The hotel lawyer took notes.
When Simone finished, the general manager rubbed his forehead.
“Were you asked to review those documents?”
“No.”
“Did you touch them?”
“No.”
“Photograph them?”
“No.”
“Record the conversation?”
“No.”
“Did you tell anyone outside the room?”
“Mateo knows something happened. Nothing else.”
The manager nodded.
The lawyer asked, “Do you still have the written wager?”
Simone pulled the note from her order folder.
The lawyer read it.
Then looked at the manager.
“Wow.”
The manager said nothing.
The lawyer handed it back.
“Keep that.”
“Is it legal?”
“That is a much longer conversation.”
Simone almost laughed.
The manager leaned forward.
“Simone, I need to ask you something directly.”
“Okay.”
“Did you intentionally involve yourself in the negotiation?”
“No.”
“You understand why I’m asking.”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Whitmore is an important client.”
Simone felt her stomach drop.
There it was.
Important client.
Two words capable of rearranging morality.
She folded her hands.
“I understand.”
The manager looked uncomfortable.
“But Jade Meridian is also an important client.”
Simone waited.
He sighed.
“And frankly, if what you described is accurate, this is not a service issue.”
The lawyer nodded.
“It isn’t.”
The manager looked at Simone.
“You’re not being disciplined.”
She had not realized how tightly she had been breathing until that moment.
“Thank you.”
“We may need you to provide a statement.”
“I will.”
“And please do not discuss the matter publicly.”
“I won’t.”
Simone stood.
The manager said, “One more thing.”
She turned.
He hesitated.
Then smiled slightly.
“Your Mandarin really that good?”
Simone laughed for the first time all night.
“Apparently worth a hundred thousand dollars.”
At 1:17 a.m., Simone unlocked the door to the apartment she shared with her father.
The living room light was on.
Her father sat on the couch watching basketball with the volume almost muted.
Isaiah Brooks was sixty-four.
Retired postal worker.
Bad knees.
Excellent memory.
He looked at Simone.
“You’re late.”
“I know.”
He pointed at the television.
“Warriors lost.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
She put her bag down.
Isaiah studied her face.
“What happened?”
“Why does everyone keep asking that?”
“Because you look like somebody handed you a winning lottery ticket and a subpoena at the same time.”
Simone sat beside him.
“That is disturbingly accurate.”
She told him everything.
Not quickly.
The story took almost forty minutes.
Her father interrupted exactly three times.
Once to say, “He bet you how much?”
Once to ask, “Did you get it in writing?”
And once to laugh so hard he started coughing when she repeated her final comment to Grant.
When she finished, Isaiah shook his head.
“Your mother would have enjoyed that.”
Simone smiled.
“She would have told me I should’ve minded my business.”
“No.”
“She absolutely would.”
Isaiah thought.
“Yeah.”
They both laughed.
Then he became serious.
“What are you going to do if he pays?”
Simone looked toward the kitchen.
“I don’t know.”
“Eli’s tuition.”
“I know.”
“Your loans.”
“I know.”
“Maybe a car manufactured this century.”
“My car is fine.”
“Your car makes noises in languages even you don’t speak.”
Simone smiled.
Then her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A message.
Ms. Brooks, this is Chen Rui from Jade Meridian. Chairwoman Zhao would like to speak with you tomorrow if you are comfortable doing so. No discussion of confidential documents is required. Please let me know.
Simone showed her father.
He whistled.
“You saved a six-hundred-million-dollar deal from becoming somebody else’s six-hundred-million-dollar problem.”
“I didn’t save anything.”
“You stopped them signing.”
“Maybe.”
He looked at her.
“Simone.”
“What?”
“You spent ten years pretending the part of you that wanted more had disappeared.”
She looked away.
“That has nothing to do with tonight.”
“It has everything to do with tonight.”
“Dad.”
“You think I don’t know?”
Isaiah leaned back.
“You came home because your mother needed you.”
“I know.”
