All In

Book 1: High Stakes

by Simona Ahrnstedt

Genres: Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Trust is the most precious commodity of all.

In the cutthroat world of Sweden's financial elite, no one knows that better than corporate raider David Hammar. Ruthless. Notorious. Unstoppable. He's out to hijack the ultimate prize, Investum. After years of planning, all the players are in place; he needs just one member of the aristocratic owning family on his side -- Natalia De la Grip.

Elegant, brilliant, driven to succeed in a man's world, Natalia is curious about David's unexpected invitation to lunch. Everyone knows that he is rich, dangerous, unethical; she soon discovers he is also deeply scarred.

The attraction between these two is impossible, but the long Swedish nights unfold an affair that will bring to light shocking secrets, forever alter a family, and force both Natalia and David to confront their innermost fears and desires.

"Fast-paced, sexy and smart!"-New York Times bestselling author Lori Foster

"Given the popularity of Steig Larsson and Jo Nesbo, the idea is to introduce American audiences to another kind of Swedish commercial fiction.… I'm grabbing this one." -BookRiot

Release date: January 31, 2017

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

Wednesday, June 25

David Hammar peered out the domed window of the helicopter. They were a thousand feet over the Swedish countryside and could see about twenty-five miles. He adjusted the headset that let him speak to the other occupants in a normal conversational voice.

“Over there,” he said, turning around to face Michel Chamoun, who was sitting in the backseat and also looking out the window. David pointed to the yellow Gyllgarn Castle as it came into view.

The pilot, Tom Lexington, set the course. “How close do you want me to take you?” he asked, his eyes on the destination.

“Not too close, Tom. Just so we can see it a little better.” David didn’t take his eyes off the castle. “I don’t want to attract any unnecessary attention.”

Green meadows, glittering lakes, and thick woods spread out before and beneath them like an idyllic pastoral landscape painting. The castle itself was built on an islet in the middle of an unusually wide river. Lively water rushed past on both sides of the islet, forming a natural moat that had at one time provided genuine protection against enemies.

Tom swung the helicopter in a wide arc.

Horses and sheep grazed in the fields below them. An avenue lined with enormous oak trees, several hundred years old, led in from the country road. The well-tended fruit trees and colorful plantings surrounding the beautiful castle were visible even from this height.

It looks like a fucking paradise.

“The realtor I talked to estimated the value of the building alone at over thirty million Swedish kronor,” David said.

“That’s a lot of money,” Michel noted.

“And that’s in addition to the forest and pastureland. And the waterways. There’s thousands of acres of land and water. That alone is worth over two hundred.” David kept listing off the assets. “There’s game in the forest and countless smaller buildings that are part of the estate. And then there are the furnishings, of course, the fifteenth-century war trophies, the fancy silver and Russian porcelain, and an art collection that includes pieces from the last three hundred years. All the auction houses in the world will be fighting over them.”

David turned around in his seat. Michel studied the yellow castle they were hovering over.

“And it’s all owned by the company?” Michel asked incredulously. “Not by the family?”

David nodded in confirmation. “It’s unbelievable that they chose to do that,” he agreed. “That’s what happens when people think they’re invincible.”

“No one is invincible,” said Michel.

“No.”

Michel looked out the window. David waited as his friend’s dark eyes swept over the fields. “It’s a national gem,” Michel continued. “If we parcel this up and sell it all off, there’ll be a real outcry.”

“Not if,” David said. “When.”

Because they were going to do just that, he was sure of it. They would subdivide those fertile fields and sell them off to the highest bidders. People would complain, and no one would scream louder than the current owners. He smiled faintly at the thought of them and gave Michel a questioning look. “Have you seen enough?”

Michel nodded, and David said, “Can you take us back to the city, Tom? We’re done here.”

Tom nodded. The helicopter made an elegant turn and rose. They left the idyllic scene behind them and headed back to Stockholm. Highways, forests, and factories passed by beneath them.

Fifteen minutes later they entered the capital city’s air-control zone, and Tom started talking to the control tower in Bromma. David half-listened to the conversation and the short, standardized phrases.

“. . . 1,500 feet, request full stop landing, three persons onboard.”

“Approved, straight-in landing, runway three zero . . .”

