d I grumbled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBe right ba\u2014\u201d Susan sneezed, then zipped out of the office and sneezed again. \u201cOkay,\u201d she said when she came back an hour later. \u201cTwenty temps, new scanners, new computers, new printers, and space on the fourth floor dialed up for Monday. Let\u2019s get to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I love that girl.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d been through most of these documents in the last four years, but my assistant hadn\u2019t, and she needed to know the whole story so she could help me. Finally, we had the boxes organized enough that we could plant ourselves on the floor and start digging. Susan settled in as if I were going to spin a magical financial yarn for her pleasure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce upon a time,\u201d I said, flashing her a smile. She grinned back at me in appreciation. I wondered what it would be like for one of my daughters to happily listen to a story I wanted to tell while we worked on a project together.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe too-long-didn\u2019t-read is, a few years ago, Hollander Steelworks absorbed a company called Jep Industries, which manufactured specialty parts for outdated, highly specialized and experimental machinery, massive nuts and bolts, anything niche that anybody wanted and could pay a premium for. They made run-of-the-mill stuff too, but their quality was unmatched. They bought at least half of Hollander Steelworks\u2019s annual output of steel, so when Jep had some problems, it made sense for Hollander to step in. However, it\u2019s now grown to a point it needs to be its own entity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy does King Midas want you to do it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, first, I did my master\u2019s thesis on Taight\u2019s Fix-or-Raid protocol and Jack hired me on that basis, so I suspect he trusts me to do the job right, whether it\u2019s how he would do it or not. Second, his wife is the CEO of Hollander\u2019s biggest customer, OKH Enterprises, and he probably doesn\u2019t want to piss her off if he does something that\u2019s going to hurt her company.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Susan snickered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not too off the wall, really. Between Hollander\u2019s steel and the J.I. products, his market share is massive. If we do <em>anything<\/em> that will harm OKH, even if it\u2019s to Hollander\u2019s benefit, it\u2019ll affect a lot of other companies down the line. Even without OKH in the mix, what we do will have long-reaching consequences around the world, so this is going to be a very delicate operation. You\u2019ve heard of Senator Roger Oth?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She nodded. \u201cHe\u2019s an imbecile.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExactly. He inherited Jep Industries, but really didn\u2019t have a clue what he was doing. One of those silver-spoon types. Like me, only stupid.\u201d Susan laughed. \u201cAnyway, J.I. ended up in a hole Roger couldn\u2019t pull it out of and he had to call King Midas to fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd Mr. Taight gave it to Hollander instead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, but <em>how<\/em> and <em>why<\/em> he did is the important part, and why we\u2019re looking for documents pertaining to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t King Midas\u2019s usual modus operandi, and had taken everyone by surprise. Usually when Taight was called to restructure a company, it took a while; no one understood why he did what he did or why it took him so long to do it, but his method worked. When he finished with a company, he left it lean and strong, and\u2014more importantly\u2014it <em>stayed<\/em> that way. It would take a year or more for Wall Street to find out if he would initiate a takeover, which happened often enough that the betting pools opened as soon as he stepped foot on a property.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I went on as I flipped through a folder. \u201cShutting J.I. down was the last thing anyone thought would happen. J.I. was too important. However, once Taight got there, things went sideways almost immediately. The first thing that tipped everybody off was that he called his family in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis family?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMorgan Ashworth. Knox\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMorgan Ashworth, the writer? He\u2019s related to King Midas?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes and yes. But more importantly, he\u2019s an economist who\u2019s been politically disenfranchised for the last few years. He basically\u2014\u201d I laughed and reached for another folder. \u201cHe shrugged.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Susan groaned at my bad joke, then said, \u201cI\u2019ve seen him. Well, his picture. On the back of his books. He\u2019s hot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd gay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She sighed and I chuckled, unable to blame her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAshworth is Taight\u2019s cousin. Taight only calls him when he needs an assessment of the greater economic impact of a company failing completely. It wasn\u2019t just J.I. and its employees on the line. It was all the patents, trademarks, royalty deals, and licenses that J.I. held. Those couldn\u2019t contractually be transferred to anyone else, so while there were other factories in the country that were capable of stepping in for J.I., they wouldn\u2019t be able to do it because of licensing agreements, many of which are held by other members of Taight\u2019s family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen,\u201d I continued, and threw a file in a box, \u201cthere\u2019s Knox Hilliard, another cousin. He\u2019s a specialist in prosecuting white-collar crime and he\u2019s a magician with numbers. His job was to comb through the books and find the theft, how it was done, and how to get around any safeguards the embezzler put in place.\u201d I would have continued to talk, but my mouth was getting dry.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWant anything?\u201d I asked as I stood to get something to drink.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassie,\u201d Susan pleaded, hopping to her feet. \u201cLet me do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWater, then,\u201d I said, and let her go. It embarrassed her when I got her a drink or brought her lunch, but I knew what she liked and if I wanted to go out&nbsp;\u2026 I saw no reason to cater to her sense of corporate propriety over my sense of efficiency.<\/p>\n<p>I stretched. Checked email. Made a phone call.<\/p>\n<p>Wondered if I had yet come to a place in my life where I could contemplate having an affair.<\/p>\n<p><em>Even though you neither called me to rescue you from your cockeyed theories about my Fix-or-Raid protocol&nbsp;\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Oh my, and had I ever needed rescuing from my advisor\u2014an asshole professor who didn\u2019t think a rich Upper East Side divorced stay-at-home mom had any business cluttering up <em>his<\/em> MBA program.<\/p>\n<p>I hadn\u2019t called King Midas to pull me out of business school with a diploma because he was beautiful and I couldn\u2019t afford the distraction of attempting to break my long fast\u2014especially with a man who\u2019d ostensibly taken himself off the market a few years before.<\/p>\n<p>He probably would\u2019ve brought his gorgeous wife and then I\u2019d have had <em>two<\/em> people in my immediate vicinity reminding me how long it\u2019d been since I\u2019d had good sex from a man or woman\u2014or both\u2014and taking my attention away from getting my reworked thesis approved.<\/p>\n<p>Taight <em>had<\/em> managed to rescue me in absentia, however, by alerting the CEO of Blackwood Securities as to my plight. Jack had offered me a job after one evening with a thick dossier his investigators had compiled, my thesis, and my r\u00e9sum\u00e9. That, in turn, forced my advisor to reconsider his opinion of rich Upper East Side divorced stay-at-home moms.<\/p>\n<p>Or at least, one of them.<\/p>\n<p>Susan returned with water and we returned to our sorting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere was I?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe part where you say you were kidding that Morgan Ashworth\u2019s gay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I laughed. \u201cAh, sorry, no can do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRats. Okay, so&nbsp;\u2026 the old company was bleeding money and&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight. Roger Oth\u2019s executives were stealing from him and they\u2019d laid a crumb trail that would leave him holding the bag once they jumped ship and headed to Brazil, which they ended up doing sooner than expected when Roger called Taight. He, Ashworth, and Hilliard worked around the clock to find out how and where that money was going and to stop it. They did, but the final step in the embezzlement scheme was to make the employees\u2019 401(k)s drain on a specific date into an offshore account, which had already been set up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo what? The employees could roll over their 401(k)s before then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe thieves had quietly changed the rules of the 401(k) program so that the funds could not be rolled over <em>while<\/em> an employee was employed. Then they set it up so that if the accounts were accessed <em>in bulk<\/em> with one login by anyone other than the thieves, they would instantly transfer. It was possible to access one account at a time, which would allow any one employee to receive his funds should he leave before the scheme was set in motion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo keep anybody from suspecting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo the layoff was to get around the new rule, and then the accounts could be rolled over individually.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow long did they have?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe&nbsp;\u2026 a week? I don\u2019t remember.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow many employees?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTwelve hundred.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is no way they had enough people to get twelve hundred employees\u2019 accounts accessed and rolled over in a week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey didn\u2019t, but they weren\u2019t even to data entry stage yet. Jack had to set up new accounts, and new software had to be coded, which Jack\u2019s son managed to do in about thirty-six hours. While all that was going on, Ashworth was quietly working with Hollander to get the employees under his roof, employed, and back on the production lines as soon as possible <em>with<\/em> their money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhich they could only get if they were no longer employed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExactly. But <em>everyone<\/em> was stunned. The employees. Wall Street. <em>Congress<\/em>. One day J.I. lived and breathed, secure under Taight\u2019s guidance for at least another year or two, and the next day, it was gone. Poof. Left a hole in the manufacturing sector and were probably going to kill twelve hundred jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy didn\u2019t Mr. Taight explain it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe couldn\u2019t do that until it was all sorted out, the 401(k)s rescued before the thieves found out, salvaged in a way that the thieves wouldn\u2019t suspect, saved the licensing agreements, all that. They had two days left. They were all set to bring the computers in and lay off the employees when the then-CEO of OKH Enterprises sued for an immediate injunction on the shutdown because <em>he<\/em> wanted J.I. Honestly, he would\u2019ve been better for it than Hollander, but he was known to&nbsp;\u2026 dawdle and dither. He didn\u2019t know about the embezzlement scheme or the time crunch they were working under. Taight and Hilliard couldn\u2019t explain it without jeopardizing the funds, but they were able to pull the unions\u2019 lawyers in. At that point, they had a little over twenty-four hours before the 401(k)s transferred, Hollander was in a position to do it immediately because they\u2019d already laid the groundwork, and the OKH CEO could not possibly have pulled that off, even with help.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTaight left his lawyers in court and went back to J.I. <em>Hours<\/em> before the funds were set to transfer, he laid everybody off. But, before the employees were allowed to leave the building, they were directed to a computer, instructed to access their account, and roll it over. They were very quietly told why, to please keep their mouths shut, to come back to work in two weeks, and that they\u2019d be paid retroactively. Everything got transferred over with about fifteen minutes to spare.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd everybody lived happily ever after.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, no,\u201d I corrected, then took a long drink. I hadn\u2019t talked to anyone for this long in&nbsp;\u2026 oh, forever. \u201cNot this time. Very few people knew what was going on and it looked like J.I. had closed for good. Taight and Hilliard were still wrapped up in court, nobody knew Hollander was involved, so his new J.I. operation was flying under the radar. The Department of Justice came riding in on a white charger and won the case for Taight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat happened in the summer of 2004. I started grad school in 2007, which was about the time somebody in the financial press posited that Jep had to be operating somehow. J.I.\u2019s products were still available long after inventory should have dried up. The obvious conclusion was that somebody else was making them, but they couldn\u2019t do that, either. Nobody else had the right to manufacture J.I.\u2019s products and all the knock-offs were crap, so the good stuff was getting out there <em>somehow<\/em>. Word finally got out that they\u2019d rolled J.I. into a shell corporation under Ashworth\u2019s name with Hollander as its shadow CEO. When the DoJ figured it out, they were set to go after Hollander next, but Hilliard had laid a paper trail so convoluted it took the FBI\u2019s best forensic team months to figure it out and concede that because technically, Ashworth owned it, the whole thing was airtight and legal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTaight, Ashworth, Hollander, and Hilliard came out of that smelling like roses otherwise because the unions were happy their people were still working, and knew that everything possible had been done to keep people employed with their pensions intact. However, D.C. didn\u2019t look kindly on Ashworth for his part in it, and his career crashed and burned. So he went home with his tail between his legs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Susan said nothing for several seconds. \u201cThat\u2019s just so&nbsp;\u2026 junior high.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I laughed. \u201cIt is, isn\u2019t it? The stakes are just a lot higher.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid Mr. Taight <em>ever<\/em> explain what happened or anything about it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGod, no. He\u2019s like Mary Poppins. He never explains anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>King Midas\u2019s mystique rested on his refusal to explain how he decided whether to fix or raid a company\u2014or why he did anything, really. Not even Congress could get it out of him.<\/p>\n<p>But I\u2019d spent two years studying Taight and his methods, and I knew why he hadn\u2019t said a word about Jep Industries: He wanted to catch the bastards. He had never gone into a company with an embezzlement problem and not come out without getting a few people jailed. To Corporate America, Jep Industries looked like a triumph. For all I had never met or conversed with Sebastian Taight, I <em>knew<\/em> he considered Jep Industries a personal failure.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d never failed before or since. It had to grate.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, I said, \u201cHe probably wants to keep his reputation for being a ruthless bastard.\u201d Susan nodded. Yes, she would understand because, while I might be King Midas\u2019s heir apparent, I certainly didn\u2019t give companies years to figure out their issues and learn how to be better at their jobs. I had gained a reputation for doing it <em>fast<\/em> because I was <em>rude<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Possibly cruel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I got a master\u2019s thesis out of it,\u201d I concluded. \u201cAt the time, it was a puzzle everybody was dying to solve, and I walked right into it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, that puzzle had caught my imagination nearly immediately, and I watched and listened, picking up clues here and there long after the furor had died down. The three years between the closing of J.I. and my entry into the MBA program had been ones of silent upheaval in the manufacturing sector and thus, the economy. Only a handful of people had been witness to it.<\/p>\n<p>I was one of them, albeit in retrospect.<\/p>\n<p>I became an amateur historian, funneling through all those old records, finding Sebastian Taight and his family, digging back to his ties with Mitch Hollander, which seemed to originate in the Mormon church.<\/p>\n<p>That piqued my curiosity to no end, this tendency I began to see in Mormons to be able to spin gold out of straw, especially Taight, his mother, and his cousins. Taight fascinated me simply because he was an enigma to the rest of the country. There was something there, something in him that I could hold onto. I knew it was there, and I <em>would<\/em> find it.<\/p>\n<p>And then I did.<\/p>\n<p>It was like finding a snag on a cardigan, the one thread that, if tugged, will unravel the entire garment in a single pull.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd how does OKH Enterprises fit into it <em>now<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe previous CEO died and Logan\u2014Taight\u2019s wife\u2014took his place. Now <em>that\u2019s<\/em> one hell of a soap opera, which I\u2019ll tell you some other time. Just know it involved lawyers, guns, and money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She looked at me blankly, clearly not getting the reference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd now that I\u2019ve told you the story, the plan is to detach Jep completely, transfer ownership from Ashworth to Hollander and give it a new corporate identity. It needs to have something other than \u2018The Old Jep Industries\u2019 as its brand, since <em>Jep Industries<\/em> went out of business in 2004. What we\u2019re looking for are the original documents pertaining to when Jep got rolled over into Hollander Steelworks and any mention of Ashworth\u2019s name. Then I\u2019ll need you to contact Hollander\u2019s assistant and get the organization\u2019s charts and\u2014 Well, you know what I want. After I have all that, I can figure out the most efficient way to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I looked at her as she sifted furiously through boxes, all business now that she knew what to look for. \u201cWe have a long weekend ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">CABIRIA<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptdate\">December 6, 2010<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">\u201cCASSIE, WHATEVER you do, don\u2019t use your schtick on Mitch Hollander. It won\u2019t work and it\u2019ll annoy him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t bother to look up from my desk, where I had assembled everything I needed to get this project done. My boss stood in the threshold of my office, twitchy as usual, but I never let that affect me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCass?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI heard you,\u201d I murmured, too engrossed in preparing for the task ahead to indulge him. \u201cYou should know me better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jack grunted. \u201cI know you well enough to know you pull out the sex kitten when it suits you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs I recall, that\u2019s why you hired me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hired you for your little black book and your tendency to use it as a weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Which made me one of the most powerful people in America. I smirked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo let me make this perfectly clear to you: The man\u2019s a Mormon bishop. It would be like seducing a priest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid that. Two years, until the archbishop busted him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFuck.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, but not <em>badly<\/em>. Boringly. I don\u2019t remember if he got excommunicated or just sent to Siberia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassie. Please?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I sighed and looked across the room at him, all five feet and ten inches of barely leashed energy. \u201cWhy are you so afraid of Mitch Hollander?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not <em>afraid<\/em> of him,\u201d he said testily. \u201cI <em>like<\/em> him. I <em>respect<\/em> him. He doesn\u2019t like <em>me<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOkay, then. Why do you need his approval?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy do you need Clarissa\u2019s?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ouch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe guy\u2019s superhuman. He\u2019s had a hard life and I know all too well what it\u2019s like to run a high-intensity business when your personal life\u2019s even more intense. All <em>I<\/em> had to do was run an investment bank and rehab two very damaged children without help for a year with no time for my derivatives hobby until my wife stepped up. <em>Hollander<\/em> had the mill, the Jep Industries takeover, a terminally ill wife, three kids, <em>and<\/em> carries enormous responsibility in his church\u2014<em>all alone<\/em>\u2014with no time for his life\u2019s work. For almost <em>twenty years<\/em>. <em>I<\/em> wouldn\u2019t be able to withstand the pressure he\u2019s been under for that long.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was saying something, indeed. Jack didn\u2019t feel pressure, or at least, not like most people, and he went balls to the wall every hour he was awake, but he <em>hated<\/em> the grind of relationships, so Hollander\u2019s vast network of relationship-based responsibilities would be impressive to someone like Jack.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s his life\u2019s work?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlloys.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I rolled my eyes at myself. Of course. He was Chief Metallurgical Officer. \u201cThanks for the insight,\u201d I said, getting back to packing my laptop and associated displays. Jack made fun of me for using paper, but digital presentations kept people at a distance, and I got in my clients\u2019 faces. Paper suited my style. \u201cI promise I won\u2019t disgrace you by throwing myself at Hollander.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At a word to my assistant, my things were taken down to my car while I ate the last of my breakfast.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd, oh, keep your mitts off the rest of the pack, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy?\u201d I asked around my lox.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust\u2014 No playtime or side arrangements amongst my Mormon clientele, okay? It kind of creeps me out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir morality is their problem,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd as to that\u2014except for Hollander, whom nobody can figure out anyway\u2014none of that pack is a shining example of morality. I mean, look at Hilliard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s a rumor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut he\u2019s never denied it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I felt a deep affinity for Knox Hilliard, a man who\u2019d cracked and gone rogue the minute the justice system failed to deliver justice. Fortunately or unfortunately (I\u2019d never known which) I hadn\u2019t had Hilliard\u2019s courage and had settled for dispatching my enemies in less permanent ways.