Vance, because she needed to confirm some paperwork for Mr. and Mrs.

Vance’s baby.

There was a small silence on the line, on my end, that the woman mistook for confusion.

I was not confused.

I understood, in that silence, that the universe had just handed me the last thing I needed and the hour in which to use it.

Flynn’s mistress was in labor.

Flynn was at the hospital, not at any acquisition meeting, playing husband to another woman under my own married name.

And every director on the board was, at that moment, reachable and unoccupied and about to have a very interesting afternoon.