Chapter 5

Oliver

I owed Rob an apology. Probably Tony, too, though I’d never liked that guy very much in the first place. Adam hired him. He reminded me of a weasel—always looking for the next good thing he could get in on, even if it was rotten.

On Friday afternoon, I made myself go back to Cody Tech, and tried for a smile when Sal and Antoine gave me a questioning look in the lobby. “Sorry about the other night, guys.”

They quickly nodded their heads.

“We understand, Mr. Cody,” Antoine said.

I sincerely doubted that, but I was so used to getting the completely fucked up sympathy of people who didn’t even know me that I just let it roll off. “Going back up. I promise not to break anything this time.” I tried to smile, but it felt unnatural on my face.

I paused for a moment in front of the framed photos of the executives of Cody Technology. My photo was up there, though no one would identify me as the same clean-cut go-getter in the frame at this point. I was a scraggly shadow of myself. No wonder Rob’s secretary hadn’t recognized me. There also was a picture of Dad—Adam, my mind quickly corrected. He looked smug, I thought, and my mind darkened. I felt my fists clenching as I stared up at him, and I had to force myself to take a few deep breaths and turn toward the elevators.

The receptionist jumped up again as I entered, but she didn’t speak to me or try to force messages into my face. I tried to give her a look that was slightly friendlier than a glare, but doubted I succeeded.

I didn’t stop to say anything to Rob’s secretary, though I probably owed her an apology, too. I made a mental note to send her some flowers. That was the cowardly dick move men made when they didn’t want to bother with actual conversation. My own secretary glanced at me as I pushed through Rob’s door, but I closed it behind me and she didn’t follow. Pamela, I think her name was. Nice girl. Another Adam hire—he’d moved her up here from another department just before the accident.

“You’re back.” Rob’s voice was flat and emotionless.

“Don’t look so happy to see me, sunshine.”

Rob stood and shook his head, and then made a show of moving a potted plant back from the edge of a small table where it sat by the door.

“Your decorative greenery is safe. I came to apologize.”

“I don’t need an apology, Oliver. I’m not your fucking girlfriend. I’m your business partner, and I need the goddamned CEO to do his job. Did you know Tony was getting ready to leave? He’s taking half the board with him, too. Screaming at him the other night probably sealed the deal.”

My vision darkened. “Fucking weasel.”

“Whatever.” Rob rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “The point is, if you want to leave this place still functioning—which I’d appreciate since I still want to work here—then the board needs to see you here, and the company needs to land a major deal to buy back some confidence. Once things are solid, you can sell if you want to. I’ll figure out a way to buy you out if the board will let me, or I’ll bring in a new partner. But it doesn’t matter if the first two things don’t happen soon…” He shook his head and stared out the window, a crease bringing his dark eyebrows together.

I didn’t want to think about what would happen. I wasn’t ready to come back; I couldn’t find it in my withered soul to care much, but I really didn’t want to see the company fail, either. A lot of people depended on Cody Technology for a job. I just didn’t want to be one of them. I stared at an architectural print on Rob’s wall, trying to form my thoughts into something coherent and useful. My voice came out like a rasp. “I don’t know what I can do, man.”

“You can come back to work, Ollie.” Rob’s voice was softer, and I let myself find his eyes. Rob and I had been friends since we were kids, and I noticed with a shock that he looked older suddenly, deep lines around his eyes and down the sides of his mouth. Had I done this to him?

I shook my head and pulled my gaze from his. “I will.” The office carpet muted my steps as I paced the perimeter of Rob’s office. “But not right now.”

“Fuck, Ollie!” Rob lost his temper. His face reddened and he stormed toward me. “When? I’ve been as fucking patient as I can be! I can’t keep this up!”

“I know,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I appreciate everything you’ve been doing, I do…I just…” I felt drained, and the energy needed to explain was more than I could summon. I shook my head and shrugged, and then turned around. “Sorry,” I said. At least I’d managed to apologize. Kind of.

I walked through the heavy office door, letting it slam shut behind me. Rob’s secretary was still cringing at her failure to recognize the CEO of her company, and she quickly blurted out another apology as my own secretary jumped to her feet and came around her desk.

“Sir?” she said in a crisp tone. Pamela was pretty in a classic put-together way. Quiet, timid. “I have a few…”

“Not now,” I growled, waving her away. Against my better judgment, I glanced at her face as I stalked by. Her wide eyes were full of fear, but there was a glimmer of something else on her face, too. Something I didn’t expect. Anger?