<\/p>\n<p>Even then, while my daughter could overlook a charismatic law professor\u2019s <em>alleged<\/em> misdeeds so much she was willing to follow him to his no-name midwestern state university to get a law degree, she could not forgive me mine.<\/p>\n<p>The ones she knew of, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Vengeance was far uglier up close and personal, and did not sit as attractively on my shoulders as it did on Dr. Hilliard\u2019s, whom she worshipped on a semi-regular basis whenever he lectured on white-collar crimes at NYU\u2019s criminal justice program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd Taight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jack shrugged. \u201cHe\u2019ll tell you he\u2019s still a cultural Mormon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoesn\u2019t keep him from fucking half the world\u2019s women.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s settled down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoubt it. A tomcat like that doesn\u2019t just stay home with the kittens when one particular pussy catches his fancy.\u201d Jack cleared his throat. \u201cOkay, okay. I get the point. Unless <em>you\u2019re<\/em> fucking around on your wife.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWould <em>you<\/em> fuck around on my wife?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would depend on her libido and how good she is in bed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s a raving lunatic. Eat your heart out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That made me laugh. If Eilis Logan had done for King Midas what Lydia Blackwood had done for Jack, I\u2019d have to kill my assumptions about his chronic promiscuity.<\/p>\n<p>I looked at my watch and stood to clean up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassie, please, let me do that,\u201d Susan said as she zipped through my office door, past Jack.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSusan&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s my job,\u201d she said and glared at me, her fist propped on her hip. Really, she was too young to be that bossy, but I acquiesced.<\/p>\n<p>I swept out of my office, Jack\u2019s last-minute admonitions following me down the hall to the elevator bank. Once down on Wall Street, I slipped into my waiting car. My driver closed the door, walked around the car, slid behind the wheel, and said, \u201cGood morning, Ms St. James.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGood morning, Sheldon. Any news?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He gave me a few details on my neighbors, my colleagues, my children\u2014tidbits he\u2019d picked up here and there at Zabar\u2019s or the dry cleaner\u2019s or wherever he went while waiting for a call from me or my children. Every day he had at least one small thing that I could use. Somehow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you,\u201d I murmured when he ran out of <em>on dits<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd,\u201d he continued, as if I hadn\u2019t spoken, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. \u201cMy wife finally got a job. Really good one, where she can do what she likes and go up the ladder. Benefits, too. The works. Ms St. James,\u201d he said earnestly, \u201cI really want to thank\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExcellent,\u201d I said, and checked my phone for messages.<\/p>\n<p>We said nothing else to each other on the drive to Bethlehem, home of Hollander Steelworks, mostly because I needed to call the one person guaranteed not to want to talk to me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassie!\u201d she hissed, then lowered her voice. \u201cI\u2019m in class.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I knew that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQuestion,\u201d I said, disregarding her irritation. \u201cWhen do you graduate?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn May. Which you know. My graduation application is posted on the refrigerator.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s dated two years ago, Clarissa.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat do you want?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre you serious about going where Knox Hilliard teaches?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDammit, Mother. Of course I am. An urban commuter school in some hick town in the middle of nowhere that doesn\u2019t have skiing <em>or<\/em> a beach?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her willingness to sacrifice so much for her educational goals was admirable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean, for real? As in, you\u2019re going to work, not simply drool over Professor Hottie and wait for him to notice you and fall in love with you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m going to ignore that and point you to my 4.0 in a <em>double<\/em> major. Which is criminal justice and Spanish. <em>Not<\/em> humanities, also known as extreme ironing. Unlike some people I could name. <em>Mother<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She had me there. The snob. \u201cI am on my way to a meeting at which he will be present. Would you like me to finesse your name into the conversation? Plant a few seeds?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I would have thought the call had been dropped but for the background lecture going on and the rustlings of students. \u201cWhat <em>kind<\/em> of meeting, exactly?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I could hear her breathe a sigh of relief. \u201cThank <em>God<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough I might change my mind&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMother! Don\u2019t you think you\u2019ve poached enough men? You have to move in on my territory, too?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA crush on a man old enough to be your father does not \u2018territory\u2019 make.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGod, you\u2019re a bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIsn\u2019t he married? To that gorgeous redheaded right-wing nut?\u201d Stony silence. \u201cOh, I remember. We don\u2019t like to talk about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBite me. This conversation is over.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And it was, because she\u2019d hung up on me.<\/p>\n<p>I attempted to annoy my other three daughters, but none of them were available. I doubted they were avoiding me, but I couldn\u2019t rule it out.<\/p>\n<p>My phone rang then\u2014 \u201cI\u2019ve Never Been to Me,\u201d my best friend\u2019s ringtone.<\/p>\n<p>He hates that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere are you?\u201d Nigel demanded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAbout halfway to Lehigh Valley. Why?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWord got out. Hollander\u2019s bigger customers are biting their fingernails.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShit, <em>already<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re the wild card in this scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I would have pinched the bridge of my nose, but I didn\u2019t want to disturb my makeup. \u201cKeep mum until I can work Logan around to my point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Sebastian Taight\u2019s wife could be a right bitch when she was unhappy, and as the CEO of the biggest metals fabrication plant in the country, her opinions were critical. The manufacturing sector took its cues from her: If Eilis Logan wasn\u2019t happy, nobody was happy.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, I\u2019d planned for that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not sure how long it will take me to beat Hollander and his cronies into doing it my way, especially if she fights me. And God knows how Taight will figure into it. Even if he likes my plan, he\u2019ll stand with his wife.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s a helluva conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHas that ever stopped the Dunham family before?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGood point,\u201d he said. \u201cGotta go. Bring all their balls home in a jar.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Right.<\/p>\n<p>I looked at my watch. \u201cDamn. Sheldon, could you drive around Bethlehem and Allentown? I want to see a few things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPardon my saying so, Ms St. James, but won\u2019t that make you late?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, Sheldon. Yes, it will. Perhaps&nbsp;\u2026 twenty minutes or so?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, Ms St. James.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">MID-LIFE CRISIS<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">\u201cMITCH, YOU okay? The pack\u2019s here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He knew that.<\/p>\n<p>From the vantage point of his office three stories up, through floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows, Mitch had watched his board of directors, his friends-cum-family, drive onto the grounds in two vehicles, then disappear into the parking garage.<\/p>\n<p>It wouldn\u2019t take them long to get to his office once they parked.<\/p>\n<p>Still Mitch stood with his arm pressed against the glass, up over his head, his forehead against his arm. He watched sparks fly out of the massive doors of the foundry half a mile away and regretted the weak winter sun; it was pretty in daylight, but it was spectacular at night. He liked going out and contributing to the creation of those sparks.<\/p>\n<p>In the eternal battle of man against steel, Mitch conquered.<\/p>\n<p>Every minute of every hour of every day, and Hollander Steelworks was a living testament to that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m fine, Darlene, thanks,\u201d he said without turning. His poor assistant, so worried about him.<\/p>\n<p>But here it was, early December, the ground around the office building covered in white or glittering ice melt. The only grief he could muster today, his wedding anniversary, was that he didn\u2019t remember much about the time before Mina\u2019s disease had really started to drain the life out of her; didn\u2019t remember much about his wife, the woman he\u2019d loved and married twenty-three years before. She had loved him, believed in him, supported him, borne his children. He remembered what she had done, but not who she was.<\/p>\n<p>He only remembered the longsuffering invalid he had nursed so long.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch heard the booming voices and boisterous laughter of four men and three women drawing closer to his office suite.<\/p>\n<p>Still he didn\u2019t move, even when he saw their reflections in the glass.<\/p>\n<p>The big hand of Mitch\u2019s best friend came down hard on his left shoulder and shook him lightly. \u201cSorry, Elder,\u201d Sebastian murmured. \u201cI didn\u2019t think about the date when I scheduled this. You should have said something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch shook his head. \u201cIf it bothered me that much, I would\u2019ve.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another man approached on his right and halted at the glass, his arms crossed over his chest. \u201cYou okay, Mitch?\u201d he rasped.<\/p>\n<p>Second time in five minutes someone had asked him that, but Mitch knew Bryce would understand completely, and he couldn\u2019t lie to Sebastian when it was important.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWondering if I did everything I could,\u201d he finally replied.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou got her seen and gave her the best care money could buy,\u201d Sebastian said.<\/p>\n<p>Palliative, not curative.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf it makes you feel any better,\u201d Bryce offered, \u201cher first obstetrician should\u2019ve suspected something was wrong and checked her over.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The second one missed it, too. The third\u2014<\/p>\n<p><em>Mr. Hollander, I want to admit her so I can run some tests. Something\u2019s wrong, and we need to find out what.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u2014had called in a neurologist who finally uncovered it: early onset multiple sclerosis, progressive, undiagnosed for over ten years.<\/p>\n<p><em>I\u2019m sorry, Mrs. Hollander. There is no cure. No drugs. And this is&nbsp;\u2026 serious. I don\u2019t know how much longer you\u2019ll live, to be quite honest.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sixteen years, eight of them spent lying in bed in a deteriorating state of consciousness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat are you not saying?\u201d Sebastian was nothing if not persistent.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch continued to say nothing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, don\u2019t start piling on the guilt. You got nothin\u2019 to feel guilty about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oh, yes he did. He felt guilty for not remembering her, for not missing her. Shouldn\u2019t a widower grieve longer?<\/p>\n<p>Or at all?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMitch,\u201d Sebastian said with some impatience. \u201cHer <em>body<\/em> died last year. Her <em>essence<\/em> left years ago. You\u2019ve done years of grieving.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch was not shocked that Sebastian had read his mind. It was to be expected; they were brothers, after all, their bond forged in the blast furnace of adversity. It was also to be expected that Sebastian would spout facts to negate emotion he didn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cElder,\u201d Mitch murmured finally, an edge in his voice, \u201cyou don\u2019t know from guilt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMitch\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShut up, Taight,\u201d Bryce rumbled. \u201cYou have no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So the three of them stood there a moment longer in silent companionship. Trust Sebastian to bear Mitch\u2019s temper with equanimity whether he deserved it or not.<\/p>\n<p>Ah, well. That was what brothers were for. Mitch had no one <em>else<\/em> to vent on, that was for sure.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch pushed away from the glass, turned with a well-practiced hearty cheer he rarely felt, and rubbed his hands together. \u201cAll right. Let\u2019s get this party started.\u201d He looked at his board of directors.<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian Taight.<\/p>\n<p>Bryce and Giselle Kenard.<\/p>\n<p>Knox Hilliard and Justice McKinley.<\/p>\n<p>Morgan Ashworth.<\/p>\n<p>All here to implement the reorganization of Hollander Steelworks, which had begun to stumble under the weight of its own success.<\/p>\n<p>Then there was Eilis Logan, Sebastian\u2019s wife, Mitch\u2019s biggest customer for J.I.\u2019s products, who had come to look after the health of her own company. Mitch had no doubt Wall Street and the rest of manufacturing were waiting for news of this meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Ah, but it had to be done. This reorganization would rejuvenate his company while taking a lot of weight off Mitch\u2019s shoulders.<\/p>\n<p>Never mind the idea to reorganize had taken root while getting quite a bit closer to proving that Greg Sitkaris was a thief.<\/p>\n<p>Never mind it had come up while Mitch stood in the midst of a hundred or more beautiful, scantily clad women\u2014<em>knowing<\/em> he could have any one of them (or more) if he so much as crooked his finger&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re missing somebody,\u201d Mitch said, needing to shake that off. Another layer of his guilt, wanting to move on.<\/p>\n<p>Not knowing how.<\/p>\n<p>Or with whom.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassie St. James,\u201d Sebastian said as he seated Eilis at the foot of the conference table. He proceeded to position himself as close to her as he could without pulling her onto his lap. \u201cTraffic must be heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho is she?\u201d Mitch asked as he sat at the head of the table, and the others, who seemed to be waiting to see if Mitch were truly okay, followed his lead.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMe,\u201d Sebastian said, \u201cversion 2.0. Cassie wrote her MBA thesis on my rationale for deciding whether to fix or raid any given company.\u201d Mitch raised his eyebrow and Sebastian nodded. \u201cShe got roundly pummeled and ridiculed for daring to suggest that my decision was predicated on the teachability of a company\u2019s leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch, along with almost everyone else, stared at Sebastian in shock. \u201cShe figured it out?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe sent me her thesis before she turned it in. Had it down to the last detail, examples, anecdotes, quotes, patterns, data analyses, and footnotes wherever she could see a deviance from my norm. She speculated that could indicate Knox\u2019s involvement into any particularly complex project I was working on, with a <em>massive<\/em> appendix on Jep Industries. That <em>really<\/em> got trashed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou told me about that,\u201d Knox said. \u201cDid you go back her up?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would\u2019ve if she\u2019d asked. She refused to budge in her defense, though, and ended up nearly getting herself drummed out of her program. I told Jack about it, so he hired her. He\u2019s been wanting a clone of me on his staff for years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHave you ever met her?\u201d Mitch asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have not and furthermore, I\u2019ve only communicated with her by email once\u2014 to get her to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His brow wrinkled. \u201cYou\u2019re handing the whole thing over to her?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYup. I didn\u2019t want to end up sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eilis chuckled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow long has this woman been with Jack?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAbout a year, I think. He hired her just before she was scheduled to defend her thesis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch let every suspicious thought he had show on his face and, predictably, Sebastian read him correctly. \u201cI\u2019ve been watching this woman work and I\u2019ll go so far as to say she\u2019s better at being me than I am.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s certainly faster at it,\u201d Eilis said, staring at Sebastian speculatively, \u201cbut she\u2019s rough on the ego. She doesn\u2019t do the same soft-shoe routine Sebastian does.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, what, she cuts about a year off your process?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian nodded. \u201c\u2019Bout that, maybe a little more. I figure it\u2019s probably what I should have done all along, but&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s your inner nurturer, Midas,\u201d Eilis teased with a nudge that garnered her a pleased grin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s, what, twenty-four, twenty-five?\u201d Bryce asked. \u201cAnd she\u2019s the phoenix rising out of the ashes of Sebastian Taight\u2019s sudden career change from corporate raider to full-time artist and stay-at-home dad?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot that young, but otherwise, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Knox glanced at his watch. \u201cLate. Dammit, I hate late.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch glared at Sebastian. \u201cMe too. Why hasn\u2019t she called? Why hasn\u2019t Jack called?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe doesn\u2019t want to offend you,\u201d Sebastian shot back. \u201cHe can\u2019t tell when you\u2019re being funny.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Knox laughed then. \u201cShit, nobody else can, either.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJack annoys me,\u201d Mitch groused.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJack annoys everyone,\u201d Eilis offered. \u201cExcept his wife.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe thinks it\u2019s cute,\u201d Sebastian said absently.<\/p>\n<p>The eight of them settled in to wait, and Mitch relaxed as they began to indulge their favorite pastime while together: Poking fun at each other.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, Bishop Hollander,\u201d Ashworth boomed. Morgan Ashworth never <em>said<\/em> anything. \u201cHow\u2019s the wife hunt going?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI could ask the same of you,\u201d Mitch shot back with a smirk, not in the least offended, and the snickers and laughter around the table rose, Morgan\u2019s guffaw outstripping the rest. \u201cYou have anything to confess yet, Elder Ashworth?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He held up his hands in truce. \u201cNot me, Bishop. I\u2019m pure as the wind-driven snow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy ass,\u201d Giselle Kenard returned. \u201cI saw the way you checked out that carpenter as we came in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLooking is not the same as doing, dear Cuz. Tell her, Mitch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrue. But did you lust after him in your heart, Elder?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morgan snorted. \u201cI\u2019m not confessing to anything.\u201d He pointed at Giselle. \u201cAnd <em>you<\/em> have no room to talk, O Freshly Excommunicated One.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPffftt. Shall I tell our bishop about your <em>Playgirl<\/em> stash?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou mean the one that doesn\u2019t exist?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHa! I <em>caught<\/em> you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTwenty years ago, at which time you decided you wanted to share in the eye candy. All afternoon. I was not amused.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The table erupted in laughter. \u201cI can\u2019t believe you\u2019re still mad about that,\u201d she grumbled underneath the noise.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI might not be if you hadn\u2019t <em>stolen<\/em> them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She sank down into her chair and bit her lip. \u201cI still have them if you want them back. They\u2019re kind of, um&nbsp;\u2026 dog-eared, shall I say.\u201d Bryce stopped laughing and looked at her, one eyebrow raised. \u201cWell,\u201d she said defensively when she caught her husband\u2019s look. \u201cIt\u2019s not like I need them anymore. You know, \u2019cause you\u2014 Believe me, I don\u2019t need\u2014 You, you\u2019re\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiselle,\u201d Bryce growled, though Knox and Justice, Sebastian and Eilis, were all coughing and choking on their laughter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re at Mom\u2019s, okay? In storage. And they have been for years. I moved on from pictures to words and\u2014\u201d She shot up in her chair and stuck her finger in Bryce\u2019s face. \u201c\u2014<em>You<\/em> don\u2019t seem to mind my library. You\u2019ve practically got <em>Tropic of Cancer<\/em> memorized and you\u2019ve done\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bryce clapped a hand over her mouth. \u201cOkay. Got the point.\u201d He looked at Morgan. \u201cYou want those back?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d Morgan glared at Giselle. \u201cI should\u2019ve drowned you when you were a kitten.\u201d Then he took a deep breath and looked back at Mitch, who simply rolled his eyes at the family\u2019s ribaldry. \u201cSpeaking of bishops,\u201d he said smoothly once the hilarity had died down. \u201cWhy haven\u2019t they fired you yet?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wish they would,\u201d Mitch said. \u201c<em>You<\/em> try going into year seven running a ward the size of mine and knowing you\u2019re on the short list for stake president.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He caught Bryce\u2019s shudder out of the corner of his eye and chuckled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow, see, this is what I like about my situation,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cI don\u2019t have to worry about being called as bishop or anything higher than what I am. <em>And<\/em> I don\u2019t get stuck teaching rugrats. It\u2019s all I can do to grin and bear all the little bastards at family gatherings. I have my brush with greatness being second counselor and that\u2019s more than enough for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch stared at him. \u201cSecond counselor? I didn\u2019t know that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He shrugged. \u201cLucky that way. I figure the Lord gives me little consolations to make up for the big one I don\u2019t get.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI empathize,\u201d Mitch murmured as he stared down at the table, no longer quite as amused as he had been. Fifteen years of celibacy. At least. One did not beg a dying woman for sex, no matter how badly one needed it.<\/p>\n<p>He <em>had<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Still did. Spending the past week at Whittaker House and having to endure its three-day bacchanalian masquerade\u2014in complete misery\u2014had made that perfectly clear.<\/p>\n<p>Kenard clapped him on the back and squeezed his shoulder with a big, comforting hand. Yes, of all the people at that table, even Morgan, Bryce understood the most. They\u2019d talked about it privately, the two of them; had compared notes, had given and received solace as only people with similar experiences can do. Had he been the bishop to hear Bryce\u2019s confession\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Some days he wondered if Bryce would ever come back from his excommunication and Mitch shook his head at the senseless waste of a believer\u2014two, if he counted Giselle.<\/p>\n<p>If nothing else, Mitch\u2019s long experience as a bishop had taught him a large measure of compassion. He was just tired of spending every free moment at church.<\/p>\n<p>He needed a vacation.<\/p>\n<p>But where would he go? With whom? His daughters had their own families now and his son had his own life. So what would he do there, alone? When Mina was well enough, he had no money and no time. When he\u2019d amassed enough cash and time to take his family somewhere nice, Mina was too weak and he\u2019d had too many worries to be able to relax. He\u2019d lived his entire life without having gone somewhere specifically to relax and have fun. Now that he had the cash, time, and fewer worries, he had no one to go with.<\/p>\n<p>He waved a hand and looked up at his motley collection of friends who looked back at him with varying degrees of concern they tried to hide. His mouth twitched as he studied the men. \u201cAll four of you born and bred in the Church, only one of you eligible to hold the priesthood\u2014and he\u2019s gay. Nobody would believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The laughter, rich and sincere, broke out again and Mitch was glad. These people, his adopted family, knew him better than anyone, let him be himself\u2014not Dad, not CEO, not bishop, not scientist. Just Mitch. And he did not want to be maudlin around them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMitch?\u201d The double doors to his office suite opened and his assistant poked her head around. \u201cMs St. James is here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He nodded and all eight of them stood to welcome the newcomer. He regretted it, really. An unknown would put paid to the impromptu party and the in-jokes would have to cease.<\/p>\n<p>It was only his years of training as both a businessman and a bishop that kept his expression impassive when Ms St. James walked in. It was only the fact of his suit coat\u2019s length that kept everyone in that room from knowing how sex-starved he must really be to react that fast to the sight of her. In her late thirties\u2014not mid-twenties as had been assumed\u2014she was, at first glance, fairly ordinary-looking.<\/p>\n<p>But not <em>at all<\/em> ordinary.<\/p>\n<p>She smiled with a calculated reserve, noting, he was sure, that this was a table of people familiar with each other and she was the outsider, though not the enemy. Mitch could see that she knew they\u2019d expected someone much younger and that she had intended to catch them all off guard.<\/p>\n<p>With age came credibility and she had just turned the balance of power upside down.<\/p>\n<p>She would need that edge to get past Eilis\u2019s objections.<\/p>\n<p>Morgan, ever the extrovert, immediately glad-handed her, then began to introduce her around. Mitch took the opportunity to study her while she chatted with each member of his family.<\/p>\n<p>She looked Parisian, tall, slim, with skin the color of caf\u00e9 au lait, heavy on the lait. Her black hair was sleek, pulled into a tight twist at the back of her head. A hint of a mole just above the left corner of her full mouth gave her an air of mystique. She stood about five-eleven in modestly high-heeled black shoes. She had dressed conservatively, in a pencil-slim, mid-calf-length black skirt and a severe white button-down blouse underneath a black blazer. Ruby cufflinks in French cuffs folded back over her blazer sleeves and a simple Chopard watch were her only jewelry.<\/p>\n<p>Expensive simplicity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd this,\u201d boomed Ashworth, \u201cis the man himself, Mitchell Hollander, founder and CEO of Hollander Steelworks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Hollander,\u201d she said, her voice husky as she offered her hand and met his look, her light brown eyes clear and without guile.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMs St. James,\u201d he replied and took her hand. He shook it in his most bishoply way, the grip just firm enough and his other hand over hers. The handshake that said <em>As one of the Lord\u2019s representatives, I care about you and I\u2019ll do what I can to help you<\/em>. The handshake he now used as a defense mechanism because his immediate interest in her bore absolutely no resemblance to anything spiritual.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlease, call me Cassie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He released her hand carefully, all the right signals sent, none of the wrong ones, and inclined his head. \u201cCall me Mitch.\u201d He gestured to the empty chair at his right, between him and Bryce. \u201cMake yourself comfortable. If you\u2019ll let Darlene know what you\u2019d like to drink, we can get started.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">ROUGH BOY<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">I WALKED INTO the CEO\u2019s executive suite, saw them all in their natural habitat, and was immediately caught off guard.<\/p>\n<p><em>Me!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I couldn\u2019t say why. I knew what they all looked like, save Hollander. And it wasn\u2019t as if I had never seen half a dozen beautiful people in a room together before.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps it was the attitude that filled the room, of camaraderie, of&nbsp;\u2026 friendship&nbsp;\u2026 that made me uncomfortable with them. A room full of testosterone with no posturing, no competition\u2014 It felt almost like&nbsp;\u2026 love?<\/p>\n<p>Couldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n<p>Still, as much as they had surprised me, <em>I<\/em> had surprised <em>them<\/em>, exactly as I had intended.<\/p>\n<p>Most of them would not have expected a woman their age; after all, Jack Blackwood specialized in training up very young Big Swinging Dicks. The young had the energy and drive to do the job to his satisfaction and they didn\u2019t have the family commitments that would keep them from the 24\/7 availability he demanded. Jack enjoyed spawning ruthless little business bastards as if they had his genes, and the younger the better.<\/p>\n<p>When people succeed early, they can retire early.<\/p>\n<p>As Morgan introduced me around, I assessed each of them intellectually and sexually. Yes, Jack had told me to keep my hands off, but a pretty lover with a high IQ would assuage my burgeoning restlessness, and I was looking at a room full of people who filled the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Ashworth himself. He was no exception, and I\u2019d been attracted to him from the moment we met. Large, animated, utterly masculine, with rich mahogany hair and piercing ice blue eyes, Morgan wouldn\u2019t trip anybody\u2019s gaydar, but then, neither would Nigel.<\/p>\n<p>Knox Hilliard. Blond and tan, with the same color eyes as his cousin Morgan, Knox was not much younger than I, but he looked older; in my experience, blond men don\u2019t age well. I didn\u2019t find him particularly attractive, but he had a quick, warm smile and the charisma of an entertainer or prophet. I could see why Clarissa was so smitten, and I wished I had thought to bring her if only to meet&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Justice McKinley. She was the May to Hilliard\u2019s December. Only a year older than my eldest daughter, she seemed like such a sweet girl in person, with her freckles and short, bouncy auburn curls, fashionable glasses perched on her pixie nose, all trumped by a perfect hourglass figure dressed to utmost advantage. But her utterly telegenic beauty hid a cutting wit she used to slice and dice\u2014on national TV\u2014politicians who displeased her. I would relay this meeting to Clarissa tonight in excruciating detail and enjoy watching her writhe in envy.<\/p>\n<p>Giselle Kenard. Her muscular little body hung nude in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On canvas, she was gorgeous, with long flaming curls accentuating her agony. In person, though, she radiated aloof humor and I could not guess her age. Her ice blue eyes betrayed her blood ties to both Hilliard and Ashworth, and her rather dull honey-colored curls\u2014caught up in a yellow-ribboned ponytail\u2014made her cute. Barely. My taste in women does not run to barely cute.<\/p>\n<p>Her husband, Bryce Kenard. Now, <em>he<\/em> shocked me. The burn scars that matted half his face gave him an animal sexuality that cloaked him like an aura. He had the most beautiful green eyes I\u2019d ever seen in a man. I couldn\u2019t imagine what a man like that saw in a woman as mousy as Giselle, and I wondered if he could be lured away from her.<\/p>\n<p>Eilis Logan, whom I\u2019d also only seen as a nude on canvas. Taller than I, zaftig, with shoulder-length blonde hair, one green eye and one blue eye\u2014 It was too bad that she would be my natural enemy in this little project.<\/p>\n<p>And finally, her husband, King Midas, Sebastian Taight, the object of my curricular fascination and my predecessor in unconventional corporate restructuring methods. He was perfect in a carefully unstudied <em>GQ<\/em> way, black Irish from his white-tinged black hair to <em>the same<\/em> ice blue eyes.<\/p>\n<p>He had noticed my scrutiny of his wife, and glanced between us, then smirked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think not,\u201d Eilis murmured dryly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo?\u201d Sebastian drawled low enough so only the two of us could hear. \u201cEilis sandwich?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She raked me from head to toe. \u201cTempting. But&nbsp;\u2026 no. I don\u2019t share.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDamn,\u201d Sebastian and I said at the same time. And all three of us laughed at a joke everyone else was straining to hear.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToo bad it took an imperial order to get to meet you, Cassie,\u201d he said, holding his hand out. \u201cAnother month or two and I would\u2019ve stormed your office.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And with one handshake, I knew I\u2019d earned the respect of a man who respected very little. \u201cI find it\u2019s not always good to know too much about one\u2019s idols.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s true. Your dad was one of mine.\u201d I stiffened. \u201cI was&nbsp;\u2026 disillusioned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ah, yes. If he had followed my father, he would have known what happened to him. It had never occurred to me that King Midas and I might have learned from the same master; thus, my affinity for Taight\u2019s style had nothing to do with serendipity and everything to do with familiarity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRelax,\u201d he murmured with a warm smile. \u201cI didn\u2019t summon your father. I summoned you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I nodded and took a deep breath.<\/p>\n<p>Intriguing, yes, this clan of entrepreneurs, philosophers, artists, and lawyers with some strange fraternity I couldn\u2019t pin down\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Then Ashworth introduced me to Mitch Hollander.<\/p>\n<p>Ordinary. An ordinary man in his mid-forties who felt comfortable in his own skin, comfortable with who he was, and comfortable with his ordinariness amongst the cadre of <em>extra<\/em>ordinary people in the room. He was athletic, with a broad chest and shoulders, and stood an inch or two over six feet. He had short, thick sandy hair that curled slightly. His eyes were an unremarkable blue.<\/p>\n<p>I couldn\u2019t stop staring at him, and the rest of the people in the room faded.<\/p>\n<p>He shook my hand in an odd way, with his left hand covering our clasped right hands, but it had no hint of sexual intent and, in fact, he seemed to be above such base human needs. A Mormon bishop, akin to a Catholic priest. Ah, yes, the Man-of-God Handshake. Thoroughly non-threatening while at the same time being loving and caring\u2014and sincere in it, too. I remembered my boring priest and suddenly wondered what Hollander would be like in bed.<\/p>\n<p>Then I got a little obsessed by the idea. My very curiosity about him intrigued me; of all the overtly sexual people in this band, none of them had caught my fascination more than the one ordinary man\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u2014who happened to have built a steel empire, so I shook off those errant thoughts and got down to business.<\/p>\n<p>Honestly, fucking these people\u2019s minds had to be at least as pleasurable as fucking their bodies, but once I immersed myself in the business at hand, that ceased to be of any importance at all.<\/p>\n<p>By the end of the meeting, I had wrestled with Eilis\u2014and, somewhat surprisingly, Knox\u2014over my plan to split the former Jep Industries back to its own entity. Knox\u2019s opinion was negligible, his objections clearly rooted in the fact that he\u2019d worked so hard to get Hollander Steelworks and Jep Industries consolidated that he didn\u2019t want to see his work undone. But Eilis had real concerns and was a worthy opponent, flinging questions at me as fast as I could catch them.<\/p>\n<p>Kenard and Ashworth grilled me on details, and took copious notes to help them ascertain some of the more complex legal and long-term economic aspects inherent in such a move. They asked every question I knew they would ask, and got answers that satisfied them.<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian, obviously bored, had pulled out a sketchbook and pencil. He seemed to pay no attention to the proceedings at all, but I knew better.<\/p>\n<p>Both Justice and Giselle had disengaged themselves from the meeting soon after it began. They tapped away at their laptops, serious expressions on their faces. Curious, I actually stopped the meeting and asked what they were doing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh&nbsp;\u2026 bookkeeping?\u201d Giselle said warily after a minute hesitation, as if she thought I were reprimanding her.<\/p>\n<p>Justice looked at me over the top of her glasses and, with a straight face, announced, \u201cI\u2019m having cybersex.\u201d Knox nearly fell off his seat laughing, most everyone else chuckled, and I couldn\u2019t help but smile, conceding the point that it was none of my business. Then she grinned and went back to it. Whatever \u201cit\u201d was.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the presentation, Hollander made no comment whatsoever, nor had he laughed at Justice\u2019s joke. He had simply leaned back, relaxed, interlaced his fingers behind his head, and took it all in with an expression I couldn\u2019t read. He had watched my relatively loud scuffle with Eilis and Knox like someone watching a tennis match, back and forth, back and forth. For someone who had to make the decisions\u2014difficult ones\u2014he didn\u2019t seem terribly stressed about it.<\/p>\n<p>Finally I had finished detailing my plan, answered Kenard\u2019s and Ashworth\u2019s questions to their satisfaction, earned Sebastian\u2019s approval with a faint nod, and thoroughly quelled the objections of both Eilis and Knox. I turned to Hollander, wondering if he even understood what had happened since he stared right through me and hadn\u2019t seemed at all engaged.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMitch?\u201d I said, and watched his eyes focus on me fully.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Both Eilis and Knox piped up again, a token protest, really, but he held up a hand. They snapped their mouths shut.<\/p>\n<p>Well. That was easy.<\/p>\n<p>My minions would put the plan in motion and what would have normally taken me eight hours today and another six weeks in a flurry of emails and phone calls had taken me all of three hours with no bloodshed.<\/p>\n<p>I gave Hollander a little smile as I began to pack up my displays and my laptop, careful not to look too long lest he believe me to be interested in him personally, which would not be an incorrect assumption.<\/p>\n<p>Morgan and Giselle amused themselves with an obviously familiar game of swapping increasingly clever insults across the table.<\/p>\n<p>Knox sat quietly, playing with Justice\u2019s curls and reading over her shoulder while she worked with great concentration. Then he pointed at the screen and said, \u201cYou might want to reword point four. Wilson hates that trick.\u201d She looked at him incredulously. \u201cI\u2019ve done it before. He\u2019s never said anything to me about it.\u201d Knox held up his hands. \u201cJust sayin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian had his phone plastered to his ear and Eilis leaned against him to hear the other side of the conversation. \u201cWhat do you mean, they don\u2019t miss us?&nbsp;\u2026 <em>No<\/em>, we\u2019re not going to stay another three or four nights. Elliott\u2019s sick and\u2014&nbsp;\u2026 He was running a fever when we left, remember?&nbsp;\u2026 Oh, he was, too. Mom, are you <em>trying<\/em> to kill my kids?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eilis plucked the phone out of his hand. \u201cDianne,\u201d she said into it, \u201cI\u2019ll keep Mr. Mom away as long as I can&nbsp;\u2026 No, thank <em>you<\/em>.\u201d Sebastian growled at her when she terminated the call and calmly handed his phone back to him.<\/p>\n<p>Bryce leaned into Giselle and whispered something in her ear, interrupting her and Ashworth\u2019s game. She stared down at the table while she listened. She flushed and her hand curled into a fist. \u201cYes,\u201d she whispered hotly when he finished, staring into his face with a mixture of adoration and lust. \u201cI would <em>love<\/em> to.\u201d No, that was not a man who could be lured away from his wife. Ah, well.<\/p>\n<p>I felt unfamiliar stirrings of sentimentality. Who were these people that watching and listening to them could make me want to sigh as if they were a Hallmark Christmas special come to life?<\/p>\n<p>Then there was Hollander, standing with his back to me, staring out a bank of windows that looked toward the business end of his mill, his hands in his pockets, his suit coat gathered over his wrists. It was a stance I\u2019d seen thousands of men take thousands of times, but there was just something about him&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>He turned then and caught me staring at him, though I hoped it was simply a stare of speculation and didn\u2019t betray my now driving need to know what it would be like to fuck a squeaky-clean Mormon bishop. He returned my look without blinking. His lids lowered. His mouth twitched.<\/p>\n<p>Ah, he and I understood each other perfectly then.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDinner?\u201d he said underneath the familial conversation and laughter behind me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDelighted. Seven?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll pick you up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I turned with a smile, then left to arrange for a hotel room and find a killer outfit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">ROXANNE<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">I DRESSED carefully, Jack\u2019s instructions ringing in my head.<\/p>\n<p>Still, I wanted to see if Mitch could be distracted, rattled. I wore a white blouse with a low cowl that showed a touch of cleavage\u2014what I could muster up with a push-up bra, that was. A simple red skirt that went to my knees wasn\u2019t sexy by itself, but combined with red suede peep-toe heels, it should do. Understated, but very, very clear in intent.<\/p>\n<p>I know how to finesse men. It had taken some trial and error to learn this as Nigel trained me to be the sophisticated whore I\u2019d set out to become. He had taught me how to lead the conversation exactly where I wanted it to go and never, ever allow it to get off track. I could anticipate any man\u2019s conversational rabbit trails and steer accordingly, without letting him know that I had an ounce of brains.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch Hollander could not be steered, and I realized that the minute he handed me into his navy-and-silver Bugatti. Moreover, he knew exactly what I was about and with a droll expression, dared me to continue to try. That fascinated me as much as it puzzled me.<\/p>\n<p>We sat in a French restaurant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and comfortably conversed about absolutely nothing, as we had since he\u2019d picked me up. (How he knew where I was staying, I had no idea, but I was getting the distinct impression he could flex his power without seeming to stir so much as a finger.)<\/p>\n<p>Tonight at least, Hollander was a master at negotiating meaningless conversation with utmost aplomb, as if he did so on a regular basis. He spoke, gestured, and held himself with some strange mixture of confidence, strength, and humility I had never encountered in a man before.<\/p>\n<p>No arrogance, no swagger.<\/p>\n<p>His cohorts, Taight and Hilliard, Kenard and Ashworth, had arrogant alpha-male swagger down to a science. Though I couldn\u2019t tell who was <em>the<\/em> alpha in that barrel of testosterone, I understood and appreciated men like that. The women, as powerful as their men, had their own swagger. As do I.<\/p>\n<p>Hollander, I did not understand. He knew that and used it like a weapon.<\/p>\n<p>I had my first shock when the wine steward came around and Hollander did not wave him away. \u201cI\u2019m not versed,\u201d he murmured in a voice as rich and warm as a stream of the darkest Belgian chocolate, \u201cso I\u2019ll have water, but feel free to serve the lady.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Just to be perverse, I chose the most expensive wine on the menu. Mitch relaxed back in his chair, his elbows on the arms and his fingers steepled under his chin, and simply watched the sommelier and I. At long last it was done and I sat back in my seat to watch him watch me, and I raised my wine glass in a small, somewhat mocking, salute.<\/p>\n<p>His eyelids lowered almost imperceptibly and the corner of his mouth curled up.<\/p>\n<p>For a man of God, I decided, he might know a whole lot more about how to seduce women than I\u2019d given him credit for. The thought disturbed me.<\/p>\n<p>I decided to quit the bullshit and be completely transparent. He would see it as a tactic, and it was, but at this point, I had no other tricks up my sleeve. I waited until after we had ordered our entr\u00e9es.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat,\u201d I asked slowly, never taking my eyes off him, \u201cdoes a Mormon bishop do, precisely?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He smiled slowly as his eyelids lowered, and I crossed my right leg over my left knee. He didn\u2019t miss that and his eyebrow rose. I nearly laughed because this man was so out of the realm of my experience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA Mormon bishop,\u201d he replied with some care, \u201cis a low-level executive, ah, a project manager, I guess, of a ward\u2014a congregation. He has two counselors who help and a cadre of management types and assistants to delegate responsibilities to. My nearest female counterpart in that hierarchy is the president of the women\u2019s auxiliary. Relief Society. She reports to me directly, but has the same structure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho\u2019s the CEO?