Unfinished Seductions

by Raleigh Davis

  I’m about to say, if we ever had a baby, you’d have to be there. Brienne seemed resigned when she told me about Jack missing their kids’ entire childhood. I can’t ever imagine feeling the same if Logan wasn’t there for our kids.

  That feels too much like tempting fate though. We’re not ready for that.

  “But it wasn’t so bad to slow down, was it?” I ask instead.

  He lifts our intertwined hands and kisses my fingers. I shiver at the touch of his lips, all of my body sparking to life. “You made it bearable.”

  Chapter 30

  I’ve hired—and fired—a lot of people in my career, so my first instinct in the meeting with Greg and Lila is to take over. This is my terrain, and I know it like the back of my hand.

  But the website is Callie’s idea. She’s been nurturing this the entire time—she should take the lead if she wants.

  “So.” Callie lifts her hand, the bracelets I gave her just last week glittering on her wrist. She’s dressed in colors and fabrics that make me think of the beach and sunshine, which is appropriate for LA. “We’re interested in… No, wait, let me start again. We have a website.”

  Greg and Lila are listening politely, but it’s clear they have no idea why we’re here. And Callie’s explanation isn’t making it any clearer.

  We’re in a popular coffee shop in Los Feliz, the horrible LA traffic streaming down the streets and thundering on a nearby freeway, the sun powerfully bright in the sky even though it’s only nine in the morning.

  “Well, we don’t exactly have a website yet.” Callie’s hand flutters in the air. “But we’re working on it.”

  I’ve suffered through some bad pitches as a VC. Callie’s isn’t the worst pitch ever, but she’s not doing herself any favors. I hold back my urge to intervene. I won’t step in unless she asks me to.

  It’s not easy—my eyelid starts to twitch—but I do it.

  Callie claps her hands together, making everyone jump. “And that’s where you come in!”

  “We do?” Lila asks, politely confused.

  “Yes.” Callie gestures to her but seems to have lost the point she was trying to make.

  I’m guessing that Callie has never been on this side of the table for an interview before. It’s not as easy as you might guess, explaining the position and finding the right questions to ask. And Callie is finding out exactly how not easy it is right now.

  My teeth start to grind. I won’t step in, I won’t step in…

  Callie catches my eye, a look of pure pleading on her face. She’s still pointing at Lila, but her finger droops like a dying flower stem.

  Okay, now I can step in.

  I sit back in my chair, settling my hands on my knees and spreading my legs. I’m going for casual but also powerful, demonstrating I’ve got nothing to lose here. And implying that Greg and Lila do—like, say, a great job opportunity.

  “You both write about the tech community,” I say. “So you already know who Arne Fuchs is.”

  They’re both instantly alert. Oh yeah, they definitely know him.

  They exchange a glance. A small, intimate, speaks-volumes-without-words glance. Greg’s eyes widen a fraction—he’s asking her something. Lila’s head shakes, just the once—she’s telling him no.

  Interesting.

  They both settle down, or at least try to. Their calmness is only skin-deep.

  “Yes, I’ve heard of him,” Greg says dryly. “Why?”

  “I should emphasize that we are completely off the record here,” I say. “Whatever is said here, no matter what happens, goes no farther than this table.”

  It’s an intriguing gambit, and they take the bait.

  “Of course,” Lila says, leaning forward. “So why are you here? And what does it have to do with Arne Fuchs?”

  “We’re starting a media company.” Callie’s voice is steady and certain. She’s found the thread again. “We want to build a site for the best Silicon Valley news—and some gossip. We want it to be informative and addictive.”

  “Like TidBytes?” Greg asks.

  “Better than TidBytes. With more serious, hard-hitting stories than they have. We want to blow them out of the water.”

  “And you need writers,” Lila says. She’s not as intrigued as she was before. Probably because she’s seen a million media ventures come and go. They’ve got shorter life spans than moths near a lit candle.

  “We do,” I say. “But we had something unique in mind for you two. You’ve heard of Fuchs, but how much do you know about him?”

  Again they share a look. Longer, more open than the last one. Now they’re both asking questions of the other.

  When Greg looks back at us, confusion is stamped on his expression. “Did you hear about the article somehow? Is that why you’re here?”

  Callie and I now share a look.

  “What article?” I ask, hiding my own confusion.

  “Greg’s been shopping this article on Fuchs for forever,” Lila says. She’s annoyed on his behalf, clearly feeling the insult more sharply than he is. “But no news source will touch it. They don’t want to offend him, even though everything in it is sourced and sourced again.”

  Greg’s mouth twists with resigned bitterness. “Fuchs is notoriously lawsuit happy. But some of the stuff I uncovered about him… You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Oh, I think we would,” Callie says.

  “So you’ve heard the rumors?” Lila says.

  “You could say that,” I say. “How would you two like to come work for us? We want a series of articles on Fuchs, for the front page. And we want bombshells for all of them.”

  Greg and Lila stare, mouths open. They look so alike I want to laugh. It looks like they’re picking up each other’s expressions.

