The Pact Read Online Free Page A

most men running. Not, I reminded myself, that I should care what any friend of Richard’s thought of me or my chosen career.
    “Of course. It can’t be any worse than hawking your best friend’s personal memorabilia on the Web.”
    “I’m an investment banker,” I confessed. “Mergers and Acquisitions at Winslow, Brown.” I cocked my head and waited for him to gasp with horror and run, shrieking, from the dance floor.
    Instead, he chuckled. “You say that like you’re a bounty hunter or a paid assassin.”
    “Not too far off,” I said. “Even worse, it’s so 1987.”
    “Hardly. I’m sure it’s very high-powered. All of that glamorous wheeling and dealing.” There was a teasing edge to his voice.
    I laughed. “I guess it depends on how you define glamorous. ” I’d spent far more sleepless nights crunching numbers and cranking out client presentations for smug bald men than I cared to remember. My life at Winslow, Brown bore about as much resemblance to Gordon Gekko’s in Wall Street as my legs did to Cindy Crawford’s. But at least the rules for a successful career in investment banking were clear, and I knew how to follow them. My hours were long and grueling, and I frequently despised my colleagues and my clients, but my bonus checks were large and if I continued to play the game, I might be in a position to retire well before my fortieth birthday with several million in the bank, financially secure and independent at last. I changed the subject. “What about you? What do you do?”
    “Me? Equally embarrassing. Very 1999.”
    “What? Tell me,” I demanded.
    “I run an Internet start-up.”
    “How is that embarrassing? Now that really does sound glamorous. And hip. I bet you never have to wear a suit. And you probably get to take your dog to work.”
    “Right,” he said. “I spend most of my time sucking up to venture capitalists and worrying about how I’m going to make the payroll.”
    “Still, it must be exciting,” I told him, even though the very idea of so much risk and uncertainty was enough to make my blood pressure rise.
    “It doesn’t seem so exciting when you can’t sleep because you don’t know where your next round of financing is going to come from,” he replied, but his easy tone suggested that he didn’t really lose much sleep.
    “Maybe I could help,” I started to offer, when a sharp elbow jostled me and a spike heel stamped down on my foot. Icy liquid splashed down my dress and a glass shattered on the floor, but I was blinded by pain and hardly noticed.
    “Oh, dear,” I heard someone drawl in a faintly slurred lockjaw. “Now look what I’ve done. Darling, are you all right?” The black curtain of physical anguish that had swept before my eyes faded to jagged purple and white lines, through which I could make out one of Emma’s aged great-aunts gazing at me with tipsy alarm and wearing a dress that had probably been the height of chic when she’d purchased it from Monsieur Balmain’s house of couture back in the late 1950s. Its pattern clashed in an unfortunate way with the vibrating stripes that clouded my vision. She couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, even if you factored in the heft of her bee-hived hair, but I still felt as if a Mack truck had run over my foot.
    “I’m fine,” I managed to gasp out. “Really.” You old bat, I added silently.
    “Oh, but your frock, darling. I’m so sorry.”
    “Nothing a little seltzer water won’t fix,” I said as politely as I could under the circumstances. She was still apologizing as Peter took me by the elbow and steered me across the room and through a swinging door into the kitchen. The room was busy with staff cleaning up the remains of the elaborate meal, but a harried waitress pointed us to a side pantry in answer to Peter’s inquiry about seltzer.
    This was just great, I thought to myself as Peter guided me across the crowded kitchen. Only a moment ago I’d been managing to dance and