Tom Lexington was a skillful pilot. He maneuvered the helicopter with calm movements and a watchful eye. In his day job he worked for a private firm that, among other things, managed the security for Hammar Capital. He and David had known each other for a long time. David counted him as one of his best friends, and when David decided to inspect the castle from the air Tom had volunteered his piloting skills and his time.

“I appreciate your flying us,” David said.

Tom didn’t say anything, just nodded almost imperceptibly to acknowledge he’d heard.

David turned to Michel. “We have plenty of time before the board meeting,” he said with a glance at his watch. “Malin called. Everything is ready,” he continued, referring to Malin Theselius, their communications director.

Michel adjusted his big, muscular, suit-clad body in the backseat. The rings on his fingers sparkled as he scratched his shaved scalp. “They’re going to skin you alive,” he said as Stockholm passed a thousand feet below them. “You know that, right?”

“Us,” David said.

Michel smiled wryly. “Nah, you. You’re the cover boy and the evil venture capitalist. I’m just a poor Lebanese immigrant following orders.”

Michel was the smartest man David knew and a senior partner in David’s firm, Hammar Capital. Soon they would entirely rewrite Sweden’s financial map. But Michel was right. David, the founder, who had a reputation for being hard and arrogant, was going to be hung out to dry in the financial press. And he was kind of looking forward to it.

Michel yawned. “When this is over I’m going to take a vacation and sleep for at least a week.”

David turned to look back again, peering at the suburbs in the distance. He wasn’t tired, quite the contrary. He had been preparing for this fight for half his life, and he didn’t want a vacation. He wanted war.

They had been planning this latest battle for almost a year. It was the biggest deal Hammar Capital had ever done, a hostile takeover of an enormous corporation, and the next few weeks would be critical. No one had ever done anything like this.

“What are you thinking?” David said into his headset. He knew Michel inside and out, knew his silence meant something, that Michel’s keen mind was working on some legal or financial detail.

“Mostly that it’s going to be hard to keep this secret much longer. Someone must have started wondering about the movements on the stock market. It won’t be long before someone—a stockbroker maybe—starts leaking to the press.”

“Yes,” David agreed, because things leaked all the time. “We’ll keep it under wraps as long as we can,” he said. They’d had this discussion many times. They’d polished their arguments, searched for holes in their logic, grown stronger and more cunning. “We’ll keep buying,” he said. “But just a little at a time, less than before. I’ll talk to my contacts.”

“The price of the shares is starting to rise quickly now.”

“I saw that,” David said. The curve of the share prices looked like a wave. “We’ll have to see how long it holds financially.”

It was always a balancing act how fast you could proceed. The more aggressively a company’s shares were traded, the more the action drove the price up. If word got out that Hammar Capital was the one doing the buying—then the rate would bolt. So far they had been exceedingly cautious. They had bought through reliable dummy companies and only in small quantities, day in and day out. Small transactions that were no more than a ripple on the enormous surface of the stock market. But both he and Michel realized that they were nearing a critical threshold.

“Of course, we knew we were going to be forced to go public with this sooner or later,” David said. “Malin has been working on the press release for weeks.”

“It’s going to be insane,” Michel said.

David smiled. “I know. All we can do is hope we can fly under the radar for a little while longer,” he said.

Michel nodded. After all, this was what Hammar Capital did. Their team of analysts searched for companies that weren’t doing as well as they should be. David and Michel identified the problems—often incompetent leadership—and then vacuumed up shares in order to put together a majority holding.

Then they went in, brutally took over, broke the company into pieces and restructured, sold, and profited. They were better at this than almost anyone else—owning and improving. Sometimes it went smoothly. People cooperated, and Hammar Capital was able to drive its agenda. Sometimes there was a fight.

“I’d still like to get someone from the owning family on our side,” David said as southern Stockholm spread out beneath them.

Having one or more of the big shareholders, some of the giant retirement fund managers, for example, on your side was critical for success in a hostile takeover this big. David and Michel had spent a lot of time convincing the managers, attended endless meetings, and run the numbers countless times. But winning over someone from the actual owning family had several advantages. In part, it would be an enormously prestigious symbolic win, especially with this firm, Investum, one of Sweden’s biggest and oldest companies. It would also automatically win over a number of other shareholders who would vote in favor of Hammar Capital if David and Michel could show that they had someone from the inner circle on their side. “It would make the process a lot easier,” he continued.

