“Okay… okay, thank you Freida,” I say into my desk phone. “That’s fine, tomorrow. Of course.”

I hang up the phone, slamming the handset back into the receiver. Two days since I got back to the estate, and I’ve slept like hell both days. I can’t believe just how much it’s gotten to me, the incident in Los Angeles.

It wasn’t knocking out Drew Washington, that arrogant, spoiled remnant of his father’s coattails has had it coming to him for a long time. He’s thought his shit doesn’t stink for a very long time, and for most of a decade he and I have been engaged in a tit for tat cold war.

It’s been a minor annoyance for most of the time, really. Drew would try to use his company’s influence to stop something I wanted, and I would play the game right back. It hasn’t been that hard, most of the time Drew and I have ended up on opposite sides of any issue naturally. His family’s invested heavily into natural gas, oil, and even nuclear power, while I’ve pushed hard for alternative energy. Drew’s very one percenter, I’m not. Other than perhaps both of us being on the boards of numerous universities and endowing a shit-ton of scholarships, there’s little that we share in common.

But until last night, I didn’t really care. I mean, I’m dying. Who the fuck cares if Drew Washington is pissed off at me? Sure, I’ve cock blocked him when we were both single, but he’s done the same to me.

What I’ve never done, to Drew or to anyone, is the shit Drew pulled the other night. Grabbing my wife’s ass on the dance floor? Dragging her out of the room like they were going upstairs to fuck?

I know I shouldn’t be this pissed, but dammit, I am. It’s been two days, and I’m still pissed off. Even now, talking with Freida, I’m pissed.

I look around in my lab, and decide I’m not getting anything else done today. Instead, I head out to my indoor pool. It’s nothing as palatial as it sounds, really. When I started getting stiff in the mornings, I read about swimming as a great way to maintain flexibility. The problem is, living in Minnesota means outdoor swimming is pretty much out of the question most of the year. Since I have no desire to freeze my balls off imitating a polar bear for half the year swimming, I had to put in an indoor pool.

But I didn’t have the square footage, and didn’t want to waste the time waiting. So, I got an indoor ‘endless’ pool. About the size of a normal one car garage with all the machinery included, the pool is adjustable so that I can swim, aqua jog, or whatever, and never move an inch. I quickly strip and change before jumping in and setting the current. Warming up, I move through my various strokes over the next hour, switching when one set of muscles gets too tired until I’ve got my pulse racing and my lungs aching. Even then, I push on until the spit in my mouth is electric and I start snorting half lungfuls of water through my nose my breathing is so erratic.

I climb out of the pool, grabbing a towel and drying off. As I do, one of the estate staff, Hank the maintenance man, comes in. He’s been with me for only a few months, I hired him right out of a technical college course after he showed me that he was a lot more than just a ‘one trick pony’ with his repairs. “Oh, sorry Mr. Kelley. Didn’t know you were using the pool today.”

“Anything wrong with it?” I ask, rubbing at my hair. “Ran just fine for me.”

“Nothing like that. Just time for the monthly filter checks and I wanted to double check the water pH. Last time I did a check it was just a bit too acidic. Don’t worry, it won’t eat your skin or nothing, but I’m glad you wear goggles when you swim.” Hank gets to work, whistling happily to himself as he opens up the pool’s side panel and leaning in. Pulling out a wrench he stops, shaking his head in amusement. “Whoops. Almost forgot.”

“Forgot what?” I ask, squatting down next to Hank. While most of my inventions have been in much more complex devices, I like tinkering in regular machinery too.

Hank holds up his left hand, where a textured silver band resides on his finger. “Almost forgot. Me and Reba got married over the weekend, and I’m not supposed to wear my ring when I’m messing around inside machinery. Not unless I want to only count to nine with my fingers.”

I chuckle, remembering the old admonition before stopping. “I didn’t know you were getting married.”

“No offense Mr. Kelley, but you were busy. Didn’t want to bother you,” Hank says. “Besides, Reba invited more people than the church could hold by herself anyway, I’m surprised we got everyone inside.”

“You’re taking a honeymoon, I hope?” I ask, realizing that I haven’t given Su Lin a real honeymoon yet myself.

“Sure, next week we’re gonna fly down to the Virgin Islands. Bit expensive, but that’s okay. Reba’s more than worth it.”

“Congratulations,” I reply. “And don’t worry about the cost of your honeymoon. It’ll be taken care of.”

Hank looks like he’s about to protest, he’s that sort of working class guy that doesn’t like handouts, but he also knows my reputation. Finally he nods, and gives me a smile. “Thank you, Mr. Kelley.”

“Think I’ll go change,” I reply, leaving. As I climb the stairs to my bedroom, I shake my head. Hank… married. I guess that’s going around the estate. And Hank’s a good guy too, he’ll take care of Reba.