I stared at her for a minute. Maybe she wasn’t so timid after all. She was pissed. She didn’t like being treated like a worthless peon. Good for her. Maybe she had more backbone than I’d given her credit for. Not that it mattered.

Just as I approached the reception desk, Tony’s office door opened and the little prick came waltzing out, looking self-important as ever. I turned back around and stepped in front of him. “Oh, hey, Tony.”

“Hey, Oliver.” He looked uncertain, probably wondering if I was going to toss more ornamental plants in his direction.

“Just dropped in to let you know you’re fucking fired.” I turned and walked away, wishing for some glimmer of joy to erupt inside me at having just done what I’d been wanting to do for years.

It took him a couple seconds to process, but as the elevator doors closed, I heard him saying, “Wait, what?” I texted Rob to let him know I’d made a CEO decision. Figured he’d be proud.

I rode the elevator down to the lobby, trying to feel something. Anger, irritation, sadness? As I descended, I vaguely wondered how long a person could merely exist in the world before something had to change. Nature abhors a vacuum, right? And I was a vacuum of humanity.

I stood in the lobby for a long moment after stepping out of the elevator. I knew Rob needed me. And he’d need me even more now that I’d given Tony the ax. But I wasn’t ready to come back, and no application of will was going to change that.

Just as I turned to leave, Pamela stepped out of the next elevator and marched over to me, her chin in the air.

“I was trying to tell you that I had some messages for you,” she said, her voice level but thin, like a knife’s edge. “But you walked away. Which was rude.” She raised an eyebrow at me and thrust a book full of message slips at me.

My hand reached out for it before I could stop it, and I took it from her. “Sorry,” I said automatically.

“I copied each of these into an email for you as well,” she went on. “But you haven’t checked your email in several months, according to the system admin I asked.”

“Right. Thanks.”

She shook her head, as if she was disappointed with me, and I felt smaller under her narrowed gaze. “I don’t really know you, Mr. Cody,” she said, adopting the air of a woman much older than she could possibly be. “But I’m going to say something, anyway. Just because you’ve been through something terrible doesn’t give you the right to treat other people terribly.” Her eyes blazed as she stared up at me, and I noticed she was shaking.

“Also,” she said, her voice much softer now. “I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

Something about the way she said it felt more sincere than the way four thousand other people had said those very words to me lately, and my heart twisted painfully.

“Thanks,” I muttered, and walked away.

I found myself in the campus coffeehouse, mostly because I’d never gotten a campus bar installed.

Note to self: If you ever do come back to work, build a bar.

“Sam,” I said, greeting the guy I’d hired a couple years ago to work behind the counter. “Double Americano.” Sam wasn’t a barista, not really. He was an insanely talented guitar player. I paid him way too much to make coffee down here and run the shop while he worked on his music.

Sam flashed a smile in acknowledgment as the four people in line ahead of me turned to glare. I pretended not to notice and threw a twenty on the counter as Sam dropped my drink before me. “Take care, man,” he said in a low voice.

Ignoring the angry mutters of the other coffee drinkers in line, I slid behind a table and let scalding hot coffee flood my mouth.

“So. That was fairly shitty of you,” a voice said, coming from above me.

I looked up to find my gaze caught by a pair of crystal-blue eyes set in the face of an angel. A very pissed-off angel with a scowl and long dark auburn hair.

“There was a line, you know. People who were actually waiting their turn? People who work here? Who might be having a shitty day but can still manage to find the decency not to cut the line and bark at Sam?”

“Yeah, saw that.” I took another sip of my coffee, mostly to give myself time to figure out if I knew this girl. Clearly she worked for my company. Did I hire her? I would have remembered the knockout curves, those cutting blue eyes.

“You owe us an apology.”

“If this were a perfect world, you could certainly expect one.” I didn’t want to look back into those eyes, or let my eyes trace back over the swell of the tight button-down shirt she wore tucked into a slim red pencil skirt. My eyes drifted down the length of her legs instead. Mistake. My dick was suddenly jumping to attention.

“Are you always this much of an asshole? Or only on Fridays?” This girl was clearly on a mission.

I squinted back up at her, found the eyes still locked on me. My body buzzed slightly—the most response I’d had to pretty much anything in the last eight weeks. Interesting. “So why are you having a shitty day?”

