I couldn't believe Ella punched me.

Okay, maybe I could.

Our breakup hadn't exactly been amicable. In retrospect, I’ll admit that was mostly my fault. At the time, I hadn't seen it that way.

Aware that my potential investors were waiting for me in the other room, I grabbed a paper towel and wet it at the sink, hoping I could clean up my bloody nose before they realized what had happened.

I'd already fucked things up with Ella. I didn't need to fuck this deal up, too. My employees depended on me to get the funding we needed to finish development in time for our big payday. I wasn't going to let them down.

What they didn't realize, what nobody knew, was that I wasn't just here to sweet-talk Vance and Maggie Winters into investing in Endicott Technologies.

I was here for Ella.

I cleaned the blood off my face, determined that my nose had stopped bleeding, and walked back into Vance and Maggie's office. Maggie had moved to sit beside him at the desk, and their heads were together, leaning over his laptop screen as they spoke in hushed voices. The baby was asleep in a portable crib in the corner of the room.

Vance and Maggie made a striking couple. When he wasn't investing in up-and-coming tech companies, Vance Winters was a renowned sculptor. He looked the part with long blonde hair he wore in a low ponytail, a ton of tattoos, and a generally laid-back approach to life.

Maggie had originally hired on as his business manager. She was said to be sharp, with an excellent head for business. Between the two of them, they didn't miss much. In contrast to Vance's relaxed style, both times I'd met her, Maggie had been brisk and efficient. I was a man, so I didn't miss that she was gorgeous, but she didn't dress to play it up, and she never flirted.

She looked up when I walked back into the room, appraising me carefully. Any hope I had that we could get back to business went up in a puff of smoke when she said quietly, "How do you know Ella?"

Vance sat back and waited, along with Maggie, for my answer. I didn't even think about lying. I promised to keep the kiss a secret, but I wasn't going to screw this deal by being dishonest about Ella.

"We dated for three years in college," I said, keeping my voice low, so I didn’t wake the sleeping baby.

"And?" Vance prompted.

"And what?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

"You rushed out of here after her," Maggie said, "and it didn't look like she wanted to talk to you."

I did not want to do a postmortem of my breakup with Ella. Not with anyone, but definitely not with the two people I needed to invest in my company.

"Is this relevant?" I asked, trying to deflect.

"It is if you want our money," Vance said. "This isn't just about numbers, Noah. We know what you've done so far with your company. We understand the potential of what you're developing. We also understand that you want to keep control of your Endicott Tech. You’ve designed the software to disable an enemy drone in seconds. But that’s not new. Other companies have that. No one has been able to crack how to do it and still comply with the FAA's laws in the US. If your current tests pan out, you stand to make a ton of money. We'd love to get our hands on some of that money, and we don't want control of Endicott Tech to get it, which is a much better deal than you'll get from any other investor out there. But we have reservations.”

“You’re talking about the lawsuit,” I guessed.

That fucking lawsuit. Someday, I was going to kill Phillip Martin. He’d tried to destroy me more than once. In college, he’d accused me of cheating. That hadn’t gone far. I had witnesses to prove my innocence. Unfortunately, when it came to the lawsuit, Philip had been smart. I knew I hadn’t stolen a goddamned thing. That didn’t mean shit when Phillip had a stack of evidence that made it look like I did.

“Yes,” Vance agreed. “Normally, we wouldn’t have anything to do with a company, a founder, under suspicion of theft.”

“The case was settled with no admission of guilt,” I said flatly. I was so fucking sick of defending myself against this bullshit.

“I understand you paid Phillip Martin quite a bit of money,” Maggie said evenly.

“I did,” I agreed. “Per the settlement, I’m barred from disclosing the details. But that payment was about moving past the case and getting my company, my people, back to work. We needed to put our budget into development, not lawyers.”

A priority Phillip had been counting on when he brought the suit. His timing had been exquisite—for him. For Endicott Tech, it had been a nightmare. By the time we’d settled, I’d just wanted to get Phillip out of my life.

