“Business …” Bette arched an eyebrow, waiting for Lea.

“We were bantering about who’s been recruiting whom between us earlier…”

“You mean what we were talking about earlier?”

“Uh, huh.  That’s how you got us to bet on a currency arbitrage deal, years ago, that one of your associates, Logan Polson, was setting up, right?”

“You were in that firm?!” Bette asked, thoroughly surprised.

“Yeah … Very clever, Bette. Execution was well done.  Experiencing all of it was … indescribable.”

Bette frowned slightly, as she tried to recall details of that deal. Then she remembered seeing the name of the firm that had been a party to that deal in Lea’s resume’.

Lea saw the lightbulb switch on. “Yeah … you introduced us to Logan, and got a fee for that, and when we executed the transaction, you got a percentage from that, too.   You knew, though, that we had done our research, and that we would be interested, in the first place, in a deal like that.  So, I’m not sure what came first in that deal … whether you knew Logan was leaning in that direction, or whether you knew we were one of the few firms that would be looking to do a deal like that.   But, I could see that, even observing you from afar, you were methodical and thorough when you did your stuff.  I finally figured out that you actually recruited us, but let us think that we recruited you.”

Bette had to smile at that one.

“The partner I worked for at that time told me, “This is a really good learning opportunity, Lea. You asked me how it works in our world, how different things are outside the garden walls of that management consulting firm you were working for?  Lesson one is observe how she does it.  We’re interested in doing a deal, we go to her, she introduces us to Logan, who she knows would be genuinely interested, and we compensate her with a good but not great fee for that intro.  We’re impressed, so we latch onto her.  Meanwhile, Logan’s happy with the deal and excited that he’s unloaded, so he cuts her a small percentage also, very likely.  But the real money comes in for her when we profit later on from the deal, when our hedge works out, and we pay her again.”