If We Were Perfect - Ana Huang Page 0,18
her future away over some idiot finance bro who had nothing better to do with his time than annoy her.
“The question is whether or not I can help you.” Logan flashed what he must’ve imagined was a dazzling smile. Objectively, he wasn’t bad-looking, but his personality canceled out any charm his golden hair and lean build might have had. “You’re new to the city, and I can show you around. I know some great nighttime activities we could do after work.”
His voice dropped, making his insinuation clear.
Disgust crawled into the pit of Olivia’s stomach. She flicked her gaze toward the gold wedding band on Logan’s finger. “Your wife might not like that very much.”
Translation: I would rather bathe in acid than spend time with you outside the confines of this godforsaken office, you cheating ass.
He didn’t blink at the mention of his spouse. “Don’t worry about her.”
“Okay. I won’t.” Olivia scooted her chair to the left so she could see her monitor again without Logan blocking the way. She purposely didn’t respond to his offer to show her some “great nighttime activities.”
Logan opened his mouth again, but before he could speak, their boss poked his head out of his office.
“Olivia, I need to speak with you.”
Olivia pushed back from her desk and sauntered past a disappointed-looking Logan. Hopefully, he would be back at his desk—on the other side of the room from Olivia—by the time she finished her meeting.
She entered the managing director’s office and sank into the chair opposite Michael, curious what this was about. She hadn’t interacted with him much beyond a perfunctory greeting on her first day, but Michael Berman sat high on Pine Hill’s hierarchy, and it couldn’t hurt to butter him up.
They made small talk for a minute or two—how Olivia liked Stanford, her impressions of San Francisco, and so on—before Michael got down to business.
“Have you heard of Ty Winstock?”
The name sounded vaguely familiar. Olivia flipped through her mental files until she zeroed in on where she’d heard it before. “He’s the co-founder of Mosaic,” she said, naming a popular workspace and productivity app that had exploded on the scene a few years ago. Since then, Mosaic had been praised by everyone from Forbes to Oprah. The company went public last year with a huge IPO (initial public offering) that made its founders two of Silicon Valley’s newest tech billionaires.
However, Ty Winstock was notoriously press-shy; his partner was the one who made the media rounds. Olivia didn’t even know what he looked like.
“That’s right.” Michael nodded, looking pleased by Olivia’s quick answer. “We’re hoping to acquire him as a new client, but he’s quite...eccentric. I’d like you to put together a dossier on him. Anything you can find that’ll give us a better understanding of his likes, dislikes, etc. We have our first meeting with him in two weeks. You’ll join me.”
Surprise and pleasure zinged through Olivia’s veins. She hadn’t had a lot of client-facing opportunities so far—most of her work involved tracking investments and conducting special projects such as analyzing the firm’s private equity holdings and industry trends, all of which she could do at her desk—but she thrilled at the challenge.
“I’ll have the dossier ready by next week,” she said, trying to hide her excitement.
“Excellent.” Michael tapped his pen on his desk. “I’ve heard great things about you from HQ. I know you’re only in the city for the summer, but who knows?” He smiled. “Maybe you’ll want to stay after you graduate.”
Olivia made a non-committal noise and smiled back. She loved New York, and she hated the majority of her co-workers here. The chances of her staying in San Francisco were slim to none.
When she returned to her desk, she found a Post-It note stuck to her mouse pad.
For nighttime shenanigans, call 415-768-2898 ;)
No signature, but it wasn’t necessary.
Olivia’s good mood dimmed, and she glared across the office at Logan, who winked and puckered his lips when he saw her watching him.
Ugh.
This was going to be a long summer.
Olivia got home—correction, got to Sammy’s house—at half-past eight. She’d stayed late to work on the dossier and had gone down the Internet rabbit hole researching Ty Winstock. He was an interesting character, to say the least. Thirty-three years old, never married, no children, a high school dropout who’d taught himself coding and created his first app at fourteen. He was unique among billionaires in that he didn’t own a house or any personal real estate holdings—he traveled a ton and moved from