Chapter 3

"Jenna, are you there?"

7:23 AM.

Ethan White's Snapchat message appeared on my phone.

In six years, this was the first time he'd messaged me.

Not to ask how I was. Not to say long time no see.

To ask for help.

"I'm meeting an investor this morning at 9:30, a company called Summit Holdings. You've been abroad so many years, do you know anyone there? Help me get some intel on what kind of person their CEO is."

I looked at this message.

Ten seconds later, another one.

"Ella said you did something with investment banking? Then you must understand this circle a bit. Help me ask around, this is really important to me."

Investment banking.

That's how Ella introduced me to him.

He didn't even know what I did. That "investor" was my company. That "CEO" was me.

But he didn't know. No one told him.

Just like no one ever cared.

I didn't reply.

Another message popped up.

"Jenna? Did you see my message?"

Then:

"I know you might still care about what happened before. But that's all in the past. Help me with this, for Ella's sake."

Care about what happened before.

He thought I wasn't replying because I still resented him for marrying Ella. Not because I had over forty emails waiting to be processed first thing in the morning.

He thought my world still revolved around him.

I shut off my phone and walked into the company.

By the time I sat at my desk, Amy had already organized the day's schedule.

"Miss Harris, I went through Starlight Tech's due diligence attachments. The investment department has a finding."

"Go ahead."

"Their core product LINKER's underlying conceptual framework highly matches the paper you published in the school journal in 2016. Keyword overlap exceeds seventy percent."

"I know."

"The investment department initially thought it was a related party project and specifically came to confirm with me. Your name isn't in any of Starlight's documents."

"Of course not."

Amy hesitated.

"If we need to go through intellectual property procedures---"

"We don't."

"But Miss Harris---"

"If a concept only stays in a notebook, it's nothing. He at least took it and did something with it. Whether he succeeded is another matter."

Amy pressed her lips together.

I finished flipping through his business plan.

Four product lines, not one viable. Technical team configuration unbalanced. Customer acquisition cost model still using data from three years ago.

My phone lit up again. Family group chat.

Ella: [Honey's already left! Everyone pray for him]

Right after, she private messaged me:

"Ethan said you didn't reply to his message. Can you just help me this once? He's really nervous."

Then an eight-second voice message:

"Is your phone dead? Did you even see it or not?"

I closed Snapchat.

8:50 AM.

Amy poked her head through the door.

"Miss Harris, Mr. White from Starlight Tech arrived at reception. He's forty minutes early. Should we arrange for him to go to the meeting room?"

"Arrange it. One glass of water."

"Okay."

She walked out two steps then turned back.

"The receptionist said---after he arrived he made a phone call, not quietly."

"What did he say?"

"He told whoever was on the phone: 'Don't worry, I've seen plenty of investment companies this size, today's just going through the motions.'"

Summit Holdings, last year's assets under management: twenty-six billion.

In his mouth, we were just going through the motions.

"Amy."

"Yes."

"Notify him at 9:30 sharp. Not a minute earlier."