Like you haven’t been for Su Lin, a little voice says in my head and I stop just inside my bedroom door, my hands freezing on the waistband of my swimsuit. I try to argue about it, but the mental voice is right. Sure, I’ve been giving Su Lin material things, and yeah there’s been the meals and the trip to Disneyland, but I haven’t really been taking care of her.

In fact, I’m as upset about the way Drew Washington acted because I caused most of it. If I’d just had Su Lin with me, introduced her to the Senator and around the room as I did the schmoozing, Drew never would have even had the opportunity to try and grab her ass. Never mind the rest of what he did.

And she did fight back, I saw that. She wasn’t going along with him of her own free will. Hell, she fought me later too, that intense sex was as much combat as it was fucking… and I think if it wasn’t for her still near virginal levels of inexperience, she might have been able to make me submit. What she did with her mouth… and what I did to her after that…

“Shit,” I mutter to myself as I break my paralysis and push my swim trunks the rest of the way down. “I guess I need to apologize.”

* * *

The sun’s down when the helicopter lands from the airport, the rotors slowing to a stop. Through the windshield, I can see Freida, who’s giving me a bit of the stink eye as she pulls off her flight helmet. I’ve talked with her a few times since I left California, she’s kept me abreast of what she and Su Lin have been up to. Considering what she told me, I’m glad she did.

I walk over to the side of the helicopter and open the door, lowering the steps for Su Lin as she steps out, looking both stunning and more casual than I’ve ever seen her before. Her hair’s pulled back, and she has on jeans that make her curves look… well, I’m glad that my pants are loose, let’s leave it at that.

“Su Lin, welcome home,” I say, holding out a hand to her. “I know you must be tired, but would you join me on the patio for a talk?”

“I… okay,” Su Lin says, taking my hand. Freida starts to follow us, but I shake my head, this is for me and my wife only. She turns and heads for the house, where I’m sure she’ll start unpacking her bags and preparing for tomorrow.

I turn my attention back to Su Lin, who looks beautiful in the soft evening light. “How was your flight?”

“It was… Rick, I’m sorry,” Su Lin says quietly, stopping on the lawn. “I shouldn’t have danced with Drew Washington, or brought shame to you. I’m sorry that I have not measured up to what you need in a wife.”

I blink, swallowing as I look into her face, and cup her cheek. “Su Lin, you are a good woman. I should never have doubted your intentions or your loyalty.”

Su Lin nods, and we walk to the porch, where I’ve had a light meal setup with fine wine. I pour her a glass and take a seat as she settles in before toasting. “To a new start then.”

“To a new start.”

We clink glasses, and Su Lin takes a small sip before setting the glass down. “Rick, I’m sure you know, I did a little retail therapy when I was in Los Angeles. On Freida’s advice.”

“Not a problem, as long as you didn’t buy out the Ferrari dealership,” I joke. “Why are you worried?”

“Because I don’t want to have to do it again,” Su Lin says. “For all of the things surrounding me Rick, I want to be able to be a better wife for you and future mother to your child. But to do that, I need you to let me inside, to know more.”

Her words are clear, and I think about it for a moment before nodding. “You’re right. I have kept you in the dark a lot. What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about why you need an heir so badly,” Su Lin says, folding her hands on the table and looking at me. “What motivates a man to spend all this money to get a woman he barely knows and doesn’t care about pregnant?”

There’s something in her tone, in the way she phrased her question, that leaves me shaken. I brush off trying to answer with a bullshit response or a joke, and sip my wine before answering. “There’s a lot of reasons, I guess. Of course there’s the instinctual one. I’m dying, Su Lin. Not in the ephemeral, existential Buddhist everyone-is-dying sort of way, but instead I’ve got a hard deadline. And yes, I’m arrogant enough to think that I’d like a little bit of my DNA to carry on.”

“What else?” Su Lin asks. “Because let’s be plain, Rick. You’re the sort of man that if you just said ‘DNA samples for free, stop by your nearest sperm center,’ you’d have a million women kicking down the doors to have a little bit of you inside them.”

I half smile at her comment, she’s got a good sense of sarcastic humor before growing more serious. “Harvey Stone is the biggest reason that I need a legitimate legal heir before I die.”

“Who’s Harvey Stone?” Su Lin asks. “I’ve heard the name mentioned before, but I want details.”

Wow, talk about a bomb of a statement. Details… “I’ll need to drop back a little further than Harvey then. I was recognized as one of those intellects that only come around once or twice a century pretty early. Came out of nowhere too really, my father was a high school shop teacher who coached girls’ soccer while my mother worked as a dental office assistant. But they recognized my potential early and encouraged it. Guess that’s one of the benefits of the Internet, I was able to take college level math and science classes when most kids were watching Pokemon after school. But they were killed when I was in my early teens.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Su Lin says. “I… there are times I wish I knew my father. It was hard growing up without any sort of father at all. Beijing isn’t the sort of place where a single, unmarried woman has it easy. Especially when her daughter is half-white.”

