Why is she looking at me so intently?
“As much as Leo thinks he feels more comfortable alone, he flourishes when he isn’t. I’m quite relieved about his friendships with Dmitri Markhoff and Drake Hawthorne, especially the mentorship of Drake’s father, John. The mentorship gave Leo a firm base to grow. Working for John was exactly what Leo needed in his life when he came back to Chicago after graduating from Stanford. John not only encouraged Leo’s plans for the hedge fund, more importantly, he believed in Leo.”
I had no idea Drake and Leandros were connected.
“Exousia was the hedge fund Wall Street was laying bets on to fail in the first year. Leo proved them all wrong. He refuses to follow market trends, only half the fund is actually invested in the market, as I’m sure you know. It’s also the only fund not to trade by computer you know all those damn trades based on algorithms that cause mini-crashes every other day because of stock triggers. Buys and sells are carefully controlled and only processed by actual humans.
“There is also the variety of investments outside of the market. The fund has produced three best picture Oscar-winning movies in the last eight years. It’s financed some of the best new technology in almost every industry. Leo has done a lot of great things with Exousia.”
I nod, only I can’t let it go. “Leo has also done a lot of other things with it too.”
Victoria sips at her martini, her eyes hard on me. “There were all these rumors flying about Leo’s revenge on his father. That Leo driving Gerard’s family business into ruin and sending Dmitri Markhoff to snatch it up and crush it to bits was a promise he made to Agatha. It wasn’t, it was a promise he made to himself. It was a promise I’m glad he honored.”
Unease fills me at her answer.
“As much as it’s all well and good to ramble on about bygones and letting the past go it isn’t easy. Gerard bought his way out of raping a sixteen-year-old girl. Maybe if he was stopped then those girls that, yes, Leo paid to come forward with their own very real stories of rape, might never have endured what they did at Gerard’s hand. That woman though, the former mistress who’d been beaten until she miscarried, she wasn’t paid, and two other women weren’t paid either. Leo was right, it was too bad it took Gerard so long to do the right thing and commit suicide. Even then the bastard got off easy.”
Hearing it sounds so different than it summed up in a paragraph, I couldn’t imagine it. I have no frame of reference for what it would be like to grow up knowing his father raped his mother. The world isn’t black and white, especially for those living it. I twist the rings on my finger, already I want to take them off. When the waitress brings our plates, my usual eagerness is gone. I’m not quite hungry anymore.
“You’re right. It’s easier to say what’s right or wrong or judge when it’s not happening to you. Living it and with the choices you make are so much harder. You worked for Leo for how long again?”
Brown eyes gleam with satisfaction as she nods. I’m pretty sure she just made up her mind about me. “Eleven years, I was there from the beginning. I’m not the only one. Leo might inspire fear in companies and the competition when he comes calling. In his employees, it’s only respect and loyalty. In all those articles going on about how ferocious he is not one of them can quote an employee. It’s not because Leo fiddles with those stupid non-disclosure forms either. He doesn’t need to.
“Yes, Leo has pushed companies to the brink to get what he wanted from them or on others he sent Dmitri Markhoff in to close out a company. Markhoff and Leo’s working partnership has netted them billions together, and some want to say they flirt with being unethical, they aren’t. It’s business. Exousia has thirty billion dollars in assets under management because of his kind of business. It made Leo a billionaire by the time he was thirty-seven, and now at forty-one, he is nearing double-digit billionaire status. Is it the kind of business you can handle, dear? You need to know before you go on.”
I don’t need to think about it, I already know. “Yes.”
“Good, now tell me about yourself. You keep fussing with those rings of yours. Are they new?”
I’m a deer caught in headlights. “No, I—uh I’ve been married for years.”
“Really? How long?”
I blink. “Five years, no, we’ve been together for five years and married, we got married two years ago. Sorry, I didn’t get much sleep last night and then no coff
ee this morning. How long have you been married?”
Through narrowed eyes, she studies me, I can’t breathe.
“Forty-two years. We were married six weeks after we met. I’m aware Leo has had problems keeping assistants. Your husband...”
“Felix, my husband’s name is Felix.” I hate Natalie for making my fake husband’s name my cat’s. Her excuse of it being a name I wouldn’t forget and not a rude cat lady jab is something I’m still not buying.
“He won’t have a problem with you working late and being available to Leo at all hours, every day?”
“No, he’s fine. He’s very supportive, very understanding. I really want to work for Leo, working for Leandros Kaplan is a once in a lifetime chance I want to take.”
“Hmm, then listen closely, my dear. I’ll tell you everything you need to know to get the job.”
3
The ringing of the phone pulls me out of the report I’m buried in. I answer and give permission to the building security in the main floor lobby for Alexandra Clark to be allowed up. I stand and stretch while ignoring the hunger pains starting.
Pulling out her file from under the others I have been working through today I wonder where the file I was promised from Diego is. Diego has always delivered on time. The knock on my door brings my head up from the file I’ve already committed to memory. “Come in.”
When she opens the door, her eyes widen, and she pauses before moving again. It is a common occurrence I experience. My height, at six-foot-four coupled with a build honed by years of weight training and working out with a trainer, impresses most people. I do not do it to impress. I do it because Victoria found out my doctor told me I was a heart attack waiting to happen.
At the time I disregarded his warnings, then Victoria came across the follow-up notes and suggestions. My life was an open book to her since her third year with me. One day I walked into my office to find a dietician, and a trainer waiting for me. Victoria told me if I did not make use of them, she would quit. I called her bluff. She walked out the door. Three days later I gave in when her first replacement cried every time I raised my voice in the slightest and the second woman included nude photos of herself in a report I asked for.