Chapter 22
Jordan
A driver in a town car took us home from the airport. It was late afternoon and we both had to be at work early the next morning. I’d resolved to stick to my guns, meaning no more sexual contact with April once we returned to the country. What happened in Canada stayed in Canada—at least I hoped it would.
I was more than a little worried because I was already starting to crave the smell of her hair, the feel of that soft skin at the small of her back, the taste of her neck and earlobes. The feel of her thighs wrapped around me.
Christ. I watched her as she worked, bent over her laptop. The car inched down the 405 freeway on the drive from LAX in rush-hour traffic. I faked checking my phone. I had a shit-ton of emails to go through, but I couldn’t concentrate on work right now.
“It’s too bad you couldn’t stay to enjoy the rest of the conference,” she said without looking up from her screen.
I supposed I could have taken in some of the talks, but I would have loved enjoying her for a few more days even more. Because honestly, our time together had been fucking amazing. I couldn’t get enough of her. I sure as hell hadn’t gotten enough of her.
“So, uh…” I said, clearing my throat.
She looked up from her laptop and fixed her dark blue eyes on me. “Yes?”
“Are we cool?”
Her brows pushed together. “You mean, do I know my place? Oh, Mr. Fawkes, I’ve never forgotten it.”
My lips thinned. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Are you worried I’m going to rat you out? Because—”
I scowled. “I didn’t mean that either.”
She smiled. “Then I guess you’d better tell me what you mean.”
“I hope you don’t feel used or anything like that…that you understand why…”
She sighed and turned her head, looking out the window at the same time she closed her laptop. “I understand. You don’t have to say anything more about it.”
“So tomorrow at the office…”
“Business as usual. I’ve got it.”
I swallowed. I didn’t particularly like the idea myself. And if circumstances were different… Maybe after her internship, when she was no longer working for me, I’d ask her out. Or had too much dirty water gone under the bridge for that?
We rode along in tense silence before she shifted, leaning toward me conspiratorially. “Don’t you think it might be better if…”
“What?”
“Well, I’m just thinking about the video. There’s always a danger of our identities getting out, right?”
I said nothing but was quite sure I didn’t like the direction she was taking.
“What if we warned Adam about it? Just in case things flare up again? You guys could devise a plan and have it ready to head off a PR situation if it arises. And if you go to Adam, then it might not be as bad as if it came out some other way.”
I was silent for a long time. She was feeling guilty. Only natural, and it wasn’t like I didn’t feel like shit about it, too. Maybe her suggestion made sense on some level, but most of me just wanted to believe that this had died down forever.
“I understand what you are getting at, but you don’t know Adam like I do. He’d pop blood vessels if he found out. It would be messy.”
“Aren’t you afraid that it will get out, though?”
“Not really.” I shrugged. It was a total lie. She stared at me with narrowed eyes and I tried not to sweat it.
“I just know in my gut that if he had that info—”
“Let me handle it.”
“Does that mean you’re going to tell him?”
“No. It means I’m going to handle it. Don’t worry about it, okay?”
She frowned. “That’s a lot easier said than done. I worry about it all the time.”
I couldn’t resist. I stroked her soft hair. “Don’t. I’ll take care of it.”
But she still looked doubtful, worried. Suddenly, her head was on my shoulder and it was hard to breathe. This unfamiliar feeling of fierce protectiveness overwhelmed me. I wanted to take care of it—take care of her. Ridiculous thought, I knew, because she was capable of doing that herself. But…
What were these feelings she was drawing out in me? I leaned my head against hers for maybe a second before that feeling just grew heavier and more uncomfortable in my chest. It was too hard to think or feel anything else but her. Slowly, I pulled away, though it was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
With a shaky breath, I forced myself to turn away from her, to think about something else. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her straighten, watching me as I sat back and stared out my own window, fiddling with the whiskers on my jaw. I’d finally gotten it looking how I wanted only to have to go back to a clean-shaven look come tomorrow. Those bankers were conservative, and I’d taken out my earring and let the hole close up last year before entering their conventional world. I wondered again why I’d wanted to be a part of this world so badly, this world that wasn’t really me.
What was I trying to prove and to whom?
As always, it came back to that shadowy figure—my old man—staring over my shoulder. I huffed and blew off that thought.