“But who?”

“There is one person who actually has gone her own way in that family,” said David as Bromma Airport came into view on the horizon.

Michel was quiet for a bit. “You mean the daughter, right?”

“Yes,” David said. “She’s an unknown but considered to be quite the talent. It’s possible that she’s dissatisfied with how the men are treating her.” Investum wasn’t just an old and traditional company. It was patriarchal in a way that would make the 1950s seem modern and enlightened.

“Do you really believe you can win over anyone from that family?” Michel asked hesitantly. “You’re not exactly popular with them.”

David almost laughed at the understatement.

Investum was controlled by the De la Grip family, and the company did billions of kronor worth of business a day. Indirectly Investum, and thus the De la Grip family, controlled close to a tenth of Sweden’s GNP and owned the biggest bank in the country. Family members sat on the board of directors of close to every major Swedish company. The De la Grip family was upper-class, traditional, and wealthy. As close to royalty as you could get without actually being royal. And with significantly bluer blood than any member of the House of Bernadotte, Sweden’s royal family. It would be unlikely for David Hammar, the upstart, to get anyone from the innermost circle—known for their loyalty—to change sides and join him, an infamous venture capitalist and corporate raider.

But he’d done it before, convinced a few family members to join forces with him. That often meant leaving a trail of broken family ties behind him, which he usually regretted, but in this case it would be a welcome bonus.

“I’m going to try,” he said.

“That’s damn near insane,” said Michel. It wasn’t the first time in the last year he’d uttered those words.

David nodded briefly. “I already called to set up a lunch meeting with her.”

“Of course you did,” said Michel as the helicopter started its descent for landing. The flight had taken less than thirty minutes. “And what did she say?”

David thought about the cool voice he’d gotten on the line, not an assistant’s but that of Natalia De la Grip herself. She had sounded surprised but hadn’t said very much, just thanked him for the invitation, and then had her assistant confirm the lunch appointment by e-mail.

“She said she was looking forward to our meeting.”

“She did?”

David laughed, tersely and joylessly. Her voice had been distinctive in that patrician way that almost inevitably triggered his disdain for the upper classes. Natalia De la Grip was one of about a hundred women in Sweden who had been born with the title of countess, the elite of the elite. He hardly had the words to express how little he thought of that kind of person.

“No,” he said. “She didn’t say that.” But then he hadn’t expected her to, either.

Thursday, June 26

Natalia searched through the stacks of paper on her desk. She pulled out a page of tables and numbers.

“Aha!” she said, waving the piece of paper around. She directed a look of triumph at the platinum-blond woman sitting on the little visitor’s chair, which didn’t actually fit in the cubbyhole that constituted Natalia’s office. Natalia’s friend, Åsa Bjelke, peered at the piece of paper with little interest before she went back to examining her pale fingernail polish. Natalia studied the mess on her desk and continued searching. She hated disorder, but it was almost impossible to keep this small workspace tidy.

“How are you really doing?” Åsa asked, taking a sip of the coffee she’d picked up on her way over and watching Natalia go back to searching the stacks of paper. “I’m only asking because you seem really unfocused,” she continued. “And while you do have a lot of quirks, lack of focus isn’t usually one of them. I’ve never seen you like this.”

Natalia furrowed her brow. An important document was gone without a trace. She was going to be forced to ask one of the overworked assistants.

“J-O called from Denmark,” Natalia said about her boss. “He wanted me to submit a report, and I just can’t find it.” She spotted another piece of paper, pulled it out, and read it with weary eyes. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night. First, she had worked until the wee hours. The enormous approaching deal was claiming almost all her time. Then a client had called early—very early—in the morning to complain about something that definitely could have waited a couple of hours. She glanced up at Åsa. “What do you mean I have quirks?”

Åsa took a sip from her disposable coffee cup, and then without responding to Natalia’s question asked, “What’s the problem?”

“Problems,” Natalia replied. “My job. My dad. My mom. Everything.”

“But what’s all this paperwork for? Whatever happened to a paperless society?”

Natalia glanced at Åsa. Her friend looked chipper and well rested, nicely dressed, and neatly manicured. A wave of irritation surged through her.

“Look, not that I don’t appreciate your unannounced visits,” Natalia said, not entirely sincerely, “but my dad is always complaining about how much money his lawyers make. Shouldn’t you be over at Investum working for your salary? I mean, instead of sitting here in my cramped office, swathed in Prada, harassing me?”