“You stayed because Eli needed you.”
“He did.”
“And then your mother died.”
Simone said nothing.
“And Eli went to college.”
Silence.
“So who needs you to stay now?”
She looked at him.
“You?”
Isaiah laughed.
“Girl, please.”
“Your knee barely works.”
“My knee is sixty-four. It has earned the right to complain.”
“Dad.”
“I’m serious.”
He pointed toward her.
“You keep acting like sacrifice is the same thing as purpose.”
Simone looked down.
Her father’s voice softened.
“Your mother needed you.”
He paused.
“She would never have wanted needing her to become the end of your life.”
Simone swallowed.
“I like the hotel.”
“I know.”
“I have friends there.”
“I know.”
“The money is decent.”
“I know.”
“So what?”
Isaiah looked at her.
“So nothing.”
He smiled.
“I just remember the twenty-three-year-old who wanted to negotiate trade agreements at the World Bank.”
Simone rolled her eyes.
“I was insufferable.”
“You were.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He turned the television back up.
Simone sat there long after the game ended.
The next morning, she met Chairwoman Zhao at a small tea house in Chinatown.
No executives.
No lawyers.
Only Zhao and Chen.
Simone arrived wearing the nicest clothes she owned: dark trousers, a white blouse and a navy jacket she had bought four years earlier for an interview she never attended.
Zhao stood when she entered.
“Ms. Brooks.”
“Chairwoman Zhao.”
“Please. Meilin.”
Simone sat.
Tea arrived.
For several minutes, they talked about nothing important.
Weather.
San Francisco traffic.
The hotel.
Then Zhao switched to Mandarin.
“May we speak this way?”
“Of course.”
Zhao smiled.
“I wanted to hear you without one hundred thousand dollars hanging over the conversation.”
Simone laughed.
They spoke for twenty minutes.
About Beijing.
About regional accents.
About food.
About Simone’s studies.
Eventually, Zhao asked:
“Why did you notice the clause?”
“Habit.”
“That is not an answer.”
Simone smiled.
“My graduate work focused on regulatory divergence in cross-border manufacturing agreements.”
Chen raised his eyebrows.
Zhao nodded.
“I knew there was more.”
Simone continued.
“After graduate school, I joined the Eastbridge Policy Institute.”
“I know Eastbridge.”
“I worked on supply-chain policy.”
“Why did you leave?”
“My mother.”
Zhao nodded.
No pity.
Simone appreciated that.
“My husband was ill for eight years,” Zhao said.
“I’m sorry.”
“He died twenty-one years ago.”
She poured tea.
“People treat caregiving as empty time.”
Simone looked at her.
Zhao continued.
“They ask what you did during those years as though keeping another human being alive does not count.”
Simone said nothing.
The older woman smiled.
“I dislike that.”
“So do I.”
“Good.”
Zhao set down the teapot.
“We are not signing with Halcyon.”
Simone blinked.
“I assumed the deal was suspended.”
“It was.”
“And now?”
“Terminated.”
“That quickly?”
“The clause was not the only problem.”
Zhao glanced at Chen.
He opened a folder.
“We reviewed earlier translated drafts overnight,” he said in English.
“There were eleven discrepancies.”
Simone stared.
“Eleven?”
“Four were insignificant.”
“And seven?”
“Not insignificant.”
He closed the folder.
Zhao continued.
“We do not yet know who authorized them.”
Simone thought of Colin.
“And Mr. Price?”
“His attorney contacted ours.”
Simone understood.
“He’s cooperating.”
“Yes.”
Zhao lifted her cup.
“Grant Whitmore called me seven times this morning.”
Simone could imagine it.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I was having tea.”
Simone laughed.
Then Zhao leaned back.
“I did not ask you here to discuss Grant.”
“Okay.”
“I have a question.”
Simone waited.
“What do you want?”
The question was so broad that Simone almost answered defensively.
“What do you mean?”
“Career.”
Simone looked down at her tea.