Her back straightened, and her eyes narrowed. “Besides you cutting the line when I was about to order my coffee? None of your business. Do you even work here? This coffeehouse is for employees only.” She took in my scruffy face, the wrinkled T-shirt.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Seriously?” she barked it, a quick laugh of a word. “What’s yours?”

I ignored her question. “So you work here?”

“Obviously. Do you?”

I shrugged in response. That was the same goddamned question I was asking myself.

At the counter, Sam placed a cup on the pickup platform and called out, “Holland.”

The girl gave me a withering glare and then walked over to pick up the cup, which afforded me a great view of her tight round ass. Jesus. I couldn’t have told you why, besides the fact that my dick was acting like an attention-starved puppy suddenly, but I didn’t want her to go. I wanted her to stay, to talk to me. Even if it was just to continue telling me I was a jerk.

“Holland,” I called to her back.

She spun, her mouth a tight line as she prepared her next shot. “Yes, asshole?” Her head cocked to one side, spilling that glossy hair in waves over one shoulder, one breast. My dick hardened even more as I imagined that hair falling down around her face while she rode me.

“Have dinner with me.”

“Get a life,” she said, turning back around and picking up her things. She packed a laptop into a bag and then passed me one more time, her hips swinging as she purposefully ignored me and exited into the lobby.

Holland was the first thing I’d really wanted in as long as I could remember.

I’d never thought of myself as a stalker.

Mostly I’d thought of myself as a son, a swimmer, and CEO of Cody Technology. I’d thought I was a good guy—blessed in every way. I’d never had to go looking for things. They were handed to me. They just were.

But that was before.

Everything I’d believed about myself had been washed away in one sudden flash of metal and blood. Everything I knew about Oliver Cody turned out to be a lie, and the tether I’d had to my own life was severed.

For eight weeks now I’d been a ghost, haunting the house I grew up in, the life I had lived. I was like a shadow, flitting through a washed-out landscape of black and white, unable to feel, to taste, to desire. Until I’d seen Holland.

The girl in the coffeehouse—Holland O’Dell—was the first spot of color I’d seen in two months…and maybe a lot longer than that. Every cell in my body had jumped to attention when she’d spoken to me, when those crystal-blue eyes had pinned me down, full of fury and heat. She was gorgeous—all flowing red-brown hair and indignation making her skin flush.

I’d gone home that night and logged in to the company servers for the first time in months, pulling personnel files until I found her. Which felt a lot like stalking.

And then I’d tried to forget her, but it hadn’t worked. My body buzzed when I thought of her name, and those furious eyes danced behind my eyelids when I tried to sleep. My dick turned to iron when I let myself think about the way her shoulders had pulled back when she was angry, making her perfect breasts jut out and challenge the fabric of her prim and proper button-down shirt. I wanted to weigh one of those breasts in my palm, cup it and take it into my mouth…

It was pointless trying to banish her from my thoughts. I had nothing else to think about. The only solution was to get closer to her, to get more. Maybe it would work like the desperate sugar cravings I’d had as a kid—if I let myself have as much of the thing I craved as I could stand, it would make me sick and I wouldn’t want it anymore.

Maybe I’d get sick of Holland. And then I could go back to what I’d been doing before I met her. Trying to figure out who the hell I was supposed to be now.

The bar across the street from the Cody Technology campus was called Twisters. I’d always thought it was a stupid name for a bar. It didn’t stop me from sitting there for the better part of the next week. Each afternoon I went in, nursed whiskey and succeeded in talking myself out of going across the street looking for Holland O’Dell. Going over there to look for her just a few days after she essentially told me to go fuck myself would be closer to real stalking than I was comfortable with, though sitting at Twisters and thinking about it probably qualified, too. Each day I gave myself every good reason I could think of not to cross the street. But after four days of holding back, I realized none of those reasons were as compelling as the memory of her clear blue eyes.

At five-thirty, I got up and walked out, dodging traffic on Wilshire as I made my way to the four tall buildings that made up Cody Technology. I didn’t let myself look up at the way the towers stood proud against the smoky blue of the sky. Adam and I had done that together. We’d done all of this together—built this company, designed these buildings.

It didn’t matter now.

I nodded at the security guards who looked startled to see me again. I couldn’t blame them.

The coffeehouse was empty when I got there, except for Sam, who stood faithfully behind the counter reading something on his phone. He glanced up when I entered. “Hey, Hale,” he said. “Americano?”