“I earn my high salary,” Åsa said, waving her hand dismissively. “And you know full well that your father’s not going to get rid of me.” She gave Natalia a look. “You know that.”

Natalia nodded. She knew.

“I happened to be in the neighborhood,” Åsa continued, “and was just wondering if you wanted to get lunch. If I have to eat one more lunch with any of those other Investum attorneys, I’ll kill myself. Actually, if I’d known how extremely boring lawyers are, I don’t think I would have gone to law school.” She fluffed her blond hair. “Maybe I would have made a good cult leader.”

“I can’t,” Natalia said quickly, a little too quickly, she realized, but it was too late. “I’m busy.” She cleared her throat. “Sorry,” she added unnecessarily. “Like I said, I’m busy.” She looked down and started flipping through some papers she’d already flipped through to avoid Åsa’s penetrating stare.

“Really?”

“Yes,” Natalia said. “That’s not so weird, is it?”

Åsa’s eyes narrowed. “Considering you have a brain like a supercomputer, you’re a terrible liar,” she said. “You had time yesterday. You said so yourself. And it’s not like you have any other friends. Are you trying to avoid me?”

“No, I am busy. And I would never dream of trying to avoid you. You’re my best friend. Although I do have other friends, you know. Maybe tomorrow? My treat.”

“Busy doing what, if I might ask?” Åsa said, not letting the possibility of a free lunch tomorrow distract her.

Natalia didn’t say anything. She looked down at her buried desk. Now would be a good time for one of her phones to ring, or maybe the fire alarm could go off, she thought.

Åsa’s eyes widened as if she’d had a realization. “Aha, who is he?”

“Don’t be silly. I’m just going to eat lunch.”

Åsa’s eyes narrowed to two turquoise slits. “But you’re acting so weird, even for you. With who?”

Natalia pressed her lips together.

“Natalia, with who?”

Natalia gave up. “With someone from, um, HC.”

Åsa furrowed her light eyebrows. “With who?” she stubbornly demanded. She might have made a good cult leader, but she also would have made a terrific interrogator, Natalia thought. All that blond bimbo fluff was misleading.

“It’s just a business lunch,” she said defensively. “With no agenda. He knows J-O,” she added as if the fact that her lunch date knew her boss explained everything.

“Who?”

She capitulated. “David Hammar.”

Åsa leaned back and beamed at Natalia. “The big guy, huh?” she said. “Mister Venture Capitalist himself. The biggest bad boy in the financial world.” She cocked her head. “Promise me you’re planning to sleep with him.”

“You’re crazed,” Natalia said. “Sex-crazed. I actually wish I could cancel it. I’m really stressed out. But one of the things I can’t find in this mess is my cell phone, which has his number in it,” she added. How could you lose a phone in an office that was smaller than forty square feet?

“For God’s sake, woman, why don’t you get yourself an assistant?”

“I have an assistant,” Natalia said. “Who, unlike me, has a life. Her kids were sick, so she went home.” Natalia glanced at the clock. “Yesterday.” With a sigh she sank into her desk chair. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t look anymore. She was really done. It felt like she’d been working nonstop for ages. And there was so much paperwork she was behind on, a report to write, and at least five meetings to schedule. Actually she didn’t . . .

“Natalia?”

Åsa’s voice made her jump, and Natalia realized she’d been dozing off in her uncomfortable chair.

“What?” she asked.

Åsa looked at her seriously. Her mocking expression was gone.

“Hammar Capital isn’t evil, no matter what your dad and your brother think. They’re tough, yes, but David Hammar isn’t Satan. And he’s really hot. You don’t need to be ashamed if you think it’ll be fun to meet him.”

“No,” said Natalia. “I know.” But she’d been wondering what Hammar Capital’s legendary CEO wanted with her. And maybe he wasn’t Satan, but he had the reputation of being hard and inconsiderate even by financial industry standards. “No, I’m just going to have lunch and get the lay of the land,” she said firmly. “If he has business with the bank, he’s going to want to deal with J-O, not me.”

