All In (3 page)

3

D
avid 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-to-do but utterly ordinary.

Apart from her eyes, that was. He'd never seen anything like them.

“I have to admit I was curious when you called.” She gave him a golden look, and David felt something tingle down his spine.

He took the menu from the waiter and quickly perused it. “You must be used to people looking you up,” he said with a laugh and a consciously warm, professional smile. A big part of financial sector work came down to networking, and he could hardly remember the last time he'd eaten a lunch that hadn't also been work-related. It was going to take more than a pair of unusually attractive eyes to distract him.

“Well, of course,” she said, “billionaires ask me out all the time.”

His lip twitched at her wry comment.

She studied her menu and then nodded that she was ready to order.

“I hear you did quite well on the Schibsted deal,” he said, to feel her out a little.

“You have good sources,” she said, cocking her head slightly. “I don't know if I should feel flattered or alarmed.”

“Not alarmed. I did my homework,” he said. “You're considered an up-and-coming talent, someone to keep an eye on.” She'd been described as tough, cosmopolitan, and serious. There was no reason to doubt that all were true.

“I read that article too,” she said. “I suppose time will tell.” She laughed. “You know how it is. You're only as good as your last deal. You're either on your way up or your way out.”

“And right now?”

“Oh, right now I'm definitely on my way up.” She said it without any trace of false modesty. He could count on the fingers of one hand how many members of the Swedish aristocracy he'd met who could talk without wrapping everything they said in false modesty and mock humility.

She ordered fish, and David automatically requested the same. It was elementary psychology to order the same dish as the person you had asked out.

“Did you always want to work at a bank?” he asked once the waiter had left them. “Or were you ever interested in trying something else?” After all, she had been working at the Bank of London for several years now. It wasn't an unreasonable question. The young financial sector elite was a hungry gang, and most of them were always on the lookout for new challenges.

He glanced at her slender, ringless fingers again. She was probably completely dedicated to her job. Just like he was.

“I'm happy at the bank,” she said.

“You're the only woman on J-O's team?”

“Yes.”

“I'm sure you're an asset,” he said neutrally.

“Thanks.” Natalia gave him a wry smile. She drank some of her mineral water. “I'm happy at the bank, but if I'm going to be honest, my long-term career plan is to eventually take a position in my family's company. I assume you know which family that is?”

He nodded, feeling that familiar hatred welling up. He smiled, inhaled once, and then nodded encouragingly, as if he was actually interested, not out for blood at all.

“Where I come from, people don't have such a favorable view of your line of work,” she continued.

This honesty could be a problem. “That's not a secret,” he said, trying to sound neutral, as if he were discussing something abstract, not the fact that the De la Grip family openly detested everything Hammar Capital stood for. Although they wouldn't use the word “detest,” nothing so déclassé as that. They just wanted to guard their proud traditions.

She must have sensed something about his attitude because she quickly laughed, a little apologetically. “I know it's conservative and prejudicial. I'm not saying I agree with them.”

He raised an eyebrow, because this was the crucial point. Just exactly how much did Natalia's view differ from the rest of her family's? “Oh?” he said.

“I don't think you can just lump together everyone who works in private equity or even venture capitalism. But, that said, my loyalties still rest with my family.” She shrugged slightly apologetically and waved her hand dismissively. “Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for family.”

David watched her.
Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for family
. She couldn't possibly understand what those words did to him.

But at least he'd learned what he needed to know. He had actually suspected it as soon as he'd seen her—Natalia De la Grip would never act against her family's interests. She wore loyalty and integrity wrapped around herself like an invisible cloak. Lucky for him that she had misconstrued the purpose of this lunch. She thought he was networking and scoping out business opportunities, not trying to get her to sell out her nearest and dearest.

“I understand,” he said, while at the same time he couldn't help wondering how the obviously intelligent Natalia justified to herself the fact that she still didn't have a seat on Investum's board, that pretty much
no
women held important positions in any of the companies that Gustaf De la Grip ran. And that her father was known for his chauvinist statements about women in general and gender equality at the workplace in specific. Natalia's love for her family made her blind.

