Silver Tears(17)

“Oh yes. I was at the Stockholm School of Economics with some of them.”

David pointed at her G&T.

“No matryoshka today?”

“No, I’m usually a creature of habit and mostly stick to the classics.”

“There’s a reason why they’re classics,” he said, raising his dry martini into the air.

“True.”

She contemplated David over the rim of her glass. She was impressed by his drive. Being an angel investor demanded competence, intuition, know-how, and major capital.

“But it must still be risky, right?”

“Drinking a dry martini?”

“Ha ha. No, investing in companies with your own cash. I’ve seen a lot of companies go under, no matter how good an idea or product they had. There are lots of pitfalls in business, plus a fickle market.”

“Yes, you know all about that. But I have to say that I’m incredibly impressed by what you’ve done with Revenge. It’s a textbook example of how to elevate a company into the billions in a relatively short space of time. Very impressive.”

“Thanks.”

“But to come back to your question: Sure, it’s a risky business but I love every minute of it. If you don’t dare take risks then you don’t dare live.”

“True.”

Faye ran her finger around the rim of her glass, considering. Around them, the Cadier Bar was beginning to fill up with patrons and the hubbub was rising toward the ceiling. Brasse the bartender nodded quizzically at their almost-empty glasses. Faye looked at David, who shook his head.



“I would love to stay and have a drink with you. Or two. Or three. But it just so happens that tonight I’ve got a business dinner I have to suffer my way through. And yes, it’s at Teatergrillen…”

Faye returned his smile. To her surprise, she felt disappointed. She enjoyed his company.

He waved to Brasse.

“Chalk the lady’s drink up on my tab.”

He took his coat and turned toward Faye.

“No protests. Just buy the next round.”

“I’d be happy to,” said Faye. And she meant it. As he sauntered through the room heading for the exit, she watched him for a long time.





Faye finished the contents of her smoothie glass while in her seat on the terrace and then wiped her mouth with a napkin. She reached for her phone. She knew she ought to check how many emails had arrived overnight, but the ache in her stomach was making itself felt again—the longing for Julienne. So instead, she pulled up the number and waited impatiently as it rang.

Her mother answered and, after some small talk, Faye asked her to pass the phone to Julienne. There was a warm feeling in her chest when she heard her daughter’s voice so close—she shared Julienne’s delight as she explained that she could now swim to the bottom of the pool.

Then the unavoidable question.

“Are you coming home today, Mommy?”

“No,” she said, feeling her voice grow thick. “I have to stay a little longer. Soon—I’ll be home soon. I love you so much, miss you loads, and I’m sending you so, so many kisses.”

After Faye had ended the call, she wiped away a few stubborn tears. Her stomach ached again; the longing was lodged there like a thorn. But she reassured herself that her daughter was having a good time in Ravi with her grandmother. Now she had to push aside thoughts of Julienne and once again adjust to a world that thought her daughter was no longer alive.

She went into her room and over to the closet, where she selected a blue pantsuit.



The sun was shining and the heat was oppressive, despite it not yet being midday. When she had leafed through the newspapers, she had seen that the weather forecasters had promised an unusually hot summer.

On Monday she was finally going to get the keys to the apartment.

“Things could be worse,” she muttered, smiling when she remembered the previous evening with David Schiller.

His charm had come as a surprise. What he had said—that if you didn’t dare take risks then you didn’t dare to live—had set her thinking. When it came to Revenge, she could take big risks without blinking, but in her personal life she surrounded herself with high walls that it would take a ladder to scale. It had been a long time since a man had said something that had made her reflect on herself. But there was something different about David Schiller.

She turned on the laptop to prepare for the meeting with Irene Ahrnell at Taverna Brillo on Stureplan. She had deliberately postponed the meeting with Irene until she had warmed up with some of the other investors. Irene had been her first investor. And her biggest. She was a legend in the world of Swedish finance—and over time they had also become firm friends.

Irene was one of the few people that Faye turned to for advice, but in the last year Faye had neglected to keep in touch with her. She no longer had the same grasp of what was going on in her life.

She googled Irene. Some of the articles from the last year were ones she had already read, but some of them she had missed. It had been a good year for Irene. Two important new board appointments, a much-discussed sale of one of the companies that she had made a success, and a new role as CEO for one of the most respected finance companies in Europe. There was also a new man in Irene’s life: the heir to an Italian auto giant. They would have a lot to talk about at lunch.