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe president of the Church, also known as the prophet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI suppose any large organization like that would have to have a fairly rigid structure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow much time do you put into it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He thought a moment. \u201cTwenty-five, thirty hours a week maybe.\u201d I nearly dropped my glass. \u201cI only have one child at home now, and he has his own timetable so it\u2019s easy to lose myself in it. Most bishops have wives and children at home and they sacrifice just as much as the bishop does.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oh, hell, I wasn\u2019t even going to bother with etiquette. \u201cAnd you don\u2019t get paid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He shook his head. \u201cNo. We don\u2019t have paid clergy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you\u2019re the low man on the totem pole?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLike a Catholic parish, right? So you have a diocese?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA stake. The stake president is my, ah, boss.\u201d He broke out into a grin and I had to smile. The Hollander of Hollander Steelworks was the <em>low<\/em> man and had a boss.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do you get that job?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re smart,\u201d he said wryly, \u201c<em>not<\/em> voluntarily.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I laughed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou get called. The stake president asks you if you\u2019d be willing to accept the calling. You accept. Or don\u2019t. By the time you get to that stage, you probably have a reputation for accepting other jobs and doing them as well as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs this a lifetime position?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, but there are days it feels like it.\u201d He relaxed back into his chair. Stared at his plate. Played with his utensils. Suddenly, I felt like I was witnessing a man in the throes of an unpleasant epiphany. \u201cA bishop is usually called for five, seven years at the outset,\u201d he said slowly, still not looking at me, still lost in whatever had jerked his attention from our flirtation. \u201cUsually only once. It\u2019s a very stressful job.\u201d He paused. \u201cSometimes, you serve out your term and then move up the ladder. Mostly you just go back to being a regular member of the ward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ambition! There was his chink. \u201cAh, you want to move up?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He looked up at me then. \u201cNo. This is my second term.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Was that <em>fatigue<\/em> I saw? I didn\u2019t know; he covered it too quickly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow many years do you have in this one?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA little over seven.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I blinked. \u201cThat means you\u2019ve been at this&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThirteen years, with about a year between terms, give or take.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d I said carefully. \u201cThis isn\u2019t supposed to be your life\u2019s work. Not like a Catholic priest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you don\u2019t want to advance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whatever emotional well he\u2019d dropped into, he suddenly came out of with a smile. \u201cThe pay is lousy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I had to laugh then. \u201cSo why don\u2019t you just turn in your resignation?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He waved a hand. \u201cOh, it\u2019s not that simple. Someone has to be found to replace me and if I\u2019m released\u2014if I quit or get fired\u2014I could always be asked to fill some other equally stressful position.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCan\u2019t you just say no?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI could,\u201d he said slowly, as if he\u2019d never thought of it before, but I knew better. \u201cYes, I could, but I wouldn\u2019t. I would do whatever I was asked to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause that\u2019s part of what the faithful do; they serve. They sacrifice. They give their time and their talent and their money to keep everything running.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour church is rich; why don\u2019t they pay you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSacrifice. Emotional investment. Obedience. Love. I don\u2019t know. Pick a reason, any reason.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I couldn\u2019t pick a reason. I didn\u2019t have reasons like that. I didn\u2019t know people who thought in such terms as sacrifice and love and emotional investment. <em>Obedience<\/em>. Good God.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo. Ms St. James\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassie, please.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat doesn\u2019t suit you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Interesting. No one had ever been so bold as to say so, if they\u2019d even thought about it at all. \u201cI don\u2019t much care for it myself, no,\u201d I finally admitted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassandra.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I smoothly pulled my right leg farther up my left. \u201cDid I detect a bit of a French accent when you ordered?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou speak French?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Damn. I wanted to undress him already and our entr\u00e9es hadn\u2019t even arrived. I couldn\u2019t remember the last time I had been so aroused by so little so fast. It made no sense. I knew men who spoke French and Japanese and Greek and some all three. One man, one relatively ordinary-looking man who spent the equivalent of a three-quarter-time job working for his church for free in the name of faith, love, obedience, and sacrifice\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Inconceivable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTell me, Cassandra,\u201d he murmured, that heavy-lidded look doing more to me than I wanted it to. He had me pinned like a butterfly. \u201cWhat did you do before grad school and Blackwood Securities?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The fact that he asked meant he really didn\u2019t know, that Sebastian hadn\u2019t seen fit to tell him (which was interesting in its own right), and the answer was the only thing that would free me from the hold he had on me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was a prostitute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not a twitch of a facial muscle to betray his thoughts. \u201cI\u2019m assuming we\u2019re not here on that basis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo. I retired from that years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you got into it how?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was bored.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat doesn\u2019t answer the question.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oh, God, no. I couldn\u2019t talk about this. What had I been thinking? \u201cDo you hear confessions from your parishioners?\u201d I asked abruptly, needing to get off this track, sorry I\u2019d gotten on it. \u201cIs that part of your job, like a priest?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I don\u2019t want to confess.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWere you confessing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cForgive me. It\u2019s not an industry I have much knowledge of and I was curious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No, dammit! He had me in curlicues. He still didn\u2019t look shocked nor did he seem as if he wanted to cut the evening short.<\/p>\n<p>Our food came and I caught myself breathing a prayer of thanks to a god I wasn\u2019t sure existed. Our conversation veered to safer territory: His board of directors, to whom he referred as his family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSebastian Taight,\u201d he said after I asked him how he\u2019d come into that circle of players, \u201cwas a companion I had on my mission.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The image of two young men in black suits with black name tags, pushing bicycles, carrying backpacks flashed across my mind. My dinner companion had been one, once upon a time? So bizarre. More bizarre: King Midas having been one.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou were a missionary?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He nodded. \u201cIn Paris.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith Sebastian Taight.\u201d I simply couldn\u2019t process that.<\/p>\n<p>His mouth quirked. \u201cI know how it sounds, but yes. The same Sebastian Taight. He&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d He paused a moment, as if he were thinking. \u201cThe mission was very difficult for both of us. Sebastian made it bearable. He had ideas and plans. Philosophies. He shared them with me and he was so passionate about them&nbsp;\u2026 I learned more from him in the four months he was my companion than I\u2019d learned in the nineteen years before that. If it hadn\u2019t been for him, it would never have occurred to me to do what I did with my life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I blinked. Interesting. \u201cHow old were you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTwenty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d been pregnant with Clarissa when I was twenty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd then you just got dragged into his family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDragged? No.\u201d He chuckled. \u201cI didn\u2019t have to be dragged. Sebastian\u2019s family is large and tight. It doesn\u2019t take much to want to be part of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can see that.\u201d After having been with them all morning, I could.<\/p>\n<p>He stopped to take another bite and we ate in silence for a moment before he said, \u201cDo you have kids?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I raised an eyebrow at him, surprised. \u201cYou didn\u2019t ask if I was married.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou work for Blackwood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Obviously. I shook my head at my inability to think straight within ten feet of this man. \u201cI have four daughters. Helene, Clarissa, Olivia, and Paige. Olivia and Paige are twins. They\u2019re twenty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey all live at home?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat do they do?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHelene is a resident at Bellevue. Clarissa is a senior at NYU preparing for law school. Olivia is a personal trainer with an affluent clientele and Paige is a principal dancer with Alvin Ailey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAiley\u2019s tough. I\u2019m very impressed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His response startled a grin out of me. \u201cI\u2019ll tell her you said so. She\u2019ll be very pleased.\u201d Invariably, the kudos went to the doctor, not the dancer, no matter how prestigious her company.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been meaning to\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch\u2019s abrupt silence startled me. He was watching the ma\u00eetre d\u2019s station with an unreadable expression, and I turned.<\/p>\n<p>There, what looked like a husband and wife\u2014both almost too beautiful to gaze upon\u2014being escorted to their table. The man glanced our way, then stopped short to stare at us.<\/p>\n<p>He was the most gorgeous man I\u2019d ever seen, with strong, slightly tanned features, and chocolate-colored hair shot with silver at the temples. He was shorter than Mitch, but lean and wiry, lending him the appearance of height. In short, he was far more physically attractive than Mitch and in another time, another life, I would have approached him, but now&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Mitch glanced at the man\u2019s blonde companion, then back at the man, his eyebrow raised. I looked back at the man\u2014God, it had turned into a tennis match\u2014whose expression slowly turned into a smirk.<\/p>\n<p>He handed his companion off to the ma\u00eetre d\u2019, then headed our way. He came to a graceful halt close to my left, his elbow nearly touching my ear.<\/p>\n<p>I have never been one to shy away from a handsome man\u2019s touch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMitch,\u201d he purred.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGreg,\u201d Mitch said tightly. \u201cHow\u2019s Amelia?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, don\u2019t be coy, <em>Bishop<\/em>,\u201d he said, pronouncing the \u201cp\u201d sound with a contemptuous little pop. \u201cYou don\u2019t have any illusions about me. Your first problem is that you have no proof. Of anything. Your second problem is that even if you did, nobody would believe you. For all anyone knows, she\u2019s a new client of mine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch grunted and took a bite.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI see I\u2019m not the only one out with a beautiful woman who isn\u2019t my wife,\u201d this Greg person said. \u201cAnd <em>who<\/em> are you?\u201d he asked me with the kind of suavity with which I was intimately acquainted. He cupped my shoulder with his perfect hand and caressed me, almost to the point of kneading.<\/p>\n<p>And he did it exactly right.<\/p>\n<p>While stripping me visually with enough skill so as to escape all traces of sleaze.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassandra St. James,\u201d Mitch murmured as he tapped his mouth with his napkin, then took a drink of his water. I expected him to follow up with an explanation of <em>who<\/em> I was, but he didn\u2019t. \u201cGreg Sitkaris.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo very pleased to meet you, Ms St. James,\u201d Greg said, and took his hand off me to dig in his coat pocket. He handed me his business card. \u201cIf there\u2019s&nbsp;\u2026 <em>anything<\/em>&nbsp;\u2026 I can do for you, please don\u2019t hesitate to call me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I took the card with alacrity, knowing that Mitch was taking in every detail of this by-play, knowing in which direction his thoughts were going.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you,\u201d I murmured up at Greg, flashing him a brilliant smile.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, thank <em>you<\/em>,\u201d he murmured, sliding his big hand across my back, leaning into me. He looked at Mitch. \u201cWe look good together, don\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch\u2019s expression betrayed nothing but a slight boredom I suspected was well practiced. That dig must have been an old and familiar one, but it was true and we all knew it: In looks, Mitch couldn\u2019t begin to compete with Greg.<\/p>\n<p>Neither could any other man I\u2019d ever met.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMust get back to my lovely companion for the evening,\u201d he continued, as if his comment had gotten the reaction he wanted. He gestured to the wine bucket. \u201cDon\u2019t drink too much, Mitch. Wouldn\u2019t want to wreck that glorified Beetle of yours, now would we? Good night, Ms St. James. I hope to see <em>you<\/em> again very soon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He sauntered away, secure in his beauty and power. It didn\u2019t take much for me to sketch a rough picture of the situation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of your parishioners?\u201d I asked blithely after a sip of wine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d Mitch had withdrawn from me, from our connection, but I\u2019d expected that.<\/p>\n<p>I glanced at Greg across the restaurant, holding his dinner companion\u2019s hand and listening intently to whatever she was saying with such animation. \u201cHe\u2019s a sociopath.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch started.<\/p>\n<p>Ah, good. I\u2019d managed to shock him, and I bestowed upon him my most wry smile.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow\u2014?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I shrugged. \u201cI\u2019ve run into my share of people like him. It\u2019s not hard to spot if you know the tells. Let me just say that in my previous life, I wouldn\u2019t have taken him as a client.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The corner of his mouth reluctantly twitched upward, and I knew I had him back. Stronger now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are problems there, I take it? I mean, other than the fact that he\u2019s committing adultery?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He sighed. \u201cIt\u2019s&nbsp;\u2026 complicated. And I can\u2019t talk about it in any case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I pursed my mouth and looked at my plate. \u201cHypothetically speaking,\u201d I drawled and played with my fork, \u201cif I were one of your parishioners and I came to you and confessed my adultery, what would you do?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would walk you through a repentance process,\u201d he replied. \u201cIt would take a while, depending on how repentant you were. It could take as little as a year, but usually longer. It\u2019s possible you\u2019d just drift away if you weren\u2019t interested in completing the process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd that would be?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExcommunication is the beginning of the process. Rebaptism to finish. Start over with a clean slate, like it didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAh. And&nbsp;\u2026 if I didn\u2019t confess, but you&nbsp;\u2026 witnessed me in the act?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He took a deep breath. Held it. Released it with a whoosh. \u201c<em>Normally<\/em>,\u201d he murmured, still willing to play along, \u201cI would start the process anyway, without expectation of repentance. Hypothetically speaking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can do that? Just kick someone out?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He nodded. \u201cI call a bishop\u2019s court. The stake president\u2014my immediate superior\u2014and eleven other men get together and have kind of a tribunal, I guess, to decide the matter. But I get the ball rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd <em>some<\/em> situations aren\u2019t normal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Some<\/em> situations are&nbsp;\u2026 politically delicate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If his tone of voice was anything to go by, he\u2019d told me all he would tell me, but I tried again anyway. Without knowing more about him, about the way his church worked, and his congregation\u2019s internal politics, I couldn\u2019t deduce details any other way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do you see yourself as a bishop?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I was new at this job,\u201d he said wryly, letting me know he understood I hadn\u2019t given up, \u201cit bugged me that people got upset with me because I couldn\u2019t or wouldn\u2019t give them what they wanted, or they thought I was too harsh or&nbsp;\u2026 any number of strange reasons. My dad said, \u2018Son, if a third of the ward isn\u2019t mad at you, you\u2019re not doing your job. Any less than that, you\u2019re a pushover. Any more than that, you\u2019re on a power trip and you need to get off it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I laughed. \u201cI take it you\u2019re right at about a third?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He grinned. \u201cDepends on who I offended that week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I let it go with a smile, and the rest of the evening passed in casual, very careful conversation, both of us aware of Greg and his extramarital date, and he of us. He caught my eye across the restaurant and lifted his wine glass in a toast.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t press Mitch for any more details of the feud brewing between him and his parishioner, despite my acute curiosity, and he didn\u2019t seem put off by the blunt deconstruction of my r\u00e9sum\u00e9. It was entirely possible he had simply made a mental shift from potential lover to friend or all the way back to colleague. It wouldn\u2019t surprise me in the least.<\/p>\n<p>Yet he insisted on walking me up to my hotel room, strolling really, my hand in the crook of his elbow, his free hand covering mine. Neither of us said anything and by the time we reached my hotel room, my body was languid, ready, willing. I hesitated to ask him in because I wasn\u2019t at all sure I could control the situation; by the same token, I didn\u2019t want to hear him hem and haw about saying \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But he trapped me between his body and my hotel room door, his arms bracketing my shoulders, both hands planted flat against the door behind me. He leaned toward me, his mouth barely brushing my cheek. He touched me nowhere else, but I trembled and closed my eyes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you for a wonderful evening, Cassandra,\u201d he breathed, his words sifting softly across my skin and seeping into my brain. I sighed as if he had made love to me. I awaited The Kiss, but he pulled away from me. I opened my eyes when he tugged the keycard from my hand and slipped it into the door.<\/p>\n<p>He opened the door, gave the keycard back to me, flashed me a smirk, then turned to stride down the corridor, one hand in his pocket. Even through my pique at having been so thoroughly seduced without having been touched, I had to smile as I watched him walk away from me.<\/p>\n<p>So.<\/p>\n<p>He<em> did <\/em>have a swagger.<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">QUENCH MY THIRST WITH GASOLINE<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">MITCH <em>NEVER<\/em> lost control.<\/p>\n<p>Most days, his legendary cool was the only thing that kept him from destroying his house with his bare hands. Sebastian rarely got angry to begin with, so he had no cool to lose; Knox popped off the minute something hit him wrong then promptly forgot about it; Morgan laughed at everything; Bryce had the good fortune of a wife who could manage his temper.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch, though&nbsp;\u2026 Mitch didn\u2019t have the luxury of anger. He was a bishop and bishops had no emotion but loving concern, however detached.<\/p>\n<p>He could vent to the one person who knew him best, but while Sebastian would take everything Mitch had to throw at him, then offer a \u201cFeel better now, Elder?\u201d he didn\u2019t have the empathy necessary to help Mitch put it in perspective. Bryce had empathy to spare, but he had enough on his emotional plate without Mitch adding to it. It didn\u2019t matter anyway; they were a thousand miles away. Time and distance tempered any satisfaction he could derive from unloading on either of them.<\/p>\n<p>There was only one public place he allowed himself an outlet: In his high-performance sports car with ZZ Top blaring from the speakers, on the road with his foot shoving the gas pedal to the floor. He raced his demons home after having left Cassandra at her hotel room door.<\/p>\n<p>Without kissing her.<\/p>\n<p>Undressing her.<\/p>\n<p>Making love to her.<\/p>\n<p>At those speeds, in the dark, on narrow, twisting country roads, knowing there were patches of ice here and there, he had to concentrate, but once he got home&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t even glance at a clock as he took the sweeping staircase two steps at a time to his seventeen-year-old son\u2019s room. He burst in to find the kid sloppily arrayed on his bed like a pig in a blanket, asleep. He only knew that because of the snores that came from somewhere inside that roll.