“Sure.” Hale was the nickname I’d been given by a sports columnist in college, when she dubbed me and another swimmer “Hale and Hearty.” I’d answered to it for so long I didn’t even think about it now. Rob was about the only person at work who didn’t call me by my nickname, and that was because he’d known me since we were little kids. Pre-nickname. I watched Sam pull the espresso, trying not to feel disappointed that Holland wasn’t just sitting here, waiting for me. “How’s the music, Sam?”

He set my coffee on the counter. “Making progress. It’s slow,” he said. “But I’ve got a couple producers listening to the demo I made. One of them is talking about a movie soundtrack—they’re looking for a new sound.”

“That’s good, man.”

He smiled and I turned away. That was about all the polite conversation I could handle. If I stood there any longer, the next question would come from him. There were only a few topics to ask me about, and I didn’t want to talk about any of them. So I found a table in the back corner and settled in to sober up with my coffee. I stared into my cup. What the hell had I been expecting? That she would magically be here, and I’d do what? Sweet-talk her into pulling me out of my self-flagellating slump? Convince her to sit down, chat with me? Charm her into bed? I shook my head. Not only was I masochistic and potentially clinically depressed, I was delusional. The plan was to sit here, drink my coffee, sober up, and go home.

When Holland O’Dell walked in the door at six, however, my plans changed.

She walked to the counter and greeted Sam with a warm smile, leaning in as she ordered, in a way that made me irrationally jealous. I felt that same spark I’d noticed the first time I’d set eyes on her. A glow of something—an indefinable buzz on some elemental level inside me. This girl had something I needed. Maybe it was chemical. That was all I could think. But whatever it was, whatever this girl had, I wanted it. It was the first certainty I’d felt in the better part of a year.

I stood up without even thinking about it and approached her where she stood digging in her enormous shoulder bag for something. Sam was making her a sandwich behind the counter.

“I got this, Sam,” I told him.

Holland’s head snapped up, and I was caught in the traction of her crystalline gaze. “You.” She spit the word out. But before the irritation had slid into place, smoothing her features and making her face an impenetrable mask, I’d seen something else flit through those eyes. The tiniest glimmer of interest. There was hope.

“Me.” I tried a grin, but it had been a while since I’d used that particular expression. It might have been more maniacal than charming.

She put a twenty-dollar bill on the counter and glared at me before pointedly turning her back to me. “Here you go,” she said as Sam came back to the register, her plated sandwich between them. She pushed the money across to him as his eyes flicked to mine. I shook my head.

“This one’s on Hale,” he told her, nodding toward me. “He insists.”

She turned her head to narrow her eyes at me over her shoulder. “I can buy my own dinner.” Her voice was low, even.

“I’d like to make up for being rude the other day,” I said. “Please accept my apology. In the form of…” I glanced down at her sandwich. “Roast beef and more avocado than any one person should be allowed to eat.”

A hint of a smile flickered across her lips and a faint blush crept up her neck. I wanted to chase it with my tongue, feel that warm heat with my lips. “I like avocado,” she said, her voice less thorny. “It’s a superfood.”

“So you’ll let me buy your super dinner?”

“Fine,” she said. She picked up the plate and carried it to a table against the wall of windows that faced the quad between the towers. “Thank you,” she tossed back at me as she sat.

I shot a smile at Sam and then followed Holland to her table, pulling up the opposite chair without asking permission.

She raised an eyebrow, the sandwich poised at her lips. “Seriously?”

I shrugged and sat, leaning back to watch her eat.

“I can’t even eat dinner in peace,” she grumbled, angling away from me again and staring out the window.

She didn’t demand that I leave, so I waited, studying her as she ate. She was beautiful, but I already knew that. Today I wanted to learn what it was about her that compelled me. I scanned her face and her body for clues but came up short. I glanced at the pile of paperwork she’d dropped on the tabletop, and was surprised to see the StrokeStat schematics on top of her pile.

“StrokeStat,” I said, thinking aloud. “I thought that technology was pretty much dried up after the efforts to repurpose it outside swimming got shelved a couple years ago.”

Her head swiveled to me, and she picked up the schematics and put them facedown, tucking them under the other papers on her pile. She gave me a once-over, taking in the scruff on my jaw and my questionably clean T-shirt and jeans. “Do you even work here? This coffeehouse is for employees, you know.”

I bobbed my head, trying to cover my amusement at her fierce response. She obviously didn’t recognize me as the CEO of Cody, which was nice. It was rare to have the opportunity to talk to someone who didn’t know my background, my baggage. “I used to,” I told her.