When we stopped at April’s, I’d already decided that I wouldn’t get out and walk her to her door. I’d allowed this to go too far already. But I couldn’t resist reassuring her again. “April…” I said before she got out of the car.
She turned back to me, grasping the door handle. Our eyes locked.
“I’ll take care of things, all right? Trust me.”
The corners of her mouth turned up and her eyes closed, and the expression hurt because I could see that she was torn, reluctant to put that trust in me. She leaned forward and kissed me, an affectionate, innocent kiss.
“I know you’ll do your best.” She didn’t look at me again as she turned to leave.
I watched as the driver helped her with her luggage, taking it to her door. I kind of hated myself for letting her go like that, but I didn’t trust myself to go near her place. If I did, I knew I wouldn’t want to leave.
Strangely, after spending those days with her, I suddenly felt at a loss and lonelier than ever. I closed my eyes, rubbing them with the palms of my hands. I’d told her not to care. That she wasn’t allowed to care. I should have sent the same memo to myself.
I’d only been gone four days, but when I got home the place felt empty. I had to fight the inclination to pick up the phone and send Weiss some teasing text. To get my mind off her once and for all—yeah right—I grabbed my board to catch a few good waves before the sun set for the day. But my heart wasn’t in it.
***
The next morning, I was at the office an hour early, ready to take on the day and get to work planning our IPO roadshow. We’d be making a series of presentations in an appeal to large-fund managers across the country. We had a two-week window to put the shiniest, most impressive face on our company to get them interested in taking on our stock. The IPO roadshow had to be perfect, and to that end I’d hired a professional director and camera crew who would interview Adam, me and the other officers.
Today was also the scheduled photo shoot for Entrepreneur Weekly magazine, all a part of our big press push for the IPO. I arrived in my second favorite suit with a spare slung over my shoulder in a garment bag, just in case my assistant got a little crazy with the coffee. I smiled a little at that thought.
There was hardly a soul hereabouts. The interns and assistants were filing in slowly, and I noticed that Adam’s door was ajar. I knocked and then pushed the door open.
The boss had a woman attached to him at the lips. When they heard me enter, they pulled apart and stared at me, wide-eyed, looking like teenagers caught making out in their parents’ bedroom. I almost laughed. Almost.
“Hey, Mia,” I said. “A little early for a booty call, isn’t it?”
“I was just…swinging by for a little moral support,” she said, a blush staining her cheeks.
Adam slipped an arm around his fiancée’s waist. They were so cute together it was almost sickening. Scratch that, it was sickening. And Adam’s obvious bliss didn’t help matters.
“It’s Mia’s first day of school today,” he explained. He sounded like he was talking about a kindergartner. I guess Adam liked them really young…
“Oh, right. Medical school. You get your own cadaver to work on and all that gruesome stuff. Dr. Frankenstein, why didn’t you make your beau carry your books to class for you, then?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t give him any ideas. He wanted to drive me there, but we compromised and came here first. I’m taking the car to school and then coming back to get him tonight.”
I resisted the urge to smirk. They were commuting together, probably because she was still annoyed with Adam’s recent transportation purchase—a sweet, vintage Indian motorcycle. Even I was envious of it.
She turned to me. “That was a great presentation, by the way. I was impressed, even though I didn’t understand half the stuff you said.”
“Sorry I couldn’t make any commentary on the chainmail bikinis the characters wear in the game. I know that’s your favorite subject. Plus, I like them and I vote we keep them.”
“Of course you do.” Grinning, she slipped out of Adam’s hold and bent to grab her sweatshirt and purse. “I gotta get going. Don’t want to be late on my first day.”
Adam walked her to the door, where she paused to kiss him goodbye. “Text me later. Let me know how it’s going,” he said, hooking an arm around her and pulling her against him. She kissed him again.
“Mmm. You have to stop, or I won’t want to leave.”
“You’ve caught on to my evil plan.”
God, any more of this and I was going to start making gagging noises right here on the spot. I coughed into my hand, “Get-a-room.”
Adam glared at me. “We did have a room ‘til some douchebag decided to barge in on us.”
I raised my brows. “She’s gonna be late, dude.”
He grimaced but let her go, then kissed her again on her cheek. “Good luck. Love you.”
