her stymied. Avery, the thirty-nine-year-old head of a hip, boutique PR firm, insisted she wanted a beachy Key West vibe in the cottage. That would be easy enough to pull off, but everything Kit knew about Avery seemed to contradict what she claimed to long for. Could anyone who wore earrings with two huge Chanel C’s on them and carried designer handbags too large to fit under the airline seat in front of her be happy in rooms decorated with bamboo shades and bleached coral?
Kit grabbed a sheet of paper and made a Venn diagram. In one bubble she scribbled down words Avery had tossed out during one of their exploratory meetings, words that also fit with the clippings Avery had pulled for her: spare, serene, creamy, bleached wood. In the other bubble she listed words she associated with Avery’s personal style: chic, sophisticated, glittery, over the top at times. Then she stared at the empty intersecting section and wondered what could fit there.
Nothing came immediately to mind. She made herself a cappuccino in the office kitchenette and as she stared at a small milk mug, one she’d brought back as a souvenir from a trip to Sweden, she suddenly had a crazy brainstorm. What if she went for beachy but mixed in touches of Gustavian design? It was a Swedish style from the 1800’s that called for cream colors, as well as splashes of pale gray, blue, or yellow. But it also featured crystal chandeliers and gilded mirrors. Done right, Gustavian could be both spare and glittery. It could give Avery what she swore she wanted as well as what she probably yearned for without knowing it.
Perfect, Kit thought. She sent Avery a long email describing the concept.
Dara, Kit and Baby’s assistant, arrived promptly at nine. She was wearing a fuchsia-colored turtleneck sweater that worked fabulously with her dark brown skin and hair. After they exchanged hellos, Kit asked Dara to start putting together Pinterest pins on Gustavian design for her to share with Avery.
“Oh, that era rocks,” Dara said. “And I’d love to know more about it.”
“You never cease to amaze me, Dara,” Kit said. And it was true. Dara was not only mature for twenty-four, but she also had far more understanding of decorating history than Kit ever possessed at her age.
“Well, it’s all that Swedish blood of mine,” Dara said kiddingly.
At 11:15, Kit slipped on her coat, said goodbye to her office mates—letting Dara assume she was off on an errand—and headed toward the subway. She still felt unsettled about her experience in Islamorada and wasn’t looking forward to revisiting it.
Ithaka was located on West 43rd, in a nondescript high-rise, but when Kit stepped off the elevator onto the twenty-ninth floor, she discovered that the reception area was sleek and modern; one entire wall was covered in glowing white Plexiglas with the word Ithaka in gray. She gave her name to the receptionist and a minute later Matt Healy appeared. He looked spiffier today, dressed in business casual—black slacks and a crisp button down shirt—but she could sense the edge still. Maybe the identity theft was weighing heavily on him.
“Thanks so much for coming,” he said. “Let me take you to Steve Ungaro’s office. He’s our security chief and he very much wants to speak to you.”
“You’ll be in the meeting, too, won’t you?” Kit asked.
“Unfortunately, I won’t be able to stay. I’m leaving momentarily on a business trip. But I’ll make the introduction and you can fill Steve in.”
Okay, that was a curveball, but there seemed to be no point in protesting. She followed him into a large open area. Along the outside were glass-walled offices, which she assumed were for higher-level players; the middle space was clearly the trading area—six or seven rows of desks, back-to-back with the ones in the next row. Each desk had four to six computer screens mounted above it, bright with multicolored charts and graphs and long streams of numbers, none of it easily discernable from a distance. Most of the desks were occupied by men, some dressed like Healy in business casual, others in jeans and hooded sweatshirts, and most wearing headsets. What surprised her was how hushed the atmosphere was. No ringing phones. Barely any conversation.
Kit wasn’t very familiar with hedge funds or how they operated. But she’d read enough to know that they were part of a high-stakes world where someone could make millions in a day, and also lose that much, all with a single