I did exactly as Peter had suggested, and went right to his ski house Thursday afternoon after an almost full and luckily slow workday. The house was as magnificent as I’d expected—the quintessential ski chalet punctuated with oriental carpets and chocolate leather, the plush carpeting offsetting the grandiose scale of the rooms. A gaping stone fireplace beckoned us into the great room, where 180-degree views of the mountain awaited us. I had been asleep for four of the five and a half hours that Sam drove, and was still groggy as I explored.

“No way. It’s too weird,” I said, standing in the doorway to the master bedroom, staring at a picture of Peter and his beautiful blond wife on the nightstand next to the California king. “We have four other rooms to choose from!”

“Are you saying you want to sleep in bunk beds?” Sam smiled.

“Fine, three other rooms,” I said, and rolled my eyes sleepily.

Sam pushed a button on the wall, and the windows let out a soft groan as the blackout shades recoiled, revealing a huge screened-in balcony with heat lamps, oversize chairs, and a glass table. Beyond that, Killington Mountain was streaked with moonlight bouncing off the snow-covered trails. I put my bag down and slid open the balcony door while Sam clicked on the heat lamps, and then he slipped his arms around my stomach and leaned his chin on my shoulder from behind.

“Can we stay in this room? Pretty please?” he whined. I laughed and turned to him.

“Sam?” I said into his chest. “What if this job is changing me?” The question surprised me as I spoke.

He kissed my cheek. “I loved you before this job. I love you now. And I’ll love you after,” he said, making a sweeping, circular gesture around my body. “In the meantime, I’ll just have to grin and bear the perks of your career.”

I breathed in, believing his words and allowing myself to appreciate his goodness for the first time in too long, allowing myself to see all the things that had made me fall in love with him. I looked into his kind eyes and knew that he’d never grope a woman in public, he’d never cheat on me. I pulled him onto Peter’s bed.

Eventually the animalistic need for sustenance trumped the one for sex, so we dressed quickly and got into the car. Aware that all the restaurants in the village closed at ten thirty, we walked into the first cozy Italian joint we spotted. As we waited for the ma?tre d’, Sam pressed his stomach to my spine. I slipped my hand around the back of his thigh to pull him closer.

“How many will you be tonight?” the ma?tre d’ asked politely. I felt Sam lean into me, and I turned to him.

“Should we just take our food to go?” I asked, giving him a wink.

We were on our second bottle of red wine, and the pizza was nearly frozen as we bobbed our shoulders out of the hot tub to steal bites of it before resubmerging ourselves. I thought momentarily about telling him what had happened at the Stag River Christmas party, but the night was so perfect I didn’t want to derail it, so I rambled to him about interoffice politics instead.

“. . . and all the first-years only hang out with each other. It’s totally bizarre. And they all know everything about each other.”

“How do they know?” Sam was drunk, but he looked entertained.

I was drunker. “I have no idea. I only know because Carmen tells me.”

“Carmen,” Sam repeated.

“She’s only terrifying before you get to know her. You’ll meet her at the Klasko holiday party!”

I took another sip of wine and slid next to Sam, who craned his neck to look up at the stars. “You hate that I work at a BigLaw firm,” I said poutily, running my fingers over the jet by my hips.

Sam continued to look at the sky. “You’re becoming an Icarus,” he mumbled.

“What?” I furrowed my brow and took another long sip.

Sam lifted his head. “You’re being ridiculous!” he enunciated. “I don’t hate that you work at a big firm! I just hate that you’re so stressed.” He looked at the house hulking over us. “How much do you think Peter makes a year?”

I contemplated lying for a moment before yielding to the desire to see Sam’s reaction to the truth. “Four to six. Depending on how good of a year he has.”

“Million?” Sam asked, but he knew the answer. He inhaled the cold air sharply and groaned. “Who needs that much money, honestly? It’s like . . . absurd. You can live well off of so much less.” If you think that’s a lot, you should see what our clients take home each year. “And it doesn’t buy you happiness, obviously. He said he never uses this place. Bet he doesn’t want to be stranded on a mountain with his family.” Sam snorted. “Six million a year. Fuck me.”

And so I did. Partially because he asked me to. Partially to prove to him that he turned me on without a penny to his name. Partially to prove it to myself.

That first night in Vermont was like magic—like we had been transported back to those early days in Cambridge when we delighted in discovering each other. When Sam awoke the next morning, I saw a lust and love in his eyes that I only then realized had been lacking in the past month. I hated myself for the victory of winning him over in only a day after months of neglect. I knew with such an easy victory, I would grow tired of making things right between us.

With Friday stretching out long before us with little on the agenda, Sam pulled me close while still under the covers. I indulged him out of obligation, but it made my skin itch slightly. I already knew how the remainder of the weekend would go. I knew it would feel like an eternity. He didn’t want to go through the process of renting ski equipment for only a weekend. He thought massages were too expensive. He took my Thursday takeout suggestion to mean that I was content to hang out in bathrobes and eat pizza on the couch for the next forty-eight hours as well. I started growing antsy inside, rationing the time I spent on the New York Times crossword puzzle so it would last me the whole car ride home. I missed the grind of constant work I had become so accustomed to and comfortable with.

Sam enthusiastically took to binge-watching Breaking Bad, which neither of us had watched when it originally aired, while I worked on the slides for Miami for a bit on Friday and a large portion of Saturday and drafted some postclosing cleanup emails for the deal we had just signed.

“Al, this show is insane! Come watch!” Sam was practically giddy as he refilled his water glass in between episodes.

“I wish,” I said, gesturing to my computer, though I knew I probably could have carved out some time to watch with him. Miami will be fun. I tried to force myself to relax and enjoy the slow workweek while I had it.

*

“Just a quick round, and then we’ll meet Didier out front and head to dinner,” Jordan said, pressing L as the doors closed to join the two halves of the Fontainebleau F inside the leather-walled elevator.

“Where’s dinner?” Matt asked, not looking up.

“Joe’s,” I said, one hand on my phone, the other pulling at the red dress I had carefully chosen because it was both conservative and lightweight, a rarer combination than one might think, and just cute enough for going out after the corporate cocktail hour.

The elevator jolted at the end of its descent, and the automated voice announced that we were in the lobby. We all typed furiously for our last moments in the iron cage before putting our phones away.

“Game faces, people,” Matt said, stretching his neck.

The chrome doors disappeared fluidly into the elevator walls, releasing us into a sea of men, drinks in hands, and a very few women, most of them waitresses. New York City’s Ferragamo ties and Zegna suits were replaced by Miami’s Tod’s loafers and Ralph Lauren linen pants—it was like Wall Street: The Resort Wear Collection. The air conditioning pumped ferociously, almost allowing us to forget the sticky evening outside our protective cocoon. A woman with an iPad said something to Matt and then handed us all name tags, which Matt and Jordan slapped across their chests. I hesitated for a minute, then fastened mine awkwardly under my collar, just south of my neck, so as not to encourage any inappropriate eye wandering.

“Vodka rocks. Scotch neat,” Jordan confirmed, pointing from Matt to me. “Skip?”

“Um, I’ll do a vodka cranberry.”

Jordan shook his head. “We do clear drinks.” I waited to see if he was kidding. “Vodka soda?” he asked. I shrugged and nodded as we stepped out into the pit. Jordan grabbed the first waitress he saw and ordered for us.

“Watch and learn,” Jordan said, leaning into my ear. “Matt’s a master. He becomes exactly who the person he’s speaking to wants him to be.”