“Did they forget to take back your badge?”

“No,” I said. “The security guys out front remember me. Sam knows me.”

“Clearly,” she said.

She went back to her sandwich and then polished off six slices of avocado. Finally, she put the plate aside and turned to face me. “Let’s just get this done,” she said. “What the hell do you want?”

“I’m trying to figure that out, too.”

“Well, I can’t help you. And I don’t owe you a damned thing—I didn’t ask you to pay for my dinner. So maybe you could take your deep thoughts over there.” She pointed to a far table. “And let me get some work done here.”

“Tell me what you’re doing with StrokeStat first,” I suggested.

She scowled at me, wrinkling her freckled nose adorably. “Why would I do that?”

“Maybe I could help.”

“I seriously doubt it.”

“I used to work on it,” I told her. “When it was first developed. I know it inside and out. Better than most of the development team, probably.” It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t even a stretch. Adam and I had begun the company with StrokeStat, which was the idea I’d had when I was swimming in high school—a way to measure the speed and water displacement of a swimmer’s stroke, the results of which could be extrapolated to predict heat times and help in training. Using that idea, many other technologies had been developed for other sports, and many of them were now being used not only for training, but also to set odds for bookmakers.

She squinted at me, pressing her lips into a hard pink line. I resisted the urge to run my thumb over those rosy lips, to pull that full lower lip down and push my thumb into her soft mouth. My dick was straining painfully against the seam of my jeans at the thought.

“You worked in development.” She placed disbelieving emphasis on the word “you.”

“Hard to believe, huh?” I shrugged, put on my best puppy dog innocent face.

“What’s your name?” she asked, still not willing to give an inch.

“Hale,” I said without thinking. I wasn’t lying, really. That’s what everyone called me. She’d figure out who I was soon enough. And then I’d get either the misplaced awe or the sympathy—neither of which I could stomach from this girl.

“That’s a strange name.”

“Says the girl named after a country.”

“My mother was a moron,” she said quickly, dropping her eyes. She was silent then, and I got the feeling I’d hit on some buried bruise.

“Hey,” I said, my voice soft. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Hale is a nickname, actually.”

Holland gave me a squinty-eyed look for a moment, probably trying to figure out what “Hale” was short for, but didn’t ask. She glanced around, but the coffeehouse remained mostly empty, save for a couple women at a far table. “I still have no idea why I’m even talking to you.”

“Because you need help,” I suggested.

She sighed and one hand raked through her hair unconsciously. I followed its path with my eyes, wishing I could bury my hands in that thick glossy mane, wondering what it would look like spread across my pillow. “I do need help.” It sounded like defeat, but a fire quickly relit in her eyes. “But not from you.” She shook her head, as if to clear it.

“What if you just try me?” I asked. “Can’t hurt, right?”

“I think that’s the same line drug dealers use when they’re trying to get kids to try crack for the first time.”

“You’re comparing me to crack?” I felt a grin creep across my lips. “Worried you’ll get hooked?” I lowered my voice and leaned across the table as I said this last part, and I’d swear I saw that same flicker of interest dance through her fierce gaze once again.

“Fine,” she said, crossing her arms. “How would you modify StrokeStat for something like a stroke—but at a much higher velocity, with a sudden end to the motion? Out of the water?”

“Baseball?” I asked. We’d messed around with trying to mod the technology for other sports, but one of the developers had come up with another device that was a natural fit for football, and the money had started rolling in. We grew so fast in those early days that StrokeStat was all but abandoned.

She pressed her lips together again, confirming my suspicion even without speaking.

I leaned back, crossed my arms as my mind raced. “It could be done,” I said. “The interface would have to change significantly…” My mind spun as I thought about the application. “It’s a good idea,” I said. “But why aren’t you focusing on selling the tech we’re working on now? You’re in sales, right?”

She nodded slowly, and it apparently dawned on her that she hadn’t told me that. “How’d you know that?” Her voice was thin now, suspicious.

“Just a guess.”

“Well, thanks for the help. And the sandwich.” Her voice was icy as she gathered her things and prepared to leave.

My heart sank as I thought of her walking away, of never seeing her again. “Here’s my number,” I said, picking up a pen she’d left on the table and scrawling my name and number on a napkin. “If you do decide you need help.”

She shoved the napkin in her bag and turned without another word. As she walked away and out through the door, it was as if the only glowing candle in the world had just been carried away. The light receded gradually and I found myself in the dark, alone once again.