“We don't just invest in companies, Noah," Maggie said, leaning forward, her blue eyes fixed on mine. "We invest in people. So far, we like you. We’re inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt where the accusations of theft are concerned. You work hard, and you seem to care about your employees. That says something. We care about our employees, too. Do you think we would let Ella take care of our daughter if she wasn’t important to us?"

"I don't know you well enough to say," I hedged.

"Cut the bullshit, man," Vance said. "Ella's been with us for a while. She's like family. So tell me, when you approached us about investing, did you know Ella worked for us?"

Shit. This was it. I had to decide if I was going to cut the line and walk or come clean and see what happened.

I couldn't afford to walk.

"I knew she worked for you," I said. "Not when I started researching you. You were at the top of my list before I had any idea that Ella would be involved. I came to you because I wanted to work with someone who saw more than just a balance sheet. You're right, my employees are important to me, and I don't want anyone involved in my company who can't respect that. You have a reputation that led me to think we could work together."

"When did you find out that Ella worked for us?" Maggie asked.

"About a month ago. It wasn't relevant. I'd been planning on coming back to Atlanta to see her anyway. To be honest, this would be less complicated if she didn't work for you. A lot less complicated."

That was the understatement of the century. When my investigation had turned up Ella's name in connection with Vance and Maggie Winters, my heart had leaped in anticipation before plummeting into my gut. Winning back Ella would be a challenge. Mixing up our relationship with my business was the last thing I needed.

“What happened to your nose?" Vance asked, one eyebrow raised in speculation.

"She punched me," I admitted. I'd been honest so far. No point in changing that now.

"What did you do?" Maggie asked, her eyes narrowed in disapproval. Vance smirked at me, his gaze knowing and amused.

"I can guess," he said. "Looks like she didn't appreciate your attempt at reconciliation."

"Look, Ella asked me to keep whatever happened between us private. I promised her that I would. It isn't your business. I'm glad you care about her. But if she wants to tell you what happened, that's up to her."

"Even if I say the deal is off unless you talk?" Vance tested.

"Do you want to do business with me if I'm capable of making a promise and then turning around and breaking it?” I asked.

"If she's not okay, we’re going to have a problem," Vance said. "But for now, I'll drop it. Take a seat, and we’ll run through this one more time before we wrap it up."

I sat, and we lost ourselves in numbers, graphs, and my plans for our new technology. Vance was right. If our software could disable a drone without interfering with local Wi-Fi signals—which would be breaking the law—everyone would want to get their hands on it. There were other companies chasing the same goal. As far as I knew, we were at the head of the pack, but if we ran out of money, we wouldn't be for long.

I tried to focus on our meeting. When I'd flown out here from California, saving my company had been my number one priority. We were so close to a huge breakthrough, and I'd sunk every penny the company had into development. If I didn't get an influx of cash to tide us over, everything I'd worked for over the past two years would fall apart.

Nothing was more important than Endicott Tech.

Nothing except Ella.

I'd been telling Vance and Maggie the truth. For more than a year, I'd been thinking about Ella. Missing her. Wishing I'd never let her go. I'd wanted to come back for her long before this, but business always seemed to get in the way. Business and my own fears. When I realized Vance and Magnolia Winters were located in Atlanta, it seemed like fate. Still, Endicott Tech had been at the top of my mind.

It had to stay there. This wasn't just about me, about my ambitions and my dreams. I had fifteen people working for me. People with families and mortgages. People who had left stable jobs with benefits, seduced by the chance of a big payday and convinced by my larger-than-life public persona.

Maybe it doesn't say much about human nature, but when you're on the covers of business and tech magazines right and left, and everyone is shouting that you’re the next big thing, people tend to have confidence in you. The publicity was superficial shit. Superficial, but it got me top-tier programmers.

A few had jumped ship during the lawsuit, but most of them had stuck with me. I owed them. They’d devoted their careers to me. Now, I had to deliver. I couldn't let them down. And after everything I'd sacrificed to get this company started, Ella most of all, I couldn't fail now.

All of that was true. And yet, the details of my business struggled to keep my attention, warring with the memory of kissing Ella. I could still feel her soft lips, her fingers burying themselves in my hair, the slick heat of her on my finger. With a willpower I didn't think I possessed, I forced my attention back on the meeting and managed to keep it together long enough to wrap things up.