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGet up,\u201d he nearly snarled as he gripped the boy\u2019s exposed ankle and yanked. Hard. \u201cOutside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A miserable groan issued forth from that mass. \u201cDad&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow!\u201d he barked and left the room, slamming the door behind him.<\/p>\n<p>It was another fifteen minutes before he met his son on the back lawn of the estate, which he had long ago transformed into a full-length soccer field, floodlights blinding in their intensity and more ZZ Top coming from speakers attached just below the floodlights.<\/p>\n<p>He said nothing and fired a soccer ball at Trevor, who promptly lost the last vestiges of sleepiness to head the ball back at him and the game was on.<\/p>\n<p>Neither spoke as they ran and maneuvered the ball over the snow-and-ice-littered field, no holds barred, their breath blowing white in the cold.<\/p>\n<p>After a while, Mitch felt his tension wane. \u201cLoser!\u201d he called as he kicked the ball straight at Trevor\u2019s head.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGo look in a mirror, old man!\u201d Trevor yelled back as he dribbled the ball down the field, dodging all Mitch\u2019s aggressive attempts to get it back. \u201cYou know what young lions do to the old ones. You want me to break your arm again?\u201d Trevor lunged right to knock Mitch on his butt.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch laughed as he hopped up, and the game grew a little lazier. They traded insults as fast as they traded the ball\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u2014then the floodlights and music shut down, leaving them in the pitch black.<\/p>\n<p>They stopped and Mitch bent over, his hands on his knees, panting. His eyes burned with afterimage and his ears rang. He\u2019d set the timer for two hours, never expecting that they\u2019d play that long, much less have another hour of play left in them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDude, you musta had a shitty day at work,\u201d Trevor drawled as he bounced the ball off Mitch\u2019s back, caught it, and headed into the house.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot exactly,\u201d Mitch replied, straightening to follow his son, ignoring the profanity. He heard it all day, every day, especially when he went into the foundry and, moreover, Trevor did too. Besides, this wasn\u2019t the bishop\u2019s house; it was the house of a single father with a teenage son. Without a female around, the males were bound to go feral at some point.<\/p>\n<p>There were moments Mitch could barely keep himself from dropping an f-bomb or two. It was only a point of pride that kept him from swearing at all, ever; if he did, his public persona might crack and that he couldn\u2019t allow to happen.<\/p>\n<p>He entered the warm house behind Trevor and took off his filthy winter clothes in the mudroom.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou need to get laid,\u201d Trevor yelled from the kitchen.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch barked a surprised laugh, and shook his head as he threw his cleats in the laundry room, then entered the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Gatorade out of the refrigerator. Trevor leaned against the counter nursing his own bottle. \u201cThat,\u201d Mitch said after a long drink, \u201cis true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The boy stared at Mitch, shocked. \u201cSerious?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI met a woman today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs she hot?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He shrugged. \u201cNot like you mean it, no.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t even know what \u2018hot\u2019 is anymore, anyway,\u201d Trevor muttered, looking at the floor, an unhappy expression on his face.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d Mitch asked, genuinely curious.<\/p>\n<p>It took a long time for him to answer, which was normal. Trevor usually chose his words with care. \u201cOkay, like Hayleigh Sitkaris.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch said nothing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s really cute. Actually, she\u2019s drop-dead gorgeous, but she\u2019s so&nbsp;\u2026 needy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNeediness comes in a lot of different varieties,\u201d Mitch found himself saying. \u201cIt\u2019s not always a bad thing.\u201d All Hayleigh <em>needed<\/em> was a rabblerouser of a boyfriend who\u2019d stand up to her father\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, but that\u2019s not hot. Am I missing something? At church, at school, there are a lot of guys who want to go out with her, but she\u2019s all about <em>me<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2014which she apparently knew, since she kept attempting to confide in Trevor in hopes he would take the hint\u2014and the job.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOkay, so say she wasn\u2019t needy. Would you like her then?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trevor pursed his lips in thought. \u201cI\u2019d ask her out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy do you think she\u2019s needy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He glanced at Mitch warily. \u201cYou\u2019ll think I\u2019m crazy.\u201d Mitch shook his head, and Trevor took a deep breath. \u201cHer dad. He\u2019s so awesome, right? He\u2019s fun. He\u2019s cool. He\u2019s not all about the rules all the time.\u201d He stopped. \u201cBut there\u2019s something about him that\u2019s not right. The way Hayleigh acts around him, it\u2019s totally different from the way she is, like, when she\u2019s hanging around me and Josh and Cordelia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Josh and Cordelia. The other two kids who didn\u2019t buy into Greg\u2019s charm. Four teenagers out of thirty-eight. They didn\u2019t know why, either.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCrazy, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot at all. But think back. Does she come on to you? Does she act like she\u2019s angling for anything other than somebody to listen to her who won\u2019t think <em>she\u2019s<\/em> crazy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trevor stared at the floor, silent for a couple of seconds. \u201cWell, yes and no,\u201d he murmured. \u201cIt\u2019s weird. When Josh is around, it\u2019s almost like she would rather be with him than me, but\u2014 It\u2019s like, she wants me to do something for her, but won\u2019t come out and say it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLike&nbsp;\u2026 something only you can do that Josh can\u2019t, and if Josh could do it she wouldn\u2019t be all about you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, exactly. Weird.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not weird. Smart.<\/p>\n<p>Josh didn\u2019t have a trust fund he could use to whisk Hayleigh away from her father, much less a full-time union-wage job and his own investment portfolio to support her on. Josh also didn\u2019t have a father who could protect her from Greg. Hayleigh wasn\u2019t mercenary\u2014she was confused and desperate to either untangle her confusion or find an efficient, palatable way to get away from its source.<\/p>\n<p>Trevor had cash and Mitch had power.<\/p>\n<p>It was more than Mitch had had when faced with the same situation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know what\u2019s going on with her, don\u2019t you?\u201d Trevor asked.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch shrugged. \u201cI have my suspicions. Nothing concrete. It\u2019d help if you paid attention to whatever she\u2019s trying to tell you. Then maybe you could pass it along to me if you feel comfortable doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trevor studied him a moment. \u201cOkay,\u201d he said slowly. \u201cI can do that.\u201d He remained silent for a while, and Mitch began to dread whatever would come out of his mouth. A long silence like that meant Trevor was trying to decide how best to deliver bad news.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDad, I don\u2019t want to go to BYU.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch released a long whoosh of air. Was that all? \u201cOkay.\u201d Easy enough. \u201cI didn\u2019t go to BYU and I never expected you to. Where do you want to go?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNYU.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch would rather he go farther away from home so he could feel truly independent, but it was Trevor\u2019s money, Trevor\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I don\u2019t want to go on a mission.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch had expected that a year ago. \u201cWhy not?\u201d he asked, but he already knew. Trevor had spent a lot of time with Sebastian over the last few years. Even though Mitch had known the consequences of letting an impressionable teenager loose with a libertine like Sebastian, Mitch had needed help desperately.<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian was willing to step in where Mina\u2019s parents wouldn\u2019t, Mitch\u2019s parents couldn\u2019t, and this\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think I believe any of it, much less enough to preach it for two years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2014was the result.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch had gambled his son\u2019s religious training and lost.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cD\u00e9j\u00e0 vu all over again,\u201d he said under his breath, remembering the late nights, the arguments, the <em>anguish<\/em> of watching his best friend lose his faith, hurt, angry, bewildered, and, ultimately, alone in a mire of doubt. Mitch certainly wasn\u2019t going down the \u201cpray about it and you\u2019ll know it\u2019s true\u201d route again. That rarely worked anyway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat? No objections?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat am I supposed to say to that, Trevor? You\u2019ve always been expected to be a man, and you\u2019ve grown into a fine one, so I trust you\u2019re capable of making your own decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want to embarrass you in front of the ward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch laughed. \u201cI haven\u2019t been embarrassed about anything since I came home from my mission early.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAw, c\u2019mon, Dad. You were sick.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was the story, anyway.<\/p>\n<p><em>I\u2019ve been hearing things about you, Elder Taight, Elder Hollander. The stock exchange? The Louvre? You\u2019re not here for the sightseeing, Elders. You\u2019re here to work.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Have you seen our baptism numbers, President?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yes, Elder Hollander, I have. Impressive, certainly, but I simply can\u2019t ignore you two breaking the rules. I know you two spent your last P-day in La Rive Gauche.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>It was a P-day, President. Preparation day. That was part of our preparation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Don\u2019t get smart alecky with me, Elder Taight. I always knew you were trouble. And where are you getting all the money I know you\u2019ve been spending? You can\u2019t afford half the food that\u2019s in your apartment.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>No, Elders Hollander and Taight weren\u2019t blameless.<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian had indeed dragged Mitch to the stock exchange and museums on the sly, taught him about money and art and philosophy, encouraged Mitch\u2019s taste for subversive books at the tiny bookselling stalls they found on their explorations of Paris. Mitch ate well on Sebastian\u2019s dime and didn\u2019t beat his feet to death walking everywhere because Sebastian made sure they had the money to use the subway and, if they were desperate enough to risk being found out, a taxi. Sebastian had taught him what it felt like not to pinch every penny because he had to, and Mitch was only too eager to take the mental and emotional respite his renegade companion offered.<\/p>\n<p>But they also worked hard and had the numbers to prove it. It should have been enough.<\/p>\n<p><em>You two need to figure out if you\u2019re here to work or if you\u2019re here to mess around.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>But President, we\u2019re the second-highest baptizing companionship in the mission.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I heard <\/em>you <em>the first time, Elder Hollander, but you\u2019re not listening to <\/em>me<em>. It doesn\u2019t excuse either of you. You and Elder Taight here, birds of a feather, shirking your duty. I\u2019m sure your parents are very proud, but then&nbsp;\u2026 the <\/em>Church<em> is paying for your missions, right? Because your <\/em>parents<em> can\u2019t? So they don\u2019t have any real investment in how you do here. Weak, both of you.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The mission president\u2019s insults had stunned Mitch into silence, but not his companion.<\/p>\n<p><em>Oh, fuck you, President. You wouldn\u2019t know weak if it crawled up your ass and died.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Elder Taight! Your language!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Maybe you should worry less about my language and my food and my going to the stock exchange, and more about your two lily-white <\/em>rich<em> zone leaders out fucking every pretty girl they can find. That\u2019s against mission rules too, right? I never hear about <\/em>them<em> getting called on the carpet. Put our stats up against any other companionship in the mission and you\u2019ll see who\u2019s fucking around and who\u2019s not. C\u2019mon, Elder. Let\u2019s go back to tracting, like we\u2019re <\/em>supposed<em> to. Like we <\/em>were<em> doing when we got hauled in here. Totally bogus.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Mitch had walked out of the mission president\u2019s office nauseated, ashamed of whatever weakness that had made him sit there and take it. His transfer orders had arrived the next day, as had Sebastian\u2019s. No, the mission president couldn\u2019t let a companionship like Elders Taight and Hollander exist; their hard work made everybody else look bad.<\/p>\n<p><em>Just like working for the government. I\u2019m blowing this popsicle stand and going to Spain. Come with me and we can see Europe like it\u2019s supposed to be seen.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>No, I have to do this. I want to make my parents proud.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Proud? Of what? Bending over? This is shooting fish in a barrel, and <\/em>we\u2019re<em> the fish.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>My brother didn\u2019t have these problems Your cousins aren\u2019t having these problems It\u2019s just <\/em>this<em> mission.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>So what? It doesn\u2019t change<\/em> our <em>situation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>My dad says when you\u2019re going through heck, keep going.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yeah, Mitch, you know what? There\u2019s this thing called strategic retreat. Why are you letting a prick like that judge us worthy or not? <\/em>He\u2019s<em> the one with the problem, not you. Not me. We\u2019re doing what we came here to do, what we said we\u2019d do. That\u2019s all the Lord cares about. You can\u2019t tell me you believe the Lord depends on that asshole to tell him whether we\u2019re worthy or not.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I don\u2019t. I can deal with it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Mitch had been assigned to Elder Snow, and he didn\u2019t think it was a coincidence that Elder Snow was considered the \u201ccleaner\u201d of the mission. An extraordinarily high number of missionaries who were assigned with Elder Snow went home early.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch\u2019s weary disappointment that a quarter of the mission\u2019s elders were partying grew to anger, then rage, under Elder Snow\u2019s abuse.<\/p>\n<p>The guy never slept. He kept the lights on and made noise so Mitch couldn\u2019t sleep, taunted him relentlessly, ate all the food, and stole what little money Mitch had.<\/p>\n<p><em>Turn the other cheek. Turn the other cheek turn theothercheekturntheotherche\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Elder Hollander, did you hear me? Oh, no wonder you\u2019re such a retard. Just a steel worker, like your old man. Do you even know how to read?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>What would Jesus do? What would Jesus do what wouldjesusdowhatwo\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It <em>was<\/em> true that after two months with Elder Snow, Mitch had grown ulcers so severe he should\u2019ve been in the hospital, but that wouldn\u2019t have gotten him sent home.<\/p>\n<p><em>Always keep your cool, Son. Honorable men let it roll off their backs.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It was the day Mitch had managed to slip his jailer and find a street vendor a few blocks away where he\u2019d spent the last of his stipend on a cr\u00eape filled with cheese and sausage that sealed his fate. Mitch had watched in horror as Elder Snow snatched the cr\u00eape out of his hands and tossed it in the Seine with a victorious smirk.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch had thrown the first punch.<\/p>\n<p>And the second.<\/p>\n<p>And the third, fourth, and fifth until Elder Snow was curled up on the concrete, protecting his head, sobbing and pleading for mercy.<\/p>\n<p>The mission president hadn\u2019t been any happier with Elder Snow (for having botched the job) than he was with Elder Hollander (for not groveling for mercy from Elder Snow). But Mitch had a weapon: his journal, loaded with every detail of the mission and his tenure with Elder Snow. He would not bend over one more time.<\/p>\n<p><em>President, you send me home with a dishonorable release, and I\u2019ll make sure the General Authorities hear about this mission.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>You can\u2019t threaten me.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Try me.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Mitch knew that if he hadn\u2019t been so ill, so emaciated and clearly exhausted, President Bates would\u2019ve called his bluff\u2014but all Mitch had to do was drop his journal in the mail to Salt Lake and head to the hospital. Mitch had backed the man into a corner until he\u2019d agreed to a medical release.<\/p>\n<p>It was easy for people to buy that. Mitch\u2019s father had taken one look at him and driven him straight from the airport to the hospital, where Mitch had spent a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n<p><em>Yo, Elder. Did you hear about President Bates?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Sebastian, you\u2019re calling me from Europe?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yeah. They reorganized the mission just after you left, and sent Bates home. Apparently, you and I weren\u2019t the only ones kicking some ass and getting kicked back. It\u2019s a big scandal.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>That had twisted the knife even deeper.<\/p>\n<p>Not even Sebastian knew the real reason why Mitch had come home early. Sebastian would have crowed and praised him, but Mitch didn\u2019t want praise. He was ashamed. Ashamed for letting Elder Snow get under his skin, for cracking, for losing control. And if Mitch had had a little more faith\u2014in himself, in the Lord\u2014if he\u2019d waited it out&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Mitch toyed with the idea of telling Trevor about Elder Snow, but instead of being a successful object lesson, it would only reinforce the contrary opinions Sebastian had already pounded into the boy\u2019s head.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoesn\u2019t matter why you come back early, Trev,\u201d he finally said. \u201cIf you say it\u2019s medical, you\u2019re either lying, crazy, or weak. If you say nothing, you must have been sent packing because of a girl. The worst is always assumed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe if I <em>did<\/em> go, Grandpa Monroe would\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Acknowledge my existence.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Trevor couldn\u2019t even finish the sentence, and Mitch felt the boy\u2019s pain as he\u2019d felt Mina\u2019s, as he\u2019d felt his daughters\u2019. Mina\u2019s parents, who had moved to Philadelphia upon the Hollander family\u2019s return to Bethlehem, had never acknowledged their grandchildren\u2019s existence. Once Mina had had the temerity to run off and marry a lowly steel worker, Shane Monroe had stricken Mina\u2019s name from the family tree. As far as Shane was concerned, the Hollander family simply didn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s never going to, Trev,\u201d Mitch said simply. \u201cDon\u2019t do things with the idea that you can earn his approval or love. Your sisters already tried that and it didn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lisette and Genevi\u00e8ve lived picture-perfect good-Mormon-girl lives: graduating from BYU with honors, serving missions, marrying in the temple. Shane knew of it\u2014they\u2019d both insisted on sending him invitations to their graduations, pre-mission send-offs, post-mission open houses, weddings\u2014but had still never spoken to them.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019d both cried for hours, inconsolable, and Mina had cried with them. Mitch could only stand by and watch, mop up the tears, listen to their heartbreak.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2019Cause you were a steel worker,\u201d Trevor muttered into his Gatorade bottle, half angry, half hurt. \u201cThat\u2019s messed up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A steel worker who\u2019d deprived Shane of the son-in-law he\u2019d wanted.<\/p>\n<p>Trevor was angry, hurt. He wouldn\u2019t cry, but his back molars might suffer some damage from the grinding of his jaw. Either he was trying to control his normally even temper or he was planning some scheme to get his grandfather\u2019s attention. If it were the latter, Mitch wished him the best of luck and prepared for the emotional fallout.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not going to try to talk you into going on a mission,\u201d Mitch finally said, more to change the subject than make his next point, \u201cbut think about this. If you don\u2019t go and you decide you do believe and you want to find a good LDS girl, your options will be cut about in half. That probably doesn\u2019t make any difference to you now, but it will if you change your mind later.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut Mom didn\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour mother was very young. All she wanted was to get married and have children.\u201d And escape an arranged marriage. \u201cI caught her attention and she caught mine, so it worked out. But she had all these romantic notions of living on love, and part of the romance is hardship and struggle. When you marry a guy who didn\u2019t finish out his mission and works in a dying industry, you get an extra helping of hardship and struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you struggled.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t regret a second of it, either.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDad,\u201d Trevor said slowly, \u201cwhy <em>did<\/em> you and Mom elope?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAh, well&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d He took a deep breath, wary of where this could go. \u201cHer father wanted her to marry someone else and she didn\u2019t want to marry that man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trevor shrugged. \u201cAll she had to do was say no.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe did. She said it the only way she could make it stick.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHuh?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe married me instead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, Grandpa Monroe wouldn\u2019t have forced\u2014\u201d He stopped short when he saw Mitch\u2019s raised eyebrow. \u201c<em>No<\/em>,\u201d he breathed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe wedding was planned. The rings and dress were bought. She already had her temple recommend in preparation. The flights to Salt Lake were booked. Honeymoon was paid for. She was a good girl. She would\u2019ve done what she was told.