I spoke nine languages, but for four years I let Blackwood Global believe I could only speak English.
That wasn’t modesty.
It was protection.
When I was twenty-three and returned to the United States from Vienna, I still believed in clean slates.
I had a master’s degree in International Relations, two overstuffed suitcases, a folder full of language certificates, and an offer from Brussels that my professors called a golden ticket.
I spoke English, German, French, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Arabic, and Italian.
German was the language in which I felt most confident when it came to power.
I could read contracts without blinking.
I could negotiate, dream, and curse in it—and contradict an arrogant executive so politely that he wouldn’t realize he’d lost until ten minutes later.
Grant Holloway loved that ability, as long as it belonged to him.
He was five years older than me, handsome in an expensive, effortless way, and already a rising executive at a multinational logistics firm.
We knew each other from the same suburb in Connecticut.
He had impressed my mother at Christmas dinner, made my father laugh at the barbecue, and told my friends I was “the smartest person in the room”—until I came to believe that pride and possession might simply sound alike.
At JFK, he was waiting by the baggage claim, a charcoal-grey coat draped over his arm.
“You’ve already conquered Europe,” he said as the suitcases rattled past us.
Then he took my hand, as if everything were already decided.
“Come home now and build a life with me.”
I heard love.
Later, I understood: He heard strategy.