I nod, wishing I could understand but still feeling compassion for her. “For me, it was about being the kid who stood out. Before they died, my parents had no problem with me jumping grades, pushing the limit. I was in junior high school before my feet could even touch the floor from my seat, and I got my high school diploma the same month I had to move out of children’s sizes for shoes.”

Su Lin laughs lightly, shaking her head. “When I finished my first year at junior high school, a lot of my peers joked about my class rank.”

“Why’s that?”

“It was the same as my bra size, I was the only girl who had to wear a bra,” Su Lin says, shaking her head. “Anyway… Harvey.”

I nod. “After my parents died, I pushed myself hard, and my inventive streak became more… applicable. I mean, I’d been inventing stuff for a long time, but nobody really cares about a more efficient card shuffling machine, and an automatic watering system that adjusts to the weather is cool, but not very economical for most people. I started working on my first big commercial design when I was fourteen, and at seventeen I’d gotten the patent completed. Of course I had a bunch of other ideas in mind by the time the lawyers were done with the Patent Office, but to get them done, I needed money. So I sold the first patent to General Electric. My original plan was to use that seed money and build my empire slowly, to commercialize my ideas on a ten year plan to get to where I am now.

“Trikala Syndrome changed all that. I knew that if there was any chance for my ideas to hit the market before I died, I needed investment capital quickly. So, I partnered with Harvey Stone. He had the connections, he knew how to grease the skids with all the right people to get my ideas on the market faster and more efficiently. And he had money, or access to it. So… I partnered with him. Worst mistake of my life.”

“What happened?” Su Lin asks, and I sit back, shrugging.

“I always knew Harvey was ambitious. But I didn’t know just quite how ambitious until we’d already formed Kelley-Stone. Harvey wants… well he’s got ambitions. I knew he wanted to get into politics even when we first got together, but as time’s passed I’ve seen more and more that worries me. For the past four years, he’s pushed hard for K-S to get into defense contracts.”

“A country should have a strong defense,” Su Lin says, stopping when I shake my head. “No?”

“There’s a difference between defense… and what my technology could be bastardized to become,” I tell her. “Take for example the Panther. Sure, it’s a fuel efficient, super-cruise capable aircraft. That same technology applied to a fighter or a drone? There’s nothing around right now that can detect it. Just to keep the Panther safe, we’ve had to put radar enhancers on it, just so air traffic control can see the damn thing. And there’s more. There’s energy systems that could be converted into weaponry, there’s…. well, let’s just say that my inventions could be applied to almost every aspect of military technology and give whoever buys it untouchable offensive capabilities. I don’t even know how to stop some of the stuff I’ve developed.”

Su Lin bites her lip, worried. “And Harvey wants to be a weapons merchant?”

I shake my head, sighing. “If it was just that, I’d be less worried. Su Lin, Harvey wants to have power, plain and simple. If he can get that through selling weapons, he’ll do it. If he can do it through holding people’s lives hostage because he controls their lights and power… he’ll do that too. He doesn’t care how, he just sees going after Pentagon contracts as a way to get power. He doesn’t care if he helps people or kills people.”

Su Lin nods. “So you need an heir.”

“Harvey knew, when we formed Kelley-Stone, about my health issues. So Harvey was more than willing to give up majority control as I reinvested my fortune into K-S since he knew my body’s a ticking time bomb. The rules are simple: my majority shares cannot be transferred except to my blood heir. If I try and sell them, he has right of first refusal and to buy them hostilely. If I try and pass them on to a non-blood relative, they convert to a non-voting share that draws money, but no control. So, unless I have a blood heir to pass them down to, Harvey Stone can take the fruit of all my work, and twist it to his own ends. I can’t let that happen.”

Su Lin thinks, then nods. “Okay. Thank you for being honest, and I’m still on board helping you. On one condition, Rick.”

“What’s that?” I ask, and Su Lin smiles slightly.

“Respect. Rick, I’ll help you in your goal, I don’t want to see a monster unleashed on the world. At least, not another one. But if that’s the case, I don’t want to stop one monster only by helping another. Rick, breakfasts with you have been nice, spending a little bit of time with you is nice, but you haven’t respected me. I’ll try to earn it, but… but I need your respect too.”

Her simple request strikes me, and all I can do is nod. After a moment, I clear my throat. “You’re right. I can’t promise changing your feelings overnight, I’m not stupid.”

“Hardly.”

I chuckle, Su Lin’s got a great wit when she wants to show it off. “Well then, welcome home. And let’s see what we can do about respecting and getting to know each other better.”