“But here’s the thing. You never know with Hammar Capital,” Åsa said, gracefully standing up. “And you’re underestimating yourself. Do you know anyone as smart as you? No, exactly.” She ran her hand over her completely stain- and wrinkle-free outfit. Even though she was wearing an austere suit (Natalia happened to know that this specific Prada suit had been tailor-made for Åsa), a simple silk blouse, and light-beige pumps, she looked like a glamorous movie star.

Åsa leaned over the desk. “You know very well you shouldn’t care so much what your father thinks,” she said, as usual putting her finger right on the sore spot and pushing. “You’re brilliant, and you’re going to go far. You can make your career here.” Åsa gestured to the building they were in, the Swedish headquarters of one of the world’s biggest banks, the Bank of London. “You don’t have to work at the family company to be worth something,” Åsa continued. “They have the world’s least progressive view of women’s rights and you know it. Your dad is hopeless, your brother is an idiot, and the rest of the board wins the male chauvinist pig prize of all time. And I should know, because I work with them.” She cocked her head. “You’re smarter than all of them put together.”

“Maybe.”

“So why don’t you have a seat on the board?”

“But you work there. You’re satisfied, aren’t you?” Natalia asked, avoiding the question of why she was not on the Investum board. After all, that was quite the sensitive topic.

“Yes, but I’m only there because of gender quotas,” Åsa said. “I was hired by a man who hates having to fill quotas as much as he hates immigrants, feminists, and blue-collar workers. I’m his alibi. He can point to me and say that at least he hires women.”

“Dad doesn’t hate ... ,” Natalia began, but then stopped. Åsa was right after all.

“Plus your dad feels sorry for me because I’m an orphan,” Åsa continued. “And I don’t have any ambitions to take over the place and lead the wretched show. My only ambition is to avoid dying of boredom. But you, you could go all the way to the top.”

Åsa picked up her fifty-thousand-kronor handbag and started to root around in it. She pulled out a light-colored lipstick and dabbed some on her lips.

“He asked for a discreet meeting,” Natalia said. “Actually, I shouldn’t have said anything. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“You weirdo, of course I won’t, but what do you think he wants?”

“Must be something about financing. Maybe he’s putting together a deal with one of our clients? I don’t know. I was up half the night trying to work that out. Or maybe he’s just networking?” It wasn’t unusual that people wanted to meet with her because of who she was—a De la Grip, a woman with connections and a pedigree. She hated it. But David Hammar had piqued her curiosity. And he hadn’t sounded fawning or slick, just courteous. And she had to eat, so . . .

Åsa eyed her thoughtfully. “Actually, I should go with you. Who knows what silly things you’ll let slip if you’re left to your own devices.”

Natalia refrained from pointing out that she was considered one of Sweden’s most promising corporate finance talents. Corporate finance was one of the business world’s most complex fields, and she was one of the highest-ranked students to have earned a business degree in all of Sweden—ever. In her work with corporate finance, acquisitions, and advising, she managed literally hundreds of millions of Swedish kronor on a daily basis, and she was in the process of executing one of the most complex banking deals ever made in Sweden. Still, Åsa was of course right—who knew what silly things she would let slip today, as unfocused as she was. “I’ll call you and tell you how it went,” was all she said.

Åsa watched her for a long time. “At least find out what he wants,” she finally said. “It can’t hurt. A lot of people would do anything for the chance to work with David Hammar. Or to sleep with him.”

“You don’t think it’s too risky to be seen with him, do you?” Natalia asked, hating how unsure her voice sounded.

“Of course it’s risky,” Åsa said. “He’s dangerous, rich, and your father hates him. What more could you want?”

“Should I cancel?”

Åsa shook her head and said, “Of course not. A life without risk is no life at all.”

“That’s today’s word to the wise?” Natalia asked. It didn’t have much of a ring to it.

Åsa laughed and held out her empty coffee cup. It was white with black lettering. “No, that’s just what it says on my coffee,” she said. “I suppose I’d better head back to the office and make a couple of calls. Maybe I can fire someone. Lawyers really aren’t any fun, huh? Where are you meeting him?”

“On Djurgården Island at the Ulla Winbladh restaurant.”

“Could be worse,” Åsa said. She couldn’t seem to find anything to criticize, despite really trying. She ran her fingers over her scarf. The last time Natalia had seen a silk wrap like that was on a shelf in Nordiska Kompaniet’s Hermès department, and the price tag had been considerable.

“You’re a snob, you know that?” Natalia said.