“I know.” She turned, waving to me as an afterthought, and was gone.
Adam took a minute to watch her go, as if he wasn’t going to see her again in months or a year instead of this evening. Something about that irritated me. And yet, underneath that layer of irritation was envy, if I allowed myself to admit it.
I looked away, annoyed at that thought. Love. Who needed that shit? I turned back to Adam. “Should I step out? Give you a moment to recover?”
“Go fuck yourself,” he said with a good-natured grin, turning to join me by the window.
“She’ll be okay. Her docs gave her the okay for school, right?”
“She’s fine.” He shrugged self-consciously, but I could tell he was still worried.
“She’s still not letting you ride the bike?”
He gestured to the suit he wore sans jacket. “Like I was going to ride the bike in this.”
“Gotta look pretty for your pictures today.”
He rolled his eyes. “Speaking of looking pretty…we watched your TED talk a few times. It was really good. Well done.”
I smiled. “Thanks. It went over well. I’ve got some follow-up interviews to do for some of the newspapers who wanted more.”
“We need all the good press we can get. I also have some really good news. I’m bringing in someone who I think is going to be key in the formation of our board of directors.” Adam turned to me, his mouth turned up in a self-satisfied smile.
Uh-oh. I knew that smile. He was about to spring something on me. He glanced at his watch. “He should be here any minute. He’s stopping by for a few so I can show him around.”
“And this person is someone I don’t know?”
“You’ve never met him, but he’s been supportive of me and my ventures for a long time. I owe him a lot.”
“And his qualifications?” I bit out, trying to hide my irritation but not quite succeeding. “I really wish you would have run this by me first.”
“I’m running it by you now. And he has no idea what I’m going to ask him to do. I thought I’d introduce you first. I know that he’ll be a good—”
The intercom on Adam’s desk buzzed, and his intern’s voice came through, “Adam? You have a visitor to see you… Mr. David Weiss?”
Instead of answering the intercom, Adam headed for the door, motioning for me to follow. Upon first hearing the man’s name, my stomach had dropped. Not good. Not good at all.
I trailed behind Adam by about three or four feet, feeling like a dog being dragged to the washbasin. Adam stopped when he came face to face with a man in his early fifties—medium height, fit build, salt and pepper hair, olive skin. He didn’t look anything like April—or rather, she didn’t look anything like him.
Adam was enthusiastically pumping his hand. “Hey, David. So great to see you. Glad you could come out.”
“Well, thanks for inviting me—finally.” He had an East Coast accent—Boston, I guessed.
“I have to be careful letting the competition in here, you know. You signed that NDA, right?” Adam smirked.
David Weiss laughed. “You were always a funny kid.”
Adam turned to me. “Let me introduce you to my right-hand man. This is Jordan Fawkes, our CFO. He’s running the show on all of the IPO stuff.”
“Ah, you’re the one who’s been putting my little girl through her paces.”
My hand almost went limp inside his, and I could feel the sweat starting to form. Oh God, this was awkward. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Weiss. I’ve enjoyed your daughter—I mean, having her as an assistant. She’s very good.” Fuck. Goddamn it. Now was not a good time for a Freudian slip.
He pulled his hand back with a nonchalant shrug. “Well, she’s not going to be an assistant for the rest of her life, so it doesn’t really matter if she’s good at it.”
I laughed. “True enough. She’s destined for greater things, for sure.”
David looked us both up and down. “So, you two are looking awfully formal for tech geeks.” I was grateful for the change in subject. “Those boys at Facebook wear t-shirts to work. And I don’t believe I ever saw Adam wear a tie in the two years he worked for me.”
“We have a photo op later this afternoon,” said Adam. “All the press stuff for the IPO.”
David’s eyes gleamed shrewdly. “That wouldn’t have anything to do with why I’m here, would it?”
Adam looked at me for a minute before turning back to David. “It might.” He checked his watch. “I know you’ve got things going on today, but do you have time for me to show you around?”
“Sure. I’d like that. I’d also like to steal my daughter for lunch, if that’s possible. I didn’t tell her I was coming and I’d like to surprise her.”