When we were done, I gathered my papers together and stood. Vance stood with me and said, “We need some more time to go through this. Why don't we plan to get together later in the week or Monday? What's your timeframe for getting back to California?"

"Flexible, for the moment," I answered. That was accurate enough. I'd initially planned to stay only a few days, but now that I'd laid eyes on Ella, I wasn't leaving until we'd settled things between us.

“We'll be in touch," Vance said.

He didn't mention Ella again. He didn't need to. His warning had been clear.

I drove back to the Four Seasons in Midtown on autopilot. It had been a few years, but I still knew Atlanta like the back of my hand. When I’d lived here before, I'd been a struggling student in a shitty apartment, surviving on a diet of cheap food and highly caffeinated sodas. My first few months in California were the same, but worse. Rent in California was insane compared to Atlanta.

Then, overnight, everything changed. Four months after I left school and founded Endicott Tech, I licensed the first version of my drone software to the military, and money poured from the sky. I’d already started on the software we were working on now, and I was able to hire more programmers for my team.

Drones are hot, and the media jumped on my tech, making me into some kind of poster boy for the new wave of young Silicon Valley billionaires. Forget that I wasn't a billionaire. Nobody cared about that.

I was young and smart, and thanks to Ella's loving guidance in college, I had enough style that I looked good on the cover of a magazine. For a while, especially after Ella and I split up, I went crazy, dating models and B-movie actresses, buying an expensive house and a sports car. I was all about the flash.

Anything to help me forget that I didn't have Ella anymore.

When Philip’s lawsuit hit and I went from golden boy to villain overnight, the acclaim dried up. It was a valuable lesson. Superficial shit was just that—superficial. It meant nothing.

The only things in my life that mattered were my company and Ella. And right now, I only had one of them.

If I couldn’t talk Vance and Maggie into investing, I’d have nothing.

I'd like to think I’d learned from the past.

Okay, I was at the Four Seasons, and I was in a suite. But it was a junior suite, not the expansive corner suite I might've gotten a year or two ago. I needed the space, especially if I was going to be in town more than a few days. I had work to do, and I wasn't piling on my bed with my laptop. I wasn’t a student anymore.

Yes, I was hoping the hotel and the suite would impress Ella. The thing is, I had money. I had more money than any twenty-five-year-old should. Plenty of money to spend on hotel suites, more than enough to impress my girl. So why didn't I just invest in my company myself?

I had. I hadn't taken a salary in a year and a half. Not since we’d diverted almost all of our programmers from smaller, profitable projects into the one we all knew would be our big payday. It was a risk, and since I was the one with enough in the bank to live on, I stopped taking a salary.

I could've poured my personal bank accounts into Endicott Tech. I would, if it came to that. I'm smart, and even under the cloud of Phillip’s accusations, my reputation meant I could find work. If Endicott Tech went under, I wouldn’t starve. None of my people would. They’re the best.

But I'd promised them success beyond their wildest dreams, and I was going to fucking make good on that promise. Without draining my savings account and selling my house.

I let myself into the suite and kicked my shoes off, dropping my messenger bag on the desk and throwing myself on the couch. I had to get my head in gear.

I'd come to Atlanta for two things—business and Ella. I’d done all I could on the business front, for now. Vance and Maggie would do their thing over the next few days. When they were ready for a second meeting, they’d call. For now, all of my attention was on Ella.

What the fuck was she doing nannying? She liked kids, loved working with them in STEM classes, and got all fired up when she got one of them to fall in love with coding like she had when she was young. But babysitting? That was a massive waste of her time.

Ella was fucking smart as hell. I'd always loved her brain, the way she could fall into music, play her violin like she was bleeding her soul into the strings, and then turn around and take all of that passion and throw it into coding—so logical and precise but in her hands, alive.

All she'd wanted two years ago was to get her master’s at Georgia Tech. Oliver Johnstone had promised her a spot in his project, and she'd wanted that more than anything. More than she'd wanted me. So why wasn't she doing it? What had happened?

I hated that there was no one I could ask.

Ella and I had shared the same friends, and when we'd split, most of them had taken her side, not that they were still in Atlanta. But those who'd remained had made it clear that they were Team Ella all the way. I was the asshole who’d ditched them for the glitter of Silicon Valley.

