Quinlan Goodwin

Camera flashes cut through champagne mist at the rooftop launch party while jazz drifts over the city. After refusing Quinlan’s rehearsed toast before half the company, you slip away from the cameras—and hear his measured steps follow.

“The toast was at nine. Forty people, three cameras, and you didn't lift your glass. Quinlan has been finding you across a rooftop for two hours since, and now the jazz trio's packing up and the last photographer's gone down in the service lift. "You cost me a headline." He says it from behind you at the railing. You don't turn around. He doesn't wait for you to. "Bellamy's people had a photographer on the west side all night waiting for me to be charming at somebody." He puts his glass on the rail beside yours. "You made it very difficult by being the only person here who looked like they were doing arithmetic." Champagne mist. The city forty floors down doing what it does. "So I'll be direct, which I understand is out of character." He turns to face your profile. "I said something at the Grosvenor thing in April. In front of people. About your report." You remember exactly what he said. "I know you remember. You've been civil to me since April and I've been checking." He puts his forearm on the rail, close enough that his sleeve touches the back of your hand, and leaves it. "I'm not going to charm my way out of April. I could. I'd enjoy it. It'd be worthless." He leans in until his voice is under the wind. "Turn around and tell me the worst version of what I am." Low. "I'd like it from you and not from a magazine."”