As the two men talked, I tried to wrap my head around the ramifications of his presence here. I suspected Adam wanted to make him an interim chairman to organize a new board of directors, which was necessary once we were a publicly traded company. I cursed myself that I was just now seeing this, at the exact moment it was dropped in my lap like a load of bricks. Adam had had his own reasons for moving April into my office—reasons he hadn’t cared to share with me.
But I knew now this was all part of his master plan to bring David in to help with our IPO. I sent a heated glare at my best friend, resentment bubbling up. I was pissed that he’d withheld this information from me until now. It was so typical of him to behave this way.
And yet, had I known from the beginning, would it have changed anything? I’d known April was off-limits before I’d had my way with her—half a dozen times or so.
Even if I had been tentatively planning on pursuing a relationship with April after her internship, that would now be impossible. As an officer of the company, there was no end to the potential disasters that could occur if I dated—and subsequently broke up with—the board director’s daughter. My gut tightened.
But my brain was telling my gut to shut the fuck up. Bringing this guy on was good business. He had experience in the industry and was an executive at a competing company. This opened up possibilities for Adam—and possibly even me—to serve on his board, as quid pro quo was common in business. Beyond that, Adam trusted the man and he had apparently helped him out early on in his career. How could I go against all that?
Putting David Weiss on our board would be a smart business move. I couldn’t deny it.
But…
No, there were no buts. This thing between April and me had to be over. For good.
Adam and David were discussing where to start the tour when movement at the periphery of my vision caught my attention. April stood at her desk beside Susan staring wide-eyed at Adam and her father. She looked at me and our gazes locked. I swallowed, shaking my head. The color drained from her already pale face. She really was the color of snow—or as close as she could get to it. I let out a breath and motioned for her to join us, but she shook her head stiffly.
David must have seen my gesture because he turned to see who I was motioning to.
“There she is!” he said, walking toward her. She walked around the desk, casting a self-conscious glance at the people around the atrium.
“Dad. What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too,” he said, landing a peck on her cheek, which, judging from the flash of her blue eyes, she barely tolerated. “How was Canada?”
“Good. I was very busy.”
Yeah, busy with me between her luscious, soft legs. I swallowed again, loosening my suddenly tight tie.
Adam watched the two with a frown. When he turned to me, I sent him a pointed glance, hoping we could just get on with this hot mess and get it over with as soon as possible.
“Let’s start over in development, maybe?” I said when the uncomfortable father-daughter greeting didn’t seem to getting any less awkward. “April, you can come along too. I’m sure your dad would like that.”
“I would, thank you.” David smiled.
April’s eyes, hard and blue as glacial ice, told me a different story, however.
Adam and I led the way while David deliberately hung behind to walk beside his daughter. “Rebekah was wondering why you hadn’t answered her last email.”
“I told you. I’ve been busy with work.”
I stepped up the pace, feeling like an eavesdropper. Adam followed my lead, but they stayed right behind us. “She wants to know if you’re coming down for Yom Kippur.”
“I’ll, um, let you know. I have a lot of work coming up.”
Adam turned his head and said over his shoulder, “You can have that day off, April. It’s no problem.”
Corporate policy. Of course she’d get that day off if she requested it. But I suspected she didn’t want to request it. I peeked and saw April staring at Adam’s back with a clenched jaw. “Okay, thanks.”
“I’ll tell her you’re coming, then?”
“We’ll see. So why are you here?”
“Adam invited me. I think he’s cooking up some kind of plan. He’s always got secret plans. Like that time he ditched me to start his own company…”
“Hey,” Adam said with a smile. “I do recall you gave me your blessing.”
And I suspected that David must have bought in with a fat wad of cash, too, or he was about to. His company, Sony Online, it was rumored, was preparing to be spun off and sold, even as they worked on their “next big thing” that might give us a run for our money if it ever got off the ground. It was sad, because his company had been among the most innovative in the industry, at the forefront of massive multiplayer online role-playing games less than two decades ago.
But time, and progress, stopped for no man—or company. I suspected that David knew the bright new future when he saw it and had probably been following Adam’s progress very closely. There could be no other reason why a man would let someone as brilliant and talented as Adam leave to go start up a rival company with his blessing.
Of course, I couldn’t approach him about the rumors, and they were just that—rumors. But I read up on the industry every day. This community was not very big and we often exchanged employees. Basically, everybody was all up in everyone else’s business.
