“You won! You wanted to humiliate me, and I have to say, you couldn’t have planned this any better! Whatever they’re paying you, it isn’t enough.”

She shook her head in confusion, pushing the bed-mussed hair out of her face. “Danial, what the hell are you talking about?”

Wordlessly, he turned his phone to her face, the fully brightened blue light feeling particularly aggressive. On his screen was an all-caps, breaking-news headline:

WORKERS HORIZON PARTY COMES OUT SWINGING AGAINST HORACE CAPITAL PARTNERS: VIDEO

She took the phone from his hand, scanning the words a few times until they fully registered. Her heart sank through her chest, ill with recognition of what she had done. Even the write-up of the video contained multiple mentions of their work with Santander Bank. Her mind reeled, panicked beyond all ability to defend herself.

“I guess I should say thank you, too,” he continued, laughing with that same light madness she’d heard the night before, “for not letting me fuck you, knowing this was going to drop the next morning. That was pretty merciful!”

“Danial, I didn’t—”

“Stop it. You won, okay? You won. You finally fucking broke me. So you can stop now.”

With that, he tore the phone from her hand and turned to leave the room, slamming the door behind him. Her hand remained exactly where he left it: hanging in the air, gripping an invisible device. The clock ticked away on the wall and the floor rocked softly below her feet, everything looking as pristine and luxurious as it always had.

Only after a moment did she tear herself away from her spot in front of the door, cutting across the room to her nightstand and ripping the laptop from its charger. She flicked it open, the muscle memory of her fingers allowing her to pull up her work email without thinking.

There it was, a victim of their spotty internet: the email to Clara, lingering in her outbox.

17. Somewhere on the Mediterranean

17

SOMEWHERE ON THE MEDITERRANEAN

Now

Becoming the kind of person who didn’t cry easily had been a point of pride for Alex, an accomplishment she’d use to reassure herself whenever her singleness or meager savings made her feel like she wasn’t really a grown-up. Now, though, she rocked back and forth in her bed, tears streaming down her cheeks like a child. She was still in her plush terry cloth robe, its shawl collar balled up in her fists and pulled to her face to absorb everything. Her usual anti-anxiety mantra—Breathe in, breathe out. That’s all you have to do.—was useless against the intensity of her sadness, only making her feel more ridiculous when she tried to repeat it. Besides, breathing in mostly just resulted in catching on her own inhale, setting off another wail she had to muffle with her robe.