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRunning away was your idea?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But once Mitch had presented the idea, Mina had been only too willing to let him rescue her. It wasn\u2019t the best way to start a marriage: two kids who weren\u2019t as in love as they should\u2019ve been, getting married under duress, both of them with questionable motives. He and Mina might have been young and desperate, but they\u2019d had a common culture and common goals, and had worked hard to make their marriage a success.<\/p>\n<p>So what if Mina\u2019s crush on Mitch hadn\u2019t completely matured\u2014 So what if Mitch\u2019s simple compassion for Mina\u2019s circumstance hadn\u2019t completely matured\u2014 So what if they hadn\u2019t been completely in love on their wedding day\u2014<\/p>\n<p>They were by the time Lisette was born a year later.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd so now you\u2019ve met somebody else?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes. Not sure where it\u2019s going yet. Or if it is. Would it bother you if it did?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trevor shrugged. \u201cI don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t&nbsp;\u2026 remember Mom very well. I guess it would depend on the woman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ah, well, then, Mitch might as well get his most pressing issue out in the open. \u201cShe\u2019s from Blackwood Securities, doing the reorganization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought that\u2019s what Sebastian does.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe doesn\u2019t do as much of that anymore. He likes the design work he\u2019s doing for me, wants to dig into the metal, learn the machining, see what he can get it to do. And he likes being a stay-at-home dad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trevor shuddered and Mitch laughed. \u201cOkay, so then the problem is she\u2019s not a member of the Church?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, not that so much as her previous profession.\u201d He paused. \u201cShe was a prostitute. A <em>very<\/em> high-dollar one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo <em>shit<\/em>,\u201d Trevor breathed, straightening up, all interest now. \u201cShe <em>told<\/em> you that? Just out of the blue?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe wanted to shock me, to see what I\u2019d do, how I\u2019d react.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe she was lying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, she wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trevor laughed. \u201cWell, hell, at least she was smart enough to get paid instead of giving it away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch grinned. \u201cThere\u2019s a certain honor in that, eh?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah. So&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2026&nbsp;<em>in my previous life, I wouldn\u2019t have taken him as a client.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoesn\u2019t bother me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat if she just wants your money?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoubt it. She has her own and if all she wanted was a meal ticket, she wouldn\u2019t have stopped being a prostitute. That\u2019s a lot more honest than a woman who marries for money.\u201d He paused. \u201cWhat I think she wants is to see if she can get a Mormon bishop in bed. She sees me as a challenge. It\u2019s a game for her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He slid a glance toward his son. \u201cYou know me better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trevor threw up a hand. \u201cOf course. It\u2019s why you drag me out of bed at one o\u2019clock in the morning to play killer soccer whenever you\u2019re horny, which, by the way, is seriously fucked up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch couldn\u2019t disagree with that\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen\u2019d you figure that out?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2014but he wasn\u2019t about to admit to the rare occasion he was desperate enough to take care of it the usual way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA while back. Dunno when.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch let that hang for a while, reluctant to ask, not really wanting to know. \u201cTrev? You, uh\u2014?\u201d He held up his hand. \u201cNot dad, not bishop. Just men talking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The boy said nothing for a moment, then\u2014 \u201cI don\u2019t know how to answer that. If I say no, it\u2019d make me feel pathetic. If I say yes, you\u2019d be disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch remained silent because Trevor had a better handle on it than he\u2019d thought.<\/p>\n<p>Finally Trevor sighed. \u201cNo. I haven\u2019t met a girl I wanted that much. I mean, I think about sex all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah. You\u2019re seventeen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I look at what I\u2019ve got to choose from at school and it\u2019s just not&nbsp;\u2026 Something\u2019s not clicking for me. I mean, I don\u2019t like dudes, either, so that\u2019s not it. In a way, that\u2019d be easier because at least I\u2019d know why I\u2019m not digging the girls. And at church, well, the girls I like aren\u2019t giving anything up, and the only one who does isn\u2019t interesting enough to make up for all her bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was the most sensible thing Mitch had ever heard out of a seventeen-year-old boy\u2019s mouth, and he said so.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, it\u2019s not sensible. It\u2019s a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch snorted a laugh. After a couple of seconds, he said, \u201cSo&nbsp;\u2026 if you did meet a girl&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah. I would.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch sighed. \u201cWell, be careful. Watch out for the girls with dollar signs in their eyes. Use condoms I\u2019m sure Sebastian\u2019s already given you the lecture. And if you do, you better act accordingly at church. No public prayer, no blessing the sacrament, no choir practice, no splits with the missionaries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trevor nodded and took another swig of his Gatorade. \u201cSo speaking of church. You gonna bring this woman?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNope.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHeh. You can be embarrassed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNope. This isn\u2019t a missionary moment, Trevor. She\u2019s a woman who has her own life and I find her interesting, so why would I want to try to change her? If she comes to church with me, fine, but it has to be at her instigation.\u201d He paused. \u201cI know I don\u2019t talk about myself this way much because it makes me uncomfortable, but, Trev, I\u2019m a powerful man and I didn\u2019t get that way without knowing exactly what I want and having a great deal of cunning and patience to get it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you want her?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m intrigued. But with who she is now, not because I want to change her into something she\u2019s not. I might go ahead and play the game with her, but I\u2019ll win.\u201d He leaned over then and got in Trevor\u2019s face. \u201cBecause I <em>always<\/em> win.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">STEEL IN VASE<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptdate\">December 27, 2010<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">THREE WEEKS.<\/p>\n<p>Well, that settled that, I supposed, but I didn\u2019t know why it bothered me so much. I should never have told him something so outrageous, full disclosure be damned. I might have been able to keep my prostitution from him for however long our little flirtation would have lasted, but now it wasn\u2019t possible.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe I should\u2019ve immediately repudiated the little prick who\u2019d intruded upon our evening, instead of falling into my act, conditioned by years of fucking people I wasn\u2019t attracted to\u2014and some I didn\u2019t like.<\/p>\n<p><em>Qu\u00e9 ser\u00e1 ser\u00e1.<\/em> I sighed and rubbed away a strange stinging in my nose.<\/p>\n<p>I swung around in my chair when my assistant knocked on the door and my breath caught in my chest as the biggest bouquet of the most perfect roses I\u2019d ever seen preceded her into my office\u2014in vibrant orange. What the hell, <em>orange<\/em>? She put the vase on my desk, her face a study in excitement. She bounced on the balls of her feet and said, in a rather conspiratorial whisper, \u201cThree dozen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Three weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Three dozen.<\/p>\n<p>I might as well have been told point blank. I reached for the card and opened it. I recognized the handwriting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mitch\">Babbo &#8211; tonight 7:30<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho\u2019s it from?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nobody knew of my evening with Mitch. Never mind Jack would blow his top; I simply wanted to keep it to myself. It was so&nbsp;\u2026 different from anything I\u2019d experienced.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe man\u2019s a romantic,\u201d I breathed in wonder. I felt something warm and soft blossom in my chest and that strange stinging feeling in my nose started again. Was this what \u201cto woo\u201d meant? \u201cTo court\u201d? Was I being courted, wooed?<\/p>\n<p>I had never been that.<\/p>\n<p>Gordon Rivington\u2014a teenage crush cum marriage cum property swap.<\/p>\n<p>Nigel Tracey\u2014my introduction to and instruction in exquisite sex.<\/p>\n<p>Lovers, miscellaneous\u2014affection, fun, and a few mutually beneficial extras.<\/p>\n<p>Clients, by referral only\u2014business deals.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch had come to Manhattan, but whether it was solely to see me or not, I didn\u2019t know. I doubted it highly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI looked it up,\u201d my assistant said, and I started because I\u2019d forgotten she was there. \u201cOrange roses mean desire and passion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Really.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut orange means other things, too, so maybe it\u2019s not just that or not that at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat other stuff?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEnthusiasm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s fairly generic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd fascination and um, like, \u2018I\u2019m proud of you\u2019 kind of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have a hard time believing a man would indulge in rose language.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Susan bent to take another whiff, but stopped and said, \u201cOh? What\u2019s this?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>From the center of the bouquet she plucked a bright orange iPod Nano, its earbud cord tied in a bow. I stared at it, my mind blank.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassie?\u201d Susan had been speaking and I\u2019d completely spaced. \u201cI said, it must have something on it. If he just meant to give you the iPod, he would\u2019ve left it in the box. And it\u2019s not like you couldn\u2019t buy your own.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Oh.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I pulled the cord loose, plugged it into the device, put the buds in my ears, then turned it on. In a second or two, the smooth voice of Harry Connick, Jr. flowed into my brain and straight down to the pit of my belly.<\/p>\n<p><em>What are you doing New Year\u2019s Eve?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassie! Sit down before you fall down. What\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I sat, relaxed back into my chair, and closed my eyes, listening to Harry repeat the question while envisioning Mitch. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew Susan was tiptoeing out of my office, and I even heard the soft swish of the door closing behind her.<\/p>\n<p>Expensive gifts from clients were <em>de rigueur<\/em>; it was ritual, simply part of the payment protocol for a mistress. Jewelry. Collectible wines. Art. Favors I could call in, occasionally worth many thousands of dollars, but mostly priceless. Things neither I nor my client would have to account for on a tax return. Occasionally the smaller gifts might arrive in or with flowers, but they meant nothing.<\/p>\n<p>No, I had never had this.<\/p>\n<p>A bouquet and a song, to plead for a date on a special night of the year.<\/p>\n<p>My face heated up and I wondered if I were getting sick, so I felt my forehead, but no. It was nice and cool. I put my hand to my cheek, then had to find a tissue because my skin was all wet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">UPTOWN GIRL<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">SHE HAD WORN orange.<\/p>\n<p>The minute she stepped into the restaurant, she took Mitch\u2019s breath away. He had felt every minute of the last three weeks, debating whether to pursue her, how she would mesh at church, if she would be willing to mesh at church, whether church really mattered in this equation or not, beyond keeping his covenants.<\/p>\n<p>He couldn\u2019t figure out what it was about her that had him feeling as nervous as a kid asking a girl out for the first time, but he had to see her again.<\/p>\n<p>Three weeks. It had taken him that long to determine that his fascination with her wasn\u2019t going to go away. He knew what conclusion she would draw from his leaving such a long space of time between then and now, given her bald pronouncement. It\u2019d been a test\u2014and he\u2019d passed it.<\/p>\n<p>Because she was here.<\/p>\n<p>In orange.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassandra.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She started and turned, a sweet smile on her face that he wanted to see more of. Her face, piquant, with those clear brown eyes, was the most beautiful face he had ever seen\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u2014and that included the face of his wife, the mother of his children, whom he had loved and married in the temple for eternity, whom he had cared for so many years before she died.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t remember this fire in his gut, this <em>need<\/em> for Mina that he had for Cassandra. Perhaps it was the fact that she was, unlike Mina, vibrant and sensual. Perhaps it was the fact that he wasn\u2019t twenty-one and destitute, stretched to his limit and depending on his fragile eighteen-year-old wife to keep them out of the red every month. He was forty-four, healthy, and had everything to offer a woman, even one who had as much money and power as he did.<\/p>\n<p>But here Cassandra stood in front of him, beautiful in a way Mina had never been.<\/p>\n<p>Guilt stabbed him. The guilt of disloyalty. The guilt of an adulterer, the way it had been described to him in countless interviews over the years. He was a widower and he had been faithful to his wife and his covenants, so he didn\u2019t understand why his spirit was vulnerable to guilt when his mind wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMitch,\u201d she returned in that husky purr he wasn\u2019t sure was deliberate. He thought he was an expert at spotting women who affected husky purrs, so if she was faking it, she was better than all the women who had tried before.<\/p>\n<p>She held her hand out for him to shake, but he turned it and brought it to his lips for a light kiss. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly as he held her gaze. He could tell her breath caught and he wondered if she was as smitten as he was. He doubted it.<\/p>\n<p>Still, she was here and she had worn orange.<\/p>\n<p>He tucked her hand into the crook of his left arm and nodded at the ma\u00eetre d\u2019 for their table.<\/p>\n<p>The conversation began easily enough, though Mitch wasn\u2019t paying attention to what she said so much as how she said it. He noticed she did not order wine. That intrigued him, since, in Bethlehem, she had chosen what Sebastian later informed him was what anyone with exquisite taste and money to burn would order. Sebastian wanted to know who had ordered it and why it had piqued Mitch\u2019s curiosity enough to ask. Mitch had declined to explain.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Mitch simply watched her, listened to her voice. It evened out after a while and he wondered if the purr had been nervousness, but he doubted that, too. He didn\u2019t make women like her nervous.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow was your Christmas?\u201d he asked during a small lull just as they had been served.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDecent,\u201d she murmured. \u201cGordon, my ex-husband, and his husband, Nigel, took the twins to a performance of <em>Wicked<\/em>. Helene had a double shift at the hospital. Clarissa and I indulged in a chick-flick marathon and binged ourselves sick on Ben &amp; Jerry\u2019s. Yours?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy wife died on Christmas Day last year,\u201d he said, wondering why he\u2019d even brought it up, except, well, it was two days after Christmas. Why wouldn\u2019t one ask? \u201cMy son and I went to Vail. My daughter hosted Christmas this year and filled up her house with her in-laws. Fun people. Did a little skiing. So it was good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Relatively speaking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d she murmured.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy fault,\u201d he said briskly and sat up a little straighter. \u201cI figured yours had to be better than mine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She chuckled then. \u201cAnd it wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDidn\u2019t sound that way, no.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo what brings you up to Manhattan?\u201d she asked finally. He\u2019d expected it immediately, but perhaps she was hesitant to know.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She bit her lip and he didn\u2019t know how she\u2019d survived as a call girl without getting completely fleeced. If she was acting, he couldn\u2019t tell and\u2014well, that pretty much meant she wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs it happens,\u201d she said, suddenly paying a lot more attention to her meal. \u201cI am, uh, free Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His heart thumped in his chest.<\/p>\n<p><em>What are you doing New Year\u2019s Eve?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI find that&nbsp;\u2026 odd.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She looked up at him, her expression shuttered. \u201cThen why did you ask me out if you thought I had something else to do?\u201d she asked brusquely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI couldn\u2019t not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She swallowed. \u201cOh.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassandra,\u201d he began slowly, not even sure what he wanted to say. \u201cI would like\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The phone in his suit coat chirped the ringtone that let him know he had a problem at church. Cassandra stiffened and the moment shattered. \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d he said, immediately frustrated, but hiding it as well as he usually did. \u201cI have to take this call.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGo ahead,\u201d she said flatly with a dismissive wave.<\/p>\n<p>He arose and stalked through the restaurant and out the front door. \u201cWhat,\u201d he said tightly, without looking at the caller ID.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d Then Mitch looked. His first counselor. \u201cDid I interrupt something?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a matter of fact, Steve, yes. What\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSister Bevan is trying to get hold of you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch ground his teeth. \u201cI\u2019m in Manhattan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There was a long pause. \u201cShe\u2019s demanding to talk to you, wants your cell number.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s the problem this time?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe says Dan hit her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch had every reason to doubt that, but wouldn\u2019t take the chance. \u201cSteve, <em>please<\/em> do me a favor and take care of it. There\u2019s a list of shelters in my desk drawer\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeen there, done that, Mitch. Louise is over at her house trying to talk her into going to the hospital and filing a police report, which she\u2019s refusing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Of course.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere\u2019s Dan?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGone&nbsp;\u2026 who knows where.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Probably the library, where he\u2019d always gone when he wanted to escape his life. He\u2019d done it since they were kids, and right then, Mitch wanted to throttle him for it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHave you seen her? Do you know what kind of condition she\u2019s in?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another call was coming in. \u201cHey, Steve, lemme call you back.\u201d He switched over, already knowing who it was, wanting to strangle whoever gave her his number.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBishop!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSister Bevan,\u201d he said politely, holding onto his patience with every last ounce of will he possessed. \u201cWhat can I do for you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m done. I cannot take this anymore. Dan\u2019s just&nbsp;\u2026 out of control. Help me!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cListen to me and do what I tell you to do, okay? Sister Kelly is with you, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, but she isn\u2019t <em>you<\/em>. <em>She<\/em> can\u2019t make Dan go away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He ignored that. \u201cLet Louise take care of you, get you to a shelter at least.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sally launched into a list of reasons why <em>he<\/em> had to be the one to help her and why she couldn\u2019t go to the emergency room or call the police.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSister Bevan, I <em>am<\/em> going to help you, but you have to let me talk to Sister Kelly, okay?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, Mitch,\u201d she said, then sniffled. \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLouise,\u201d he said without preamble when she answered. \u201cAre you free to talk?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll right.\u201d This was an old exercise. Louise\u2019s job as Relief Society president gave her unlimited access to Mitch\u2019s ear, and they\u2019d collaborated on the disposition of too many such situations. \u201cAny bruises or blood?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you believe her?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCall the police and have her make a report. If she\u2019s not lying, we can get this dealt with properly. If she is, maybe it\u2019ll scare her enough to quit&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGreg\u2019s here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch\u2019s throat clogged. Louise\u2019s terseness told him everything he needed to know about how helpful Greg would be, sweetly feeding Sally\u2019s obsession with Mitch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCan you get him to leave?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No one but Mitch and Brother Kelly knew how much she despised Greg Sitkaris. Her hatred had grown slowly over the last five years as she\u2019d gone about tending the women in the ward, seeing the way Greg charmed them. Then, once they were thoroughly captivated by him, he would slowly, subtly chip away at their confidence and self-esteem with backhanded compliments dispensed in tones flavored with disdain\u2014for his own amusement.