“I’m quality-conscious,” Åsa said, adjusting the strap of her handbag over her shoulder. “Not everyone can buy mass-produced goods. Surely you can see that.” She shivered and then flashed Natalia a brilliant turquoise glance. “Just protect yourself. Who knows who he’s slept with.”

Natalia made a face. “Apparently mostly princesses, if you believe the rumors,” she said. She wasn’t above reading gossip on the Web.

“Bah, pretenders and nouveau riches,” said Åsa, whose family traced its Swedish roots back to the 1200s. “Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Well, that doesn’t rule out very much, Natalia thought, but bit her tongue.

“Are you going to wear that?” Åsa asked, looking at Natalia’s outfit with a face that suggested there just might be something worse than wearing mass-produced consumer goods. “Where in the world did you find it?”

“It’s just a lunch meeting,” Natalia said defensively. “And this was actually custom-made, thank you very much.”

Åsa surveyed the gray fabric. “Yeah, but in what century?”

“You’re really a terrible snob, you know that?” Natalia said as she stood and walked over to the door, opening it for Åsa.

“That is certainly a possibility,” Åsa admitted. “But you still know I’m right.”

“About what?”

Åsa laughed in that way that usually made men start bragging about their summer homes and offering to buy her drinks. “About everything, darling. About everything.”

David strolled from Hammar Capital’s headquarters at Blasieholmen over to the Ulla Winbladh restaurant on Djurgården Island.

A host led him toward a table where he saw Natalia De la Grip. He glanced at his watch. He was early. It wasn’t quite one o’clock yet, but she was even earlier. The other patrons were mostly tourists, but Natalia had still chosen a table at the back of the establishment and was seated so that she was hardly visible. It was clear that she didn’t want to be seen with him, but that made sense. He had made the reservation out here instead of at one of the more central restaurants near Stureplan so they wouldn’t be recognized.

She spotted him, raised her hand to wave, but then quickly brought it back down as if she’d changed her mind. David started walking toward her.

She was very fair-skinned and looked quite modest, her face serious, her clothes an austere gray. It was hard to believe that she worked as an adviser to one of the world’s biggest banks, and for J-O no less. He was one of the most demanding and eccentric bosses David had ever met. But J-O had promoted this drably dressed woman to the top, saying she had the potential to become one of his best corporate finance wizards. “She’s bright, alert, and bold,” J-O had said. “She can go as far as she wants.”

David would have to be careful not to underestimate her.

When he reached the table, Natalia De la Grip stood. She was taller than he’d expected. She held out her hand. It was slender, with short, unpainted nails. She had a firm, professional handshake, and David couldn’t help but glance at her left hand, even though he already knew. No ring.

“Thanks for meeting me at such short notice,” he said. “I wasn’t so sure you’d make it.”

“Really?” she asked skeptically.

David released her hand. The heat from it lingered on his palm, and he smelled a spicy, warm, and vaguely alluring scent. So far she wasn’t anything like what he’d been expecting, and that made him more alert.

It had been surprisingly hard to learn anything more than general information about the middle of the three De la Grip siblings. David had skimmed through what had been written online, in articles, and in a few biographies of her family. What he found was mostly about her father and her two brothers, almost nothing about her, not even on Wikipedia, definitely not on the Swedish website Flashback. But then women were traditionally completely invisible in that family, even though the men always married very powerful and well-to-do society women. Natalia’s foremothers had all been rich. Her mother was related to Russian grand duchesses and the Swedish financial elite, but the men in the family wielded all the real power—Natalia’s father Gustaf, her grandfather Gustaf Senior, and on back through the centuries. Unlike both of her brothers, hereditary prince Count Peter De la Grip and jet-set prince Count Alexander De la Grip, Natalia did not have a particularly high profile in either the business pages or the tabloids. But that fit with the overall picture, of course. She wasn’t just shy of the media because of her name and her background. No one presided over as many things behind the scenes as the corporate finance folks, secretly doling out their advice. They ran things from the wings and rarely spoke to the press.

She wore her dark hair up in a fairly severe hairstyle and a strand of pearls around her neck, a mark of upper-class stuffiness that David hated. No, he thought, as he took his seat at the table, in the end Natalia De la Grip looked exactly the way he’d known she would—unmarried, almost thirty, career-focused, well