  I wonder if Callie and I sometimes share the same facial expression.

  “Wait… really?” Greg looks like I’ve handed him a winning lottery ticket, no strings attached. “Even though he could sue?”

  “Oh, he probably will.” I brush my pant leg. “But I know a few lawyers.”

  “We also…” Callie stops, searches for the right phrasing. “We have some sources for you on Fuchs. Exclusive sources. But they’ll need to be handled very carefully. And never, ever named in the stories. Actually, they probably shouldn’t even exist as far as the readers are concerned.”

  Greg drums his fingers on the table. “That could get tricky. Especially if Fuchs sues and we have to go to court.”

  “Let us worry about that,” I say.

  “I suppose we could do it,” Lila says. “It’s tricky but not impossible.”

  We have them. We need to tug the line just a little bit more, make sure the hook is set—

  “So that’s a yes?” Callie asks.

  Oh hell. Once we leave here, Callie and I are going to have a long talk about how to interview people. Or maybe I’ll just offer to take this over from now on—she must have let the managing editor handle the other hires.

  “Yeah, we will.” Lila’s acceptance is bright, almost joyous. “It sounds perfect for us.”

  She and Callie share a smile. Already they seem like allies.

  “But…” Greg closes his mouth resignedly. “We haven’t discussed any of the details.”

  “Salary, working remotely… Leave all that to me.” I reach across the table to shake his hand. “The details are my specialty.”

  Chapter 31

  “Oh my goodness, that was amazing.” I put my hands over my mouth, still in shock from the interview. “I can’t believe he was already writing an article. And that no newspaper would publish it.”

  Logan is driving us… somewhere, his hands tight on the wheel as he navigates the snarled traffic. “You fucking—” he mutters at another driver. “I can believe it. Corvus does a lot of work for the government—newspapers have sources there. Some bigwig at the NSA calls them up, tells them he’s upset about the hit job on his favorite tech CEO and… Yeah, they don’t want to deal wit
h that. Not to mention the lawsuits.”

  “One man shouldn’t have that much power,” I say. “It’s not right.”

  I can’t see Logan’s eyes behind his sunglasses, but I’m guessing his gaze is skeptical. “Right or not, he does. But we’re this much closer to taking some of that power from him.”

  I look out the windows at the sun-soaked sky. “Yep. And it feels good.” I frown as a street sign goes by. “That’s the second freeway on-ramp you’ve passed. Aren’t we going to the airport?”

  He must be eager to get back to work, even though we’ve been working on this trip.

  Logan shakes his head. And doesn’t say where we are going.

  I cross my arms. “Well?” I wait some more. “Aren’t you going to tell me?”

  “Why do you want to ruin the surprise?”

  He has a surprise for me… in LA. I have no idea what it could be. “No, I guess I don’t.”

  After an hour in traffic—and a lot more swearing from Logan—we arrive at a tiny bungalow in what I think is Pasadena. The street is quiet and residential and probably filled with old money.

  “What is this place?” I ask as he helps me out of the car.

  “Your surprise.”

  When I see who opens the door, my heart stops, then slams into high gear. I want to squeal, but instead I settle for a high-pitched “Hiiii! You’re Kyla Madison.”

  The woman in the doorway laughs at my impression of a super fangirl. “Yes, that’s me.”

  She says it like she’s nothing special and not one of the most famous and sought-after designers in the world. The only way to get one of her dresses is for her to make it. By hand.

  Back when we got engaged, I mentioned to Logan—in passing, completely offhand—that I would love for her to make my wedding dress, but of course there wasn’t time and she was way too expensive. And also, I had no idea how to get ahold of her to ask her to do it. It seemed like a need-to-know thing, and I clearly wasn’t important enough to need to know.

  He remembered. He remembered and he arranged this for me.

  “Come in.” Kyla gestures us inside like we’re old friends.

  The entire house has been transformed into an atelier, with sewing machines on the desks instead of computers, bolts of fabric on the bookshelves, and lots of gorgeous, natural light pouring into the windows. A dressmaker’s dummy sits right in the middle of the living room, in front of a low couch. The dummy is unclothed, waiting for Kyla to work her magic.

  I want to stamp my feet with excitement when I realize Kyla’s going to construct a dress for me on that dummy.

  “I’m Kyla,” she says, holding a hand out to me. “But you already knew that.”

  I make sure not to crush her hand in my excitement. “I’m Callie. And this is Logan.”

  “Please.” Kyla gestures to the sofa. “Sit. Not you,” she tells me. “I need to measure you.”

  Logan splays himself on the sofa in the salon, arms wide, legs spread, the modern male as conqueror. And I’m not enough of a modern female to resist responding in a deep, primitive way.

  He’s conquered me again, but I’m willing territory.

  Kyla isn’t immune to him either. She snaps up straight when Logan’s gaze falls on her, probably to hide her instinctive reaction, which creeps up her neck anyway—a violent blