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incentivized with tax breaks and conservatively financed by major banks with long-term loans, on the Aurora they were out on a limb. So they were looking for major money: $250 million would make the Aurora a real partnership. They’d settle for a $100 million loan, which would at least cover what they owed the hedge fund. With the dollar in the toilet and oil prices in the stratosphere, it was becoming increasingly common for financing for New York City development deals to come from the Middle East. It wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t something people were vocal about either.
    Not that they talked business over the endless dinner. At least not explicitly. As his father had said on the way to the restaurant, doing business with Middle Eastern families was like trying to get into a prim virgin’s pants. You were going to have to spend a lot of quality time together before you made your move.
    Family was part of it. Family and business were much more intertwined there than here. The ruling families controlled the money; there was a very limited circle of people to talk to about business and they all shared the same blood. Being a private family-run company was an advantage in dealing with Middle Eastern investors, but it also necessitated evenings like this.
    It was the fathers who did most of the talking at dinner. Jeremy and his sister, as well as Ahmed and Mattar, spoke only when spoken to, which was mainly to answer rote background questions about their education and interests. Jeremy drank three bottles’ worth of sparkling water without clearing out the itchy dryness at the back of his throat. His knees kept jamming up against the bottom of the table as his legs bounced.
    After dinner he called Alena from the back of the waiting Town Car. “I’m on my way over,” he said.
    “Is that your way of asking?” Alena replied.
    “I’m not asking.”
    ALENA PORTER was living off the books at a Roth Properties building on the far western end of Manhattan, on the outskirts of the Meatpacking District. It had been the model unit used to sell the building: the furniture and decor from the interior designer had all been left in place. Alena was traveling light, had barely left a mark, so the apartment still felt more like a model unit than a lived-in apartment.
    Jeremy let himself in. Despite having keys, he’d never once shown up unannounced. He saw no reason to run the risk of an awkward surprise.
    They’d met at a nightclub a few months ago, Alena not quite working there, but not quite a customer either, arm candy for the VIPs. She’d come to the city to model at seventeen, recruited by Elite, had a perfectly good run but never really broke out of the pack. Okay, so it wasn’t love, but Jeremy was wild for her waifish body, her perfect lips, the purring sound she made when she came.
    Alena was in the shower when he entered the apartment. Despite himself, Jeremy felt a jab of something he was pretty sure was jealousy. He couldn’t stop himself from wondering if she was washing away another man, one who’d been in this apartment when he’d called. He walked into the kitchen, helped himself to a generous glass of the twenty-one-year-old Lagavulin he’d brought over the previous weekend. He noticed the bottle was nearly half-empty. Then again, he’d definitely had a fair amount of it the night he’d brought it over.
    He took a gulp, then another, too quickly, so that it burned going down. This was no way to drink an aged single-malt, Jeremy told himself. Part of why he bought the good stuff was so that he would drink it like a grown-up, not guzzle it down like some frat boy, but it didn’t always work. Especially not lately.
    He realized the shower had turned off; a moment later he heard the bathroom door open. “Are you here?” Alena called out.
    “Somebody is,” Jeremy said, taking another sip of the whiskey, then eyeballing the amount left in the glass. He opened the bottle again, the cork top making a