“So, what makes you one of J-O's favorites?” he asked as their food arrived. He added, “Those are J-O's own words. I'm just quoting him.”

“Do you know him well?” she asked, placing her napkin in her lap and picking up her silverware. She ate with delicate, silent motions, setting down her utensils between each bite. Boarding school manners.

“Well enough to trust his judgment,” he replied. J-O was one of the world's most influential bankers, and they had collaborated several times. “Tell me more.”

“Corporate finance is a job that relies a lot on the personal touch, as I'm sure you know, on relationships and building a sense of trust.” One of Natalia's shoulders twitched. She set her silverware down again, her back totally straight, without fiddling with her place setting, her glass, or anything else. “I have a lot going for me.”

“Yes, I can imagine,” he said, realizing with surprise that he was being genuine. There was something reliable about her, almost steadfast. If he weren't too cynical to believe in such a thing, he would have said Natalia seemed like a good person.

“And not just because of my last name,” she added, a faint pinkish hue flashing over her cheekbones, subtle as a brushstroke. “I'm good at what I do.”

“I'm convinced of that.”

Natalia narrowed her eyes. “Why do I feel like you're flattering me?”

“Not at all. I'm just naturally charming,” he replied with a smile. He hadn't expected her to be so appealing that he'd occasionally find himself forgetting her history and her name.

She smiled. Even if this lunch was a waste of time, at least it was pleasant. She was good company and not a snob. Natalia piqued his curiosity. And, actually, he felt a little attracted to her, which was completely unexpected. Her dichotomy was downright sexy: all that cool paleness and at the same time passionate intensity.

“You know,” she said, meticulously setting down her silverware yet again. “I
know
I should be grateful for my background—my family, my name, and all that. And I am; anything else would be arrogant. But sometimes I wish I didn't have it all, that I'd done it on my own. I think there must be some satisfaction in accomplishing everything oneself.”

“Yes, it is satisfying,” David said slowly, studying her expectantly. Not a single upper-class person—neither female nor male—had ever said something like that to him before. “You're lucky you're a woman, then,” he added. “At least you've had a bit of a handicap.”

“Hmm.” She sat in silence, seeming to think.

Few industries were as backward in terms of equality between the sexes as the elite financial sphere. The women were well-educated, but they disappeared as you moved up the ranks. Managing to rise to the kind of position Natalia held was evidence of extreme intelligence. And persistence.

She raised her head and gave him a provocative look. “And what are Hammar Capital's thoughts on gender-equality issues, if I might ask? You're led by two men, right? The field of venture capital isn't exactly known for its high percentage of women. So where do you stand on the issue?”

“My position is exemplary,” he responded, picking up a new potato on his fork, salting it, and stuffing it into his mouth.

“But what do you think about the fact that there are so few women serving on Swedish corporate boards?” she continued in a tone that told David she didn't take the subject lightly. “Not to mention the operations side of things. How do things look there?”

“Hammar Capital doesn't hire people based on their sex but rather their expertise,” he said.

Natalia scoffed, and David was forced to hide a small smile. When she was passionate about something, she apparently put her heart and soul into it. All her polite blandness was replaced by fire and passion.

“If you do things based on quotas, you run the risk of hiring less-qualified people,” he continued, well aware that that argument ought to be like waving a red flag in front of a bull for anyone with a brain. “We hire based on skill.”

It was like pouring fuel on a bonfire.

“That is such bullshit,” Natalia said, the red patches on her cheeks growing. “Skill isn't the deciding factor,” she said, her jaw clenched. “Not if people headhunt the same way they always have—through the same old-boy networks. And they get what they want, the same old men with the same old views. It has nothing to do with merit. That's just window dressing.”

“I'm not saying we don't want good women,” he said. “But some say they're hard to find.”

“With attitudes like that I won't be surprised if you go belly-up soon,” she said stiffly. She glanced down at her plate and added a muttered, “I hope so.”

“We're doing great,” he said. “We have . . .”

“But don't you see . . .” She was looking up again and started waving her hands around. When a woman who could presumably make it through a Nobel Prize banquet without committing a single breech of etiquette starts waving her silverware around, she's got to be pretty worked up.