<\/p>\n<p>Even Mitch had thought Louise\u2019s descriptions of his behavior unbelievable and she, like Mina, had given up trying to explain it to him.<\/p>\n<p>But now Mitch understood.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll right. Insert yourself between them. Don\u2019t let him talk to her or get close to her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She paused. \u201cUh&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI get it now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Finally!<\/em>\u201d Little whispers of fabric let Mitch know she was moving. \u201cYou need to do something,\u201d she hissed.<\/p>\n<p>Louise certainly wasn\u2019t shy about stating her opinion. He knew exactly what she wanted him to do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m&nbsp;\u2026 working on that,\u201d he admitted gruffly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now?\u201d she asked, shocked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, right now! And I\u2019m having a good time and I want to get back to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh,\u201d she breathed. \u201cThat\u2019s great! Okay, I\u2019ll call my husband and we\u2019ll get it done. Consider your evening free.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch had just turned his phone off when a flash of orange at the door of Babbo caught his eye.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassandra!\u201d he called, panicked, and trotted toward her.<\/p>\n<p>She stopped. Gave him a cool glance. \u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sorry. That was a church call. I had to take it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHad to?\u201d she asked smoothly.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch opened his mouth to protest, but no, he hadn\u2019t had to. That was why he had two counselors and a female counterpart with her own counselors, and an entire hierarchy of people who could have dealt with it without involving him. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. It\u2019s&nbsp;\u2026 complicated. I\u2019ve\u2014 My ward\u2014parish\u2014they\u2019ve gotten used to my availability\u2014\u201d He needed to shut up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re a brilliant man, Mr. Hollander,\u201d she murmured. \u201cYou know how to make yourself unavailable, and I don\u2019t take second place to anyone. By the way,\u201d she said as she turned and walked away from him, \u201cI <em>am<\/em> busy Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His nostrils flared. \u201cCassandra\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t pay the tab, so you\u2019d best see to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassandra\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGood night, Mr. Hollander.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch wanted to howl, but didn\u2019t. As usual. \u201cHappy early birthday, then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She stopped cold and stood motionless for long seconds. Her head bowed. He watched, his heart pounding in his ears, wondering if&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou had me investigated,\u201d she said quietly over her silver-mink-clad shoulder, her breath white in the cold air.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course I did,\u201d he said, exasperated. \u201cI\u2019d be an idiot not to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo you know everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot everything I wanted to know, no.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy ex-husband? My ex-father-in-law? My divorce?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, yes, and yes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPolice reports? Criminal trial transcripts? Financial records?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy client list?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou didn\u2019t sell it. Did you destroy it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not that stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s a relief.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe people on it don\u2019t share your opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wouldn\u2019t think so. Couldn\u2019t get your medical records, either.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She waved a hand. \u201cWell, I don\u2019t have any cooties, if that\u2019s what you\u2019re wondering. I\u2019m a professional.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrust in Allah, but tie your camel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFine. I\u2019ll get tested again and send you the results.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMuch appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo knowing what you do know, why did you ask me out?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re a brilliant woman, Ms St. James,\u201d he said, hope seeping back into his soul. \u201cYou know what that means.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt could mean anything. Like&nbsp;\u2026 pity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t drive two hundred miles round trip to have intimate dinners at chic restaurants with people I pity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSlumming, then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo. <em>You\u2019re<\/em> slumming. I\u2019m the one from the wrong side of the tracks.\u201d He saw the corner of her mouth twitch. \u201cAnd what did your people find out about me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She released a resigned sigh. \u201cThat you have a PhD in metallurgical engineering from Missouri S&amp;T. That your wife had a rare and devastating form of multiple sclerosis. That your daughters were missionaries for your church in Moscow and Hong Kong, respectively, although I can\u2019t remember which went where. That you have one child\u2014a boy\u2014still at home. That I\u2019m the first woman you\u2019ve been interested in since your wife died last year <em>and<\/em> that she was the only woman you\u2019ve ever had sex with. That you have lived a very boring life and that you seem perfectly happy to wallow in your boringness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He laughed, feeling lighter than he had in weeks. Months. \u201cAnd yet, you accepted my invitation. Why?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She turned almost fully then and looked at him, a smile creeping up on her. \u201cI honestly don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassandra. Could we please go back in and finish our meals? I\u2019m still hungry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTurn your phone off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid you get your crisis taken care of?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWould it make any difference?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo. I come first. Always.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mina never would have made such a demand, and Cassandra\u2019s arrogance had Mitch aching.<\/p>\n<p>He offered her his arm and said, \u201cLikewise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She sniffed. \u201cI made a very good living knowing how to treat men.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch chuckled. \u201cNice to know I\u2019ll be in good hands then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have no idea how good. Yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">HEY, BIG SPENDER<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptdate\">December 31, 2010<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">\u201cCASSIE, WHAT IS your problem?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hell if I knew. I\u2019d been pacing around the house all morning, too restless to find any one thing and do it, too wound up to watch TV, too distracted to catch up on household business.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGo to work or something,\u201d Clarissa snapped before stuffing popcorn in her mouth.<\/p>\n<p>I stood in the kitchen and stared at Clarissa, Olivia, and their boyfriends in the living room splashed out in front of the TV for a New Year\u2019s Eve Woody Allen marathon.<\/p>\n<p>Something was wrong with this picture, but I couldn\u2019t figure out exactly what.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019d finish the movies, nap\u2014have sex\u2014all afternoon and evening, then go clubbing all night long.<\/p>\n<p>My oldest and youngest were busy, too: Helene would be at the hospital for the next thirty-six hours. Paige had three performances today and two tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t want to go to work.<\/p>\n<p>But I didn\u2019t want to be here, either.<\/p>\n<p>I could go to my room, but that felt too much like I\u2019d been sent there by my disapproving offspring.<\/p>\n<p>The phone rang and I snatched at it just because it was something to do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWere you planning to come in any time today?\u201d Susan asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s ten o\u2019clock in the morning and I am not there. What do you think?\u201d I do my best work early in the morning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou need to come in today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That didn\u2019t sound good, but I didn\u2019t want to hear some chopped-up explanation for whatever had gone wrong. \u201cAll right. Get Sheldon here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t bother to change out of my sweats, the \u201cNYU\u201d stamped across my tits and ass brittle, cracked, half chipped off. I barely brushed my hair and went without makeup. Battered running shoes, no socks, old gloves and stocking cap, and I was out the door.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMs St. James,\u201d Sheldon murmured as he handed me into the car.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGood morning, Sheldon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHappy birthday,\u201d he said when he finally slipped into the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n<p>I stared at him. My <em>driver<\/em> was the first person today to tell me that? \u201cUh, thank you, Sheldon,\u201d I said, but shook it off as he pulled away from the curb and into traffic. \u201cAny news?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI suspect Olivia\u2019s being followed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe <em>was<\/em>. I took care of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I met Sheldon\u2019s significant look in the rearview mirror. \u201cPermane\u2014? Never mind.\u201d He said nothing. \u201cDid Susan tell you why she called me in?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At that, he smirked.<\/p>\n<p>My curiosity as to what had happened at the office deepened. I was a specialist, my department created for me and all my support staff handpicked by me. Neither I nor my employees got involved in the bank\u2019s day-to-day business, and I had given my staff the day off.<\/p>\n<p>I knew why Susan had gone in. She had her eye on some kid in payroll, and would use the opportunity to fiddle around a little bit, play whatever computer game she was obsessed with, then head on down to the human resources department for her lunchtime stalking ritual.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo,\u201d I said briskly as I came off the elevator, pulling off my gloves and hat. To my surprise she and Melinda were smashed up together right in front of Susan\u2019s computer, rapt. I didn\u2019t have to be told what they were watching. \u201cWhat\u2019s the crisis?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Susan paused their cooking show, looked around Melinda at me, up and down, and said, \u201cGeez, is it possible for you <em>not<\/em> to look gorgeous?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHuh?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou come in dressed like a bag lady and you\u2019re still hot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I laughed, unaccountably pleased, but Melinda snorted. \u201cI hate you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Vittles<\/em>?\u201d I asked dryly, stepping behind the two Vanessa Whittaker fangirls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI missed her when she was here, cooking at Chez Fricassee,\u201d Melinda said, looking up at me. \u201cDid you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, I ate there. Several times. She\u2019s a brilliant chef, but she only got her break because she was Ford\u2019s mistress and model. It would\u2019ve taken her years to break out like that otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Melinda grunted. \u201cDoesn\u2019t mean she\u2019s not good at what she does.\u201d She gave me the once-over. \u201cQ.E.D.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTouch\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all need help,\u201d Melinda continued, looking at Susan now, lecturing. She did that a lot when she was in a reflective mood. \u201cDon\u2019t let anybody tell you all you need is brains and hard work, because that\u2019s bullshit. We get help along the way, lucky breaks, countless people who help in small ways and a few who help in big ways. That chef\u2014\u201d Melinda pointed to the computer. \u201c\u2014got a big break because of who she was sleeping with. That\u2019s true. Being beautiful doesn\u2019t hurt. But it didn\u2019t give her her talent or her drive or her business sense. She had to work for what she built and now she has to work twice as hard to keep it and grow it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe trick,\u201d she went on, \u201cis to always be giving back. To help people along <em>their<\/em> way. Sometimes that comes back to you in strange and wonderful ways. Occasionally you get it back from the person you gave it to, but mostly not. So those lucky breaks people get? No such thing as luck. That\u2019s the groundwork you laid when you helped somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I nodded toward the monitor. \u201cMakes me wonder what she did to come into Sebastian\u2019s orbit, because you know how antisocial he is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They both stared up at me then. \u201cYou don\u2019t know?\u201d Susan asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKnow what?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Melinda waved a hand. \u201cHer boyfriend, the politician.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCipriani? The hotshot who just got Senator Afton hounded out of Washington?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHim. She pretty much saved his life when she was a little girl. It involved Hilliard, so that was how she got access to Taight. She gave a big press conference at her Thanksgiving masquerade. I was there and it was <em>powerful<\/em>. She had me in tears. Go watch it on YouTube.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will. I need to hit one of those masquerades. I hear they\u2019re decadent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Melinda smiled wickedly and stretched, her beautifully toned arms glistening dark chocolate. \u201cIt was&nbsp;\u2026 <em>lovely<\/em>,\u201d she purred after a second or two.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre either one of you going to cough up the reason you have summoned me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s in your office,\u201d Melinda said dismissively and gestured to Susan to restart their program.<\/p>\n<p>I obeyed as if I were a flunky\u2014<\/p>\n<p>\u2014and stopped short. There, on my desk, a gift basket but clearly not some perfect corporate parfait of meaningless motivational bullshit. I approached it slowly, as if it were a wild animal that would pounce on me at any moment if it noticed me.<\/p>\n<p>It was a pathetic little thing, really. I\u2019d mastered my share of crafts early in my marriage when I was a Martha Stewart acolyte, trying my best to be what I\u2019d been brought up to be: A high-society June Cleaver, perfectly accomplished in the home arts, perfectly dressed and coifed while practicing those arts, my pretty mint shirtwaist covered by a complementary apron I had hand-embroidered. I could\u2019ve done a better gift basket in my sleep, even after all these years.<\/p>\n<p>I untied the pink tulle. A \u201cbouquet\u201d of cookies on sticks, probably a couple dozen. Sugar cookies, from the looks of them, unartfully iced and decorated, with two sticking prominently up in the center, each with one word: \u201cHappy\u201d and \u201cbirthday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oh, my. I cleared my throat and plucked a cookie out of its fastening.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Shit<\/em>,\u201d I breathed after I\u2019d taken a tentative bite. Chewy, with a delicate balance of lemon and vanilla. They might not be able to decorate, but damn, they could bake.<\/p>\n<p>Whoever \u201cthey\u201d were.<\/p>\n<p>The cookie sticks were in a small vase. I pulled that out and set it aside to see\u2014 There, in the bottom of the basket were two paperbacks. I held one in each hand and looked between them. No, not two books. One. One in French and one in English. The one in French was old, yellowed and battered. The one in English was fresh and bright.<\/p>\n<p><em>Ang\u00e9lique, Marquise des Anges<\/em> or, in English, <em>Ang\u00e9lique, the Marquise of the Angels<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I knew this story: A teenage girl obliged to marry an unattractive eccentric over a decade her senior, with whom she gradually fell in love as she learned who and how truly wonderful he was.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d been required to view the movie during one of my interminable humanities classes in my interminable undergraduate years, and had written my paper on the contrast between the heroine in the story to my own history. I\u2019d earned a C because, \u201cNo matter how well written, treacly fiction has no place in film critique. You\u2019re lucky I didn\u2019t fail you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Why had Mitch chosen this particular story? He was a sly devil, and I couldn\u2019t discount the possibility that, now he knew my history, he was making the same comparison I\u2019d made. Yet&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The French version was well loved, and a quick glance at the copyright page told me it was from an early printing, 1958, and it was old before we were born\u2014ancient by the time Mitch had gotten his hands on it. He had written in the margins, tiny, in French. Inside the back cover, in a different hand, in English, was written, \u201cYou should be reading your scriptures, Elder!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That made me smile, this microscopic look into the lives of two twenty-year-old boys in a foreign country, out of their depth, and struggling to make sense of their situation.<\/p>\n<p>I put the books down, then looked back into the basket. Ah, yes, a note. I broke the seal and took out the plain white card.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mitch\">Happy birthday Cassandra<br \/>\nI\u2019ll pick you up at 8p<br \/>\n(jeans &#8211; bundle up)<\/p>\n<p>I fell into my chair. Dammit, where <em>was<\/em> that box of tissues?<\/p>\n<p>Once I\u2019d mopped up my face and taken a Benadryl for my allergies, I made sure the cookies were within reach, opened the English version of the book, tilted my chair back, propped my feet on my desk, and settled in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">WHEN DID YOU FALL<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">I OPENED MY door at two minutes to eight to see him standing there relaxed, his hands in his jeans pockets, a long wool overcoat swept back behind his strong arms His sandy hair glinted a slight red in the glow from the street lamp and his eyes seemed lighter in the reflection off the snow. He had a sly smile on his face and I wondered if he would kiss me at the stroke of midnight.<\/p>\n<p>Was it only a month ago I\u2019d thought him ordinary?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCome in for a minute,\u201d I said with an unintentional huskiness to my voice. I stepped aside, but his smile change from sly to amused and he said,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you, but no. Not coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It took me a second or two to figure that out, then said, \u201cYou think I\u2019m going to seduce you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAttempt to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I smirked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAppearance of impropriety and all that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAh, okay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chuckling, I went to find my coat, then shoved it into his hands when I stepped out onto the stoop and locked my door. He assisted me into it as I had expected him to.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid you get my test results?\u201d I asked as he handed me into the car he\u2019d hired for the night. I slid over a proper distance so that he wouldn\u2019t be <em>too<\/em> tempted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, I did, thank you,\u201d he said with a chuckle. \u201cAnd I turned off my phone.\u201d Once he was comfortable and we were on our way, he looked at my lap, grasped one of my hands, and wrapped my fingers up with his. \u201cDid you have a good birthday?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnly because of you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oh, my God. I hadn\u2019t really said that, had I? I had. His frown told me I had. \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d he rumbled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre you telling me that your family didn\u2019t do anything for you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd your daughters all live at home, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I looked past him out the window, seeing nothing. \u201cNew Year\u2019s Eve is&nbsp;\u2026 New Year\u2019s Eve. It\u2019s special to them. It\u2019s always been difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven when you were a kid?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUm&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d I cleared my throat. \u201cNo. My parents\u2014 They made sure to put me first. Then&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen I got married,\u201d I said flatly, hoping he would back off. He knew what had happened\u2014at least, what was in the public record as having happened.<\/p>\n<p>His jaw clenched then and he looked away as if to hide it. His hand closed a little tighter on mine, and I wondered\u2014 \u201cDo you ever get angry? Really angry?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He looked at me sharply and his expression melted into a smile immediately. \u201cNot much, no,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty easygoing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Liar.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t say it, though. He\u2019d deny it and I really didn\u2019t want to spend my evening trying to get him to admit something probably very few people knew about him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat book you sent me,\u201d I said. \u201cI like it so far. Thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow far in did you get?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAng\u00e9lique\u2019s marriage.\u201d I launched into the oddity of his having chosen that particular book to send me and why, and, because I couldn\u2019t keep my fucking mouth shut, I said, \u201cDid you send that to me because of <em>my<\/em> marriage?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He started. \u201cNo. I\u2014 It\u2019s my favorite book. It&nbsp;\u2026 helped me get through a rough time in my life. I didn\u2019t see any connection in it. I wanted to\u2014 Um&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I closed my other hand over the knot that his and mine already made. \u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d I murmured. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t have bothered me if you had. I was curious, is all. Big coincidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He stared at me for a second, his expression somber. \u201cTell me about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I took a deep breath and sighed, then shifted to make myself more comfortable. I knew what he was asking and I didn\u2019t pretend otherwise. \u201cGordon was twenty-five. I was fifteen and madly in love with this dashing older man. He saw me as a well-behaved little girl&nbsp;\u2026 a pretty life-sized doll who could walk and talk. He didn\u2019t object when his father and my father set up the deal. I sure as hell wasn\u2019t going to object.