As if to illustrate that point, David made the quiet allusion, once we were in a private room outside of development, to the forbidden subject. “So, uh, forgive me for asking, but…what’s all this about a sex video involving the company?”
Adam’s face betrayed nothing, but he did pale a bit. I swallowed and studiously avoided his daughter’s gaze. She had frozen beside him.
I spoke up. “A couple employees goofing around, nothing more—” And the minute they escaped my mouth, I wanted to grab those words and shove them back inside. Fuck. Fuck. Fucking fuck.
“We only know that one employee was involved, actually,” Adam corrected quietly, managing, to his credit, not to throw me one of his dark, correcting glares.
“And this person has been fired, I hope?”
Adam and I locked gazes nervously. “Their identity hasn’t yet been discovered,” Adam said.
April fidgeted at her father’s side but kept her eyes down, saying nothing.
David looked skeptical. “You’ve got the situation under control, though, right? I’ve been through this process before and those bankers are a skittish bunch. They’ll bolt at their own shadows.”
“I have the bankers rounded up and on our side. We’ve done damage control, and the situation has pretty much blown over,” I said.
David seemed to accept that and we concluded our tour without any further mention of it, thank goodness. April seemed to want to avoid her father’s invitation for lunch, but, not having much choice, grabbed her purse and, with rounded shoulders, followed him out.
As soon as she was out of my sight, I went back to my office, pulled out my phone and sent her a text message.
Can we talk after work tonight?
An hour later, while I was standing in Adam’s office waiting for the photographers to set up their backdrop for the cover shoot, my phone chimed.
Yes.
I heard some weird chatter about the cover story being labeled, “Tech World’s Most Eligible Bachelor Millionaires.” But Adam set them straight and said he wanted none of that—most especially because he wasn’t eligible anymore.
I could only imagine Mia’s face when she saw an article like that. I hoped to God he wouldn’t throw me under the bus to get himself off the hook.
But that was the least of my worries.
I met April outside by her car in the parking lot at five-thirty. She looked tired and pale but not unhappy, and something lit up inside me when I saw her again. I stopped in front of her.
“So, um, we should talk. Want to grab a bite to eat or something?”
She rolled her eyes but smiled. “That sounds suspiciously like a date, Mr. Fawkes.”
“No, nuh-uh. If you keep calling me Mr. Fawkes, then it’s a business dinner, Ms. Weiss. And I think that after this morning, you can’t deny we have a lot of business to discuss.”
She nodded. “Do you mind if I drop my car at home before we go eat? It’s okay if I ride in the back seat of your car. That’s still business-like and me knowing my place.”
I blew out a breath. “Knock it off, Weiss. I’ll follow you home.”
She lived less than four miles from the complex in an upscale condo in Irvine. After she parked her car and got out, I rolled down my window when she indicated she wanted to say something.
“I need to run up to my place for a minute. Want to come? Strictly businesslike, of course.” She smirked.
“Whatever. But this better not take long. I’m hungry because I skipped lunch. My intern ditched me to go eat with her daddy.”
“Park over there in visitors’ parking,” she pointed with her middle finger. I laughed and followed her directions.
She waited for me on the curb, her arms folded across her chest, looking down, deep in thought. Inside her head again.
“What’s up?”
She shrugged, avoiding my eyes. “Just thinkin’.”
“Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of that today, too.”
She flicked a worried gaze at me. “I suppose this talk we’re having has to do with my dad showing up out of the blue?”
“Let’s save it for dinner.”
She rolled her eyes. “Always good to have a new excuse for indigestion.”
She turned to climb up the steps to the second floor. I followed her up. “I’m just going to change really quick and get out of these pantyhose. I promise I won’t be more than five minutes.”
I leaned against the wall next to the door as she fumbled with the key in the lock. With all the distractions today, I hadn’t even had a chance to get a close look at her. She looked as gorgeous as ever, that glossy dark hair, those blue eyes, that elegant, upturned little nose, that graceful white neck.
I enjoyed your daughter. I grimaced with the memory of almost blowing it with her dad while amending that dirty little statement in my head. I enjoyed her on the living room floor, on the dining table, up against a car and several times in a hotel room bed.
She opened the door, stepped inside and I followed close behind. Then I crashed right into her as she halted in her steps and gasped.