Heat

“What do you suggest that I do?” The question was clearly meant to be equal parts rhetorical and sarcastic. “You’ve met my father. He’s not going to listen to me. He won’t listen to anyone. And if I go against him, he’ll cut me off.”

“Martin, what’s left then? Hmm? I can’t let my mother step down because of bogus charges. If you can’t get him to listen to you then the only other option is…is…” For us to break up.

I didn’t say it, but I might as well have said it because it was obviously the only remaining option.

Martin immediately grasped my unspoken meaning because his entire body went rigid and his eyes grew thunderous. His menacing denial was softly spoken.

“No. No fucking way.”

“Then give me another solution.”

“No, that’s bullshit.” He charged toward me, but I held my ground as he quietly raged at me. “This has nothing to do with us. You’re looking for an excuse. This is just an excuse to shit all over everything we’ve built. You’ve been looking for a reason to run away, and this is it.”

I reached forward to touch him but he twisted away, stalking back to his dresser and slamming another drawer.

I didn’t like the pleading edge that entered my voice, as I said, “No. This is me standing up for what I believe in. Your father is discrediting my mother, damaging her reputation and people are buying into it. She has worked her whole life against corruption. She has fought for good and justice and peace and prosperity.”

Martin scoffed, his words mocking. “She’s not superwoman, Parker.”

“She is to me. And I’m not going to do nothing while your dad uses me to make her look like a corrupt flake.”

He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “Listen to me. What could you possibly do to make Denver Sandeke change his mind? He never changes his mind. Talking to him is useless. Arguing with him just makes him happy. He gets off on other people’s misery.”

“We have to stop him.”

“We can’t.”

“So…what? Am I supposed to just let him say these terrible things?”

“What choice do you have?” He turned completely around, finally facing me again and giving nothing away with his expression.

“I’ll give an interview. I’ll call the reporter from the Washington Post.”

“It won’t make a difference. We are dating. We are together. Our families aren’t close, but that doesn’t matter because perception is all that matters. Why would anyone believe you over my father? They wouldn’t.” I saw that he was trying to talk me down from getting my hopes up, and he was trying to be gentle and break the reality of the situation to me, the fruitlessness of it.

But he was wrong, because there was one person that could discredit Denver Sandeke…

“But you could.”

Martin stared at me, his gaze becoming increasingly calculating and guarded. When he responded his words were measured and slow. “No. I couldn’t. Like I said, he’ll cut me off, and I am so close. I’ll be twenty-one in less than four months. I will not do anything to risk losing access to that money.”

“Martin, I could…I could help you. We could move in together, share expenses. You don’t need your father’s money. You’re a freaking genius, and you have all those patents. You don’t need his money.”

His eyes were now slits and he was shaking his head slowly. “No. You don’t understand. My father has forgotten about the trust, and I need that trust. I need those houses. I have plans, I can’t just abandon them.”

“What plans?” I reached for him but he pulled his hand from my grasp and turned away, so I spoke to his back. “Tell me the plan. What are you talking about?”

He walked to his desk chair; his big, powerful hands gripping the back of it, and gave me his profile. “The venture capitalist deal in New York. The houses all over the world. The sixty million dollars. The satellites. The plan, everything I’ve been working for to completely screw him over. If I discredit him now then he’ll look for ways to make me miserable, and he’ll remember the trust. Then I’m cut off and it all goes away.”

I stared at the side of his face, my mouth open but no sound emerging, because I was mostly confused. After a moment I found some words. I wasn’t sure they were the right ones, but they were the only words I had.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. What do houses all over the world have to do with sixty million dollars? And how are satellites going to screw over Denver Sandeke?”

Martin exhaled but it sounded like an impatient growl. “The houses, Parker. His houses are all in my name and I am four months away from accessing the trust when I turn twenty-one.” Martin faced me, his stance inflexible. “I have buyers for six of them, and I’m confident I’ll have buyers for the other eleven soon. That’s how I’m getting the sixty million.”

I blinked furiously. “You can’t do that, those aren’t your houses.”

“They’re in my name.”

“But—”

“And, all together, they’re worth well over sixty million. And I’m selling them and he doesn’t know a goddamn thing about it. And when I’ve sold them, I’m investing the money into launching telecom satellites that will replace traditional landlines, DSLs, and—in some cases—fiber optic cable. I’m going to break the telecom monopolies that Sandeke Telecom holds. I’m going to give the people in his service areas an alternative source for their Internet and phone. I’m going to drive my father out of business and make billions in the process. But I can’t do that if he cuts me off now.”

My face scrunched and twisted. This was…this was unbelievable. This was global scale corporate warfare and so beyond my frame of reference.

“It can’t, I mean, it can’t be as simple as that. If satellites are the answer to the great telecom monopoly debate, then it seems to be that someone else would have solved it by now.”

Martin’s frown was severe, his eyes cutting, almost mocking. “Have you ever heard of Elon Musk?”

“Yes. Everyone knows who he is.”

“Not everyone.”

“He’s the CEO of Tesla and a genius philanthropist,” I supplied blandly.

“Yeah, well look up his work on alternate sources of Internet delivery. It is as simple as satellites, but there is nothing simple about these satellites.”

I huffed then growled, punching my hands through the air as I fought to control my temper. “Well…so…fine! You have your ‘fancy satellite plan’! It’s going to work. You’ll screw your father and break up his monopoly. Where does that leave us?”

“Right where we are. Nothing between us changes!” He was yelling again.

“What does that even mean?” I was also yelling and appealing to the ceiling, throwing my hands in the air.

“Us. Together. And we ignore my father.”

“But we can’t. We can’t ignore him. If we do nothing, then my mother steps down and her life’s work is over.”

Martin shrugged, scratched the back of his neck, and said with infuriating ambivalence and granite resolve in his eyes, “Not. My. Problem.”

In that moment I wanted to punch him in the face, because I felt like he’d punched me in the stomach. Resentment filled my mouth, choked me as we glared at each other, our rapid-fire argument over and nothing resolved. I was twisting in the wind and he didn’t seem to care. To my infinite irritation I felt the first signs of tears—stinging eyes, wobbly chin—and was powerless to fight it.

I couldn’t control the shakiness in my voice as I whispered, “I trusted you.”

“You can trust me.” His voice was steady, yet clearly laced with frustration. “I would do anything for you…except this. You can’t ask me to do this, to go against him publically, when I’m so close to seeing this through.”

Again we stared at each other and neither of us gave an inch. I swallowed the building thickness in my throat, creeping despair twisting its fingers around my chest and making each breath painful. Yet I had to give us one more shot. I was trying my best to fight for him, fight for us. I gathered a deep breath and tried once more to appeal to him.

I was careful to keep the volume of my voice low, though I struggled to keep it steady. “If you love me…” He closed his eyes with a slow blink and he turned slightly away. Martin shook his head, stared at the floor, with his jaw set, and his powerful arms once more crossed over his chest. “If you love me then it is your problem, because I can’t let my mother do that. I can’t let her step down because of me and my choices.”

“There is nothing you can do, Kaitlyn.” His tone was flat and entirely patronizing.

And he was wrong.

There was one thing I could do, one finite solution that would solve the problem, but that was also going to break my heart. I felt a new, more powerful wave of tears build behind my eyes as I stared at his outward expression of indifference.

A single thought bubbled to the surface of my mind: he’s betrayed me.