\u201d I stopped, thought back. It was humiliating, thinking how I\u2019d doodled Gordon\u2019s name on my notebooks, being so very&nbsp;\u2026 <em>fifteen<\/em> about it. But fifteen was fifteen and not forty-six, and was to be expected. I was far more forgiving of, say, my twenty-four-year-old assistant\u2019s crush on the kid in payroll than I was of my fifteen-year-old self.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had three years of an entirely chaste and fairy princess courtship. I thought Gordon refused to kiss me because I was underage, which only proved to me that he was honorable. We got married a week after I turned eighteen. My father didn\u2019t figure out until my wedding day why Gordon\u2019s father was so eager to get us married off.\u201d I laughed. \u201cHell, <em>Gordon<\/em> didn\u2019t even know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen\u2019d he come out?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The warmth of Mitch\u2019s big hand seeped into my cold ones. \u201cWhen he got out of prison. Before he went into treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd your father put you in that position, even though he knew.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe didn\u2019t <em>know<\/em>,\u201d I said. \u201cHe suspected. Didn\u2019t know what to do because if he were wrong, it would\u2019ve blown back on all of us very badly&nbsp;\u2026 I try to give him the benefit of the doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI see. You were the one hit with all the aftershocks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I shrugged. \u201cI was a good girl. I did what I was told.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUntil you couldn\u2019t anymore,\u201d Mitch muttered, his head bowed and his voice far away. I leaned forward a little to look up into his face.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMitch?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He glanced up at me, then chuckled wryly. \u201cYou and Mina. Good girls backed into a corner, then came out fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour wife?\u201d I asked, not in the least bit jealous. I\u2019d be suspicious of any man who didn\u2019t want to talk about the woman he had loved so long, the mother of his children. After years of studying men, fucking a good many of them, and acting as overpaid therapist to more than a few, I had come to the conclusion that ones who\u2019d lost beloved wives after long marriages made excellent relationship material, and I wasn\u2019t threatened by a ghost.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe was seventeen when we met,\u201d he said slowly. \u201cVery shy, soft-spoken, eager to please. Physically delicate. She was sick even then, but nobody knew it. She had never rebelled, not even so much as smarting off. I was&nbsp;\u2026 without prospects, so her father\u2014 He was\u2014is\u2014a CPA with his own successful firm, very upper middle class. He disapproved of me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPutting it lightly?\u201d I asked, hearing the edge in his voice.<\/p>\n<p>A corner of his mouth turned up. \u201cI think you read me too well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think you let me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He tilted his head in acknowledgment of that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I&nbsp;\u2026 stole her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Stole <\/em>her? From whom?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer father. The man he wanted her to marry. They had it all arranged for her to marry him the week after she graduated from high school.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo you eloped? How\u2019d that work out with her family?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDisowned her. Never spoke to her again. I got into S&amp;T, so after she graduated from high school, we moved to Missouri and stayed there for eight years. It was easier for her that way, anyway. She could use distance to excuse them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Well. Mina Monroe and Cassie St. James, two sides of the same coin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mitch waved a hand. \u201cHer mother died before she did. Her father never had anything to do with me or the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStill?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStill. My son is having a hard time with it right now, same way my daughters did. Do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I sighed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd&nbsp;\u2026 what\u2019s <em>your<\/em> ex-father-in-law doing these days?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That startled a delighted laugh out of me, as he had surely intended. \u201c<em>My<\/em> ex-father-in-law is working at a convenience store somewhere on the Tex-Mex border.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow much of a hand did you have in that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBoth hands, both feet. And I make sure to keep my stiletto heel in his jugular at all times. Revenge is best served in a Slurpee cup, you see.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He and I laughed, and we were still laughing when our car pulled up to Bryant Park. \u201cMitch,\u201d I drawled, not in the least surprised. \u201cIce skating? What a chick-flick clich\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell,\u201d he said as he got out and pulled me out after him, \u201cit\u2019s free and I didn\u2019t have much money left after that ridiculously expensive basket I sent you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t tell anybody I\u2019m such a cheap date. Did you make those cookies?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh, no. The young ladies in my ward\u2014parish\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve got the lingo now, Mitch. Ward, not parish.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He grinned. \u201c\u2014were making them as a service project, so I asked my Relief Society president\u2014my female counterpart in the ward\u2014to swipe a few, write the words, and wrap it up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cService project?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah. It\u2019s where somebody in the ward is identified as being in need of having something done. Sometimes it\u2019s a job the teenagers can handle with little or no supervision. They get together and work on it, get it done. Project. Service. Service project.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not in your ward-slash-parish.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, but <em>I <\/em>am. And I was in great need, let me tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We laughed.<\/p>\n<p>And continued to all evening as we attempted to skate, neither of us very good, leaning against each other, propping each other up, occasionally pulling the other one down. We may have spent more time upright than on our asses, but I wouldn\u2019t have bet on it.<\/p>\n<p>Breathless, we retired to a bench a couple of hours later to watch others who were far better than we were. Mitch draped his arm around my shoulder and I snuggled in for warmth. He curled his free hand around mine, and I felt his strength even through several layers of wool.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere are you staying?\u201d I asked. \u201cDid you drive?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI drove. Staying at The Mark.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I glanced up at him, surprised. \u201cJust around the corner from me!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He simply smiled, which carved concentric laugh lines into his cheeks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re ornery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat I am,\u201d he murmured.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat would God say about that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGod made mosquitoes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I burst out laughing then. \u201cPoint taken. Then I will assume you have something planned?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy only plan was to spend the day with you, if you were free.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I was supposed to go shopping with Clarissa, during which she would attempt\u2014and fail\u2014to wheedle a five-thousand-dollar dress out of me. Boy, would she be pissed when I canceled. \u201cI\u2019d like that,\u201d I said, more softly than I\u2019d intended to. \u201cBut not in my house?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot alone, no.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I tried to be angry, but I couldn\u2019t. It was simply too funny.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, yeah,\u201d he muttered. \u201cHa ha ha.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, don\u2019t be mad. I haven\u2019t laughed this much with a ma\u2014\u201d Well. He didn\u2019t need to know that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think,\u201d he said slowly, looking off into the distance, \u201cthat it\u2019s time for hot chocolate and brownies. Jacques Torres.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat are you talking about? They close at nine on Friday and maybe earlier today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou sure about that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My breath caught. \u201cYou evil man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe epitome.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">WE HAD THE chocolaterie to ourselves, and we were seated with much ado\u2014New Year\u2019s Eve, almost three hours past their closing time and coming up on midnight. People were knocking on the door to get in, but were ignored.<\/p>\n<p>Midnight.<\/p>\n<p>I was getting jittery, wondering how Mitch kissed, unable to wait for the new year when I would feel his mouth on mine.<\/p>\n<p><em>Happy birthday to you&nbsp;\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I gasped and turned in my seat when the singing began.<\/p>\n<p>A cake.<\/p>\n<p>With sparkler candles.<\/p>\n<p>Fuckers wouldn\u2019t go out when I blew at them, either. There were only four, but they kept sparking and sparkling. I kept blowing and blowing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDammit!\u201d I plucked them out of the cake and dunked them in my water glass.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch roared with laughter. I tried not to, but failed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was a nasty little trick,\u201d I grumbled. He opened his mouth, but I held up a hand. \u201cI know, I know. God made mosquitoes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The cake was cut and we each had a piece. There were chocolates and hot chocolate and ice cream and fruit and by the time we left at two, we were buzzed on sugar. We bounced nonsense off each other, in hysterics over things that, in daylight, would be simple stupidity, not even worthy of eyerolling.<\/p>\n<p>The hour, the laughter, the sugar, the dark, the cold kept at bay in the back of a warm car with a warm and attractive man\u2014 It made me say and do things I knew I would find humiliating in the morning because they were so very&nbsp;\u2026 <em>fifteen<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t get my midnight kiss,\u201d I whined, but it had taken me almost the entire distance home to cut through our silliness enough to remember it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou were otherwise occupied blowing out candles, and now it\u2019s too late.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s never too late for a kiss.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He cocked one eyebrow at me. \u201cYou think?\u201d He shifted and leaned toward me and, with a sigh, I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n<p>And he kissed me.<\/p>\n<p>My eyes popped open. \u201cWhat the hell was that?\u201d I demanded.<\/p>\n<p>He spread his arms, all wide-eyed innocence, and said, \u201cI kissed you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn the tip of my nose! I barely felt it!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I was squeaking. Oh, God, I was fucking <em>squeaking<\/em>!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou weren\u2019t very specific.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I screeched. He laughed. I screeched louder, but it turned into a fit of giggles. I fell over and lay across the car seat with my head in his lap, simply looking up at him. He smiled and smoothed my hair, picked up a strand only to let it slip through his fingers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m drunk,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know. You\u2019re worse than a toddler. Can\u2019t hold your sugar worth a darn.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I blinked. \u201cDarn?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I sat up. \u201cYou don\u2019t swear?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He shook his head slowly. \u201cNever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou better write me a list of things you can\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTomorrow. It\u2019s a long list.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd then I will attempt to get you to do them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would expect nothing less.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I sobered a bit. \u201cMitch, I\u2014 I wanted to tell you. Tonight was&nbsp;\u2026&nbsp;\u201d He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed my face. Benadryl. I needed Benadryl. \u201cThis was the best birthday I\u2019ve had in a long time,\u201d I murmured. \u201cMaybe ever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He looked at me, no longer amused, and said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerptchapterhead\">LONG NIGHTS, IMPOSSIBLE ODDS<\/p>\n<p class=\"sectiontop\">MITCH UNLOCKED his hotel room door wearily, closed it, and sagged back against it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat am I doing?\u201d he whispered to no one.<\/p>\n<p>That was a stupid question. He knew exactly what he was doing and he wanted to continue doing it.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mitch, you have a taste for bad girls. You always have.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Now, <em>there<\/em> was a voice from the past. Inez, his first crush, a sultry Latina five years his senior. She had been in desperate search of a dance partner so she could enter a competition, and had conscripted him. At fourteen, the only things he had to offer her were his size, strength, and malleability.<\/p>\n<p>He wasn\u2019t going to lie to himself and deny that Cassandra\u2019s history was part of his attraction to her, but there was so much more to her, other things that were just as attractive.<\/p>\n<p><em>But&nbsp;\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Inez again.<\/p>\n<p><em>We don\u2019t usually make such good wives, or at least, not the kind of wife the Church expects us to be&nbsp;\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p>That had been relevant when, at twenty and fresh home from his aborted mission, he\u2019d attempted to persuade Inez to marry him\u2014two misfits banding together against the world\u2014but it was irrelevant now.<\/p>\n<p><em>Look, figuring out how to get what you want is the easy part. Figuring out what you want is the hard part.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It was one of Sebastian\u2019s first lectures to him as they sat in the cool, dark peace of the Notre Dame cathedral to hide, rest from their labors, and talk about theology and philosophy. Once Mitch and Mina had settled in together, he\u2019d figured out what he wanted easily enough and gotten it. He\u2019d never had a need to revisit the issue until, just before Mina slipped away from him completely, she used the last of her strength to give him a speech that sounded rehearsed.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mitch, you rescued me from a fate worse than death, then turned around and gave me everything I ever wanted. You made my dreams come true. Promise me\u2014 When I leave here&nbsp;\u2026 Find someone. Someone who can match you the way I never could, someone who\u2019ll take care of you the way you deserve.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Mina&nbsp;\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>No, Mitch. Trevor will be gone soon to make his own life. It\u2019s your time now. Take it. Enjoy it. You haven\u2019t had a minute to yourself in twenty years.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>He turned on his phone and checked for messages: five, all from his counselors and various ward members. He slowly undressed and got in a hot shower, hoping it would help him remember the right question, so he could try to answer it.<\/p>\n<p><em>What do you really want?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Mitch knew that voice, still and small, but deep like his father\u2019s. It seeped through his brain whenever he needed more guidance than his common sense and life experience could supply, asking the question he hadn\u2019t had the courage to ask himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCassandra St. James,\u201d he murmured.<\/p>\n<p>His evening with her had only pulled something within his reach he\u2019d been trying to grasp\u2014and missing\u2014for months.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want a life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A life that wasn\u2019t so filled with everyone else\u2019s problems that he had no room for any of his own.<\/p>\n<p><em>Now you can figure out how to get it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Mitch hadn\u2019t had so much fun since he\u2019d taught Mina how to drive on their first date, then when they were first married and without children, when he\u2019d taken her on cheap adventures and taught her to be silly with him. Once he\u2019d gotten her away from Shane, given her the freedom of his name and validated her fun-loving soul, he\u2019d watched her blossom about as much as she could.<\/p>\n<p>But she\u2019d never opened up that far. She hadn\u2019t had the strength to pop open the way he\u2019d hoped she would, especially after Lisette was born. Mina had been happiest spending her energy with the children, nesting in their apartment, pinching pennies until they screamed, keeping hearth and home while Mitch went to school and worked at menial jobs and tended to church callings that had demanded everything he\u2019d had.<\/p>\n<p>And, well, Mina loved babies, toddlers, children, but she hadn\u2019t been altogether thrilled with how one went about making them. He knew that, although he hadn\u2019t known <em>why<\/em> until she was pregnant with Trevor. But because he always had other things on his mind, because he was always at work or at church, sex\u2014or lack thereof\u2014had never been an issue.<\/p>\n<p>Tonight, having stood on Cassandra\u2019s stoop, captivated by her cool, dark beauty, knowing none of her children were home, knowing she wanted him, knowing she had no barriers to keep her from sex whenever, however she wanted it, that she <em>enjoyed<\/em> it and could teach him anything and everything&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>It had immediately become an issue.<\/p>\n<p><em>Don\u2019t lie to me, boy.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Okay, okay. Not just tonight.<\/p>\n<p>Eight months ago he\u2019d stepped out of his life for a while and indulged himself on a dance floor, his favorite teenage pastime, long dormant, one Mina was not physically capable of sharing with him, one from which he could walk away when he got too uncomfortable.<\/p>\n<p>Then last month he\u2019d spent a week at Whittaker House, in the midst of beautiful women, any one of whom would\u2019ve\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Unable to walk away from the temptation because his presence was needed <em>and<\/em> he\u2019d needed his family\u2019s help and that was the fastest way to get it.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d spent the last year dealing with this, being single, suddenly without most of the obligations that had taken up his time, able to take a second to look around at what the world had to offer, wanting&nbsp;\u2026 something\u2014and not knowing where to start.<\/p>\n<p>Lisette and Genevi\u00e8ve were married and lived far away in opposite directions.<\/p>\n<p>Mina was gone.<\/p>\n<p>Trevor would fly the nest soon.<\/p>\n<p>The foundry\u2019s profitability had risen markedly once Eilis had taken Fen\u2019s place, settling the last of Mitch\u2019s worries. It had been his own choice not to do business with Fen, but because OKH was the foundry\u2019s biggest customer, the cost had been great. With Eilis at the helm, Mitch had no reason to withhold his products from OKH.<\/p>\n<p>When Cassandra finished detaching Jep Industries from the Steelworks\u2014 critical now that the foundry\u2019s growth had exploded with the new business\u2014the entire operation would be permanently settled. Mitch\u2019s officers could run it should he decide to take a sabbatical or bury himself in his lab with his alloys, or both.<\/p>\n<p>And surely, <em>surely<\/em> he\u2019d be released from the bishopric sometime soon&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Wouldn\u2019t he?<\/p>\n<p>Right?!<\/p>\n<p><em>Soon. Patience. You have a mess to clean up first.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Two or three, more like.<\/p>\n<p><em>No, just one.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A world of attractive, available women, and\u2014<\/p>\n<p><em>Look, if all you want is companionship, you got a church full of single women our age. Half of \u2019em are virgins and half of <\/em>those<em> have PhDs.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Bryce\u2019s advice.<\/p>\n<p><em>Look, if all you want is sex, I know a dozen powerful women who\u2019ll blow your mind without blowing your bank account. Break free, Elder. Break free!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sebastian\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>Mitch had money, power, time, and an almost-empty nest.<\/p>\n<p>And had spent the last year dazed and confused.<\/p>\n<p>Until Cassandra St. James had walked into his office, austere, aggressive, accomplished.<\/p>\n<p>And beautiful. Even\u2014no, <em>especially<\/em>\u2014in faded, hole-ridden jeans through which he could see thermal underwear, three sweaters (mismatched), and her beautiful black hair, sleek and shiny, swinging freely around her shoulders when she moved. She\u2019d guessed his planned evening activity and layered accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>He got out of the shower, dried, dressed for bed, crawled in it, checked the clock.<\/p>\n<p>Three-thirty in the morning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you,\u201d he sighed, his eyelids drifting closed, too tired to pray properly.<\/p>\n<p><em>You\u2019re welcome.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wingding\">\u203b<\/p>\n<div class=\"navblock\">\n<p class=\"leftnavblock\"><a class=\"arrowsmall\" href=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/thebooks\/stay\/\">\u2190 Book 2<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"rightnavblock\"><a class=\"arrowbig\" href=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/thebooks\/dunham\/\">Book 4  \u2192<\/a><br \/>The Revolutionary War pirates who<br \/>spawned all these drama llamas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"date\">20260331<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tales of Dunham #3\u00a92011 Moriah Jovan150,000 words (490 pages) Book 3 in the Dunham universe Buy direct: &nbsp; Amazon Kindle \u2022 paperback Barnes &#038; Noble Nook \u2022 paperback Apple iBooks Google Play Books Kobo eBooks Mitch, the widowed bishop of a Mormon congregation, falls in love with Cassie, the woman hired to restructure his steel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":18726,"menu_order":23,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1351","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1351"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1351"}],"version-history":[{"count":202,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25691,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1351\/revisions\/25691"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}