Then Phillip had accused me of stealing the code I’d used for my first drone project, and the rest of my friends had dropped off the face of the earth. At least as far as I was concerned. That was fine. I didn’t need friends who’d walk away the second life got tough.

But Ella . . . getting the text after I missed her graduation had been painful, but I’d seen it coming. When she’d called me after the news broke on the lawsuit, I should have realized it was my chance to get her back. Instead, I’d wasted it and ended up driving her off for good.

I hadn’t understood how much I needed her.

The thing is, I was still pissed at her. The breakup hadn't been all my fault. Yes, I was obsessed with my company. And yes, I should've paid more attention to my girlfriend. But she never got that I wasn't just doing this for me. I didn't care about the accolades and the attention . . . not until I didn't have Ella anymore.

When we were still together, everything was about us. About our future. Ella's field was never going to be a magnet for big money. She'd probably spend most of her career writing endless grant requests and hoping her projects could get funding. But if I could make my dreams come true, I could fund hers without a second thought.

To her credit, Ella never gave a shit about money. She'd been more excited about the software I’d developed than she had about the check I got when I sold it. And maybe I didn't explain myself as well as I could have, but for fuck's sake, I was twenty-three. She could've had a little patience.

I propped my feet up on the couch cushions and scrubbed the heels of my hands against my eyes. I'd taken the red-eye in, and I was fucking exhausted. My nose hurt from Ella’s well-aimed punch. And I was starving.

I called room service and ordered a burger and a beer. One problem easily solved. I was going to eat, check in on work, and pass out early. Tomorrow, I was going to find out where Ella was living. I needed to get her to talk to me. I refused to believe we were over.

Not after that kiss.

She was mad enough to punch me. Ella didn't have much of a temper. If she’d punched me, she had to be really fucking pissed. But the second my mouth had hit hers, she’d melted.

Having her in my arms again was like coming home.

Ella was my first. Jesus, I was lucky she'd already been in love with me the first time we’d had sex because I’d lasted about thirty seconds. Fucking embarrassing. Fortunately, I’d had enough presence of mind to make sure she got hers first.

I’d been head over heels in love with her, and by the time we finally did the deed, I’d had my hands and mouth all over her luscious body. It could've been a disaster, but with Ella, everything had always been easy.

We’d laughed in bed as much as we did out of it, never afraid to experiment, to learn each other’s bodies. Together, we could do anything, or so I'd always thought. Once we’d figured sex out, it seemed like we fucked nonstop.

No one could blow my mind like Ella.

She probably thought I'd slept my way through Northern California. She'd be wrong. I'm not going to say there hadn’t been other women. There were. Especially right after we split. It didn't take me more than a few months to realize that empty sex with faceless women would never be anywhere close to being with Ella.

I tried finding another girlfriend and had even dated a woman for a few months. When I'd realized that even a smart, funny, sexy woman paled in comparison to the memory of my first love, I'd broken it off and buried myself in work.

Fatigue dragged at me. By the time I finished eating, I wouldn’t be good for much. I rolled off the couch and snagged my laptop out of the bag on the desk. Settling back in against the cushions, I flipped it open and stared at the screen.

Decisions, decisions.

My email demanded attention.

But I still didn't know where Ella was.

So far, I'd held off spying on her, not wanting to be a creep. But I couldn't ask Vance or Maggie where she lived, and I'd been blocked on her phone for two years. Blocked, but not completely locked out.

Giving in to my baser instincts, I pulled up an app that could track the GPS on her phone, assuming she hadn’t gotten a new one. The app fired up and found her in seconds. My chest tightened in anticipation when I saw that she was only a few blocks away, somewhere in midtown.

I looked up the address, expecting to find an apartment building. It was hard to determine exactly what it was. There was no commercial listing for the address, and it wasn't an apartment. I left the app open, programming it to tell me if her signal moved, and opened my email. There wasn't anything I could do about Ella at the moment, and my company needed me.

Once I had a chance to get some food and a good night’s sleep, I was going after my girl.

This time, I wasn't going to let her walk away.