The golden light of sunset streamed through the big floor—to—ceiling windows on the west side of The Retreat, a 2,000 square foot apartment on the roof of a downtown office building. Despite the warm colors the light lent to everything in the room, and the thermostat set to a comfortable 75 degrees, Kenneth Marshall felt cold.
It was late October so he knew that the air on the other side of those glorious windows, with their commanding view over the city, was chill and damp. He knew that there was nobody but his cook and personal assistant waiting for him at his actual home, the three—story condo at the top of the prestigious Blackwell Building, which he could see just seven blocks away. But what made The Retreat feel so cold to him was that it represented a part of his life that he feared was dead.
It had been almost nine months since he last had a guest in The Retreat. Several weeks, at least, since he'd even visited it himself. The Retreat had been one of the places where he used to feel the most alive. The other place was his office, which was two floors down. But like The Retreat, the office was also somewhere that Kenneth Marshall used to love but didn't anymore. Now, like The Retreat, the office was a place without spark, without fire, without vitality or power or potential. Both of those were places that Kenneth Marshall used to be Kenneth Marshall at his most potent, but not anymore.
He crossed the living room to the west—facing windows, and watched the sun as it disappeared behind the skyline of the city. He wondered if he was looking at himself – something that was once bright and shining up high in the sky, but now was past its zenith and fading away.
Marshall took a few steps back from the window and sank into one of the chairs in The Retreat's living room. He had always thought of that chair as his throne, for within the walls of The Retreat he used to be more than just a successful entrepreneur and lover. He had been a king, an emperor, a god, even.
But he couldn't see his way back there. He'd built a financial empire, but each success he'd had required him to build some structure to secure it. And over time, without him noticing it, those structures had turned into walls around him. Marshall no longer drove his own business. He had directors, managers, and board members who now managed every single aspect of company. All he had to do was sign papers, look good in front of the cameras, and the board and regulators, and find things to do with the rushing torrent of money that flowed to him.
As the last slice of the sun's burning red disc vanished, Marshall realized that it had been a few years since he'd actually visited one of the start—ups his company financed. Since he'd actually been in the room with some bright and brilliant young mind that was lit up with some great idea and just needed a little bit of financial help to make their dreams come true. That was how he'd made his money – having his finger on the pulse of the world around him, and being connected to a network of thinkers and creators, relying on his instincts to figure out which crazy, off the wall ideas would have legs and which would go nowhere.
Marshall chided himself for moping about as if he were old and washed up at only 45. He still had tons of energy, he was in great shape, looked good, and was never short on invites to parties or events with the moneyed set.
But it had still been too long since he shook hands with somebody that was ready to change the world. Marshall Capital had become stale in the last half—decade. It no longer sought out the true innovators, the ones taking risks that often failed but paid out tremendously when they succeeded – not only in money, but also in really making the world a better place. No. Marshall Capital had become a company where an army of analysts parsed an investment down to an array of numbers, finding only the safest investments out there, and making decisions on which to back based on margins of less than a tenth of a percent of return on the investment.
As Marshall got up and went to The Retreat's wine cabinet, he wondered how he never noticed that happening. He opened up the wine cabinet and immediately closed it again. The wines were the only food and drink left in The Retreat, all the rest having long since been cleaned out when he stopped using it. The reason why he'd never had the wine moved to his condo was because he was always in a very, very specific mood and state of mind while in The Retreat, so specific that it even affected his taste in wine. Marshall had a very strong preference for the driest whites most of the time. But when he was in The Retreat, or perhaps on a date that was going to end at The Retreat, he craved the deep earthy red color, bitter tannins, and bold flavors of big red wines.
The reason there was nobody with him in The Retreat right then, nobody waiting for him at home, was that his accountant had transferred the final settlement payment from his divorce earlier that day, to an ex—wife now relocated to Singapore. The collapse of his marriage had cost him dearly. Not in money – she was a reasonably successful woman in her own right, so there was only the matter of dividing the shared assets they'd accumulated together. The real cost to him had been in the loss of her companionship. Marshall and Jade had met just as Marshall Capital was becoming a major player in the venture market. Jade had been involved in facilitating niche importing – smaller quantities of highly valuable goods that required special transport or handling. Both of them had brilliant minds for the work they did, and found it so energizing, that they needed romantic partners that were similarly passionate and driven. Neither of them would have been able to be happy with somebody who went through their daily motions thinking that they were content and happy with what they had. They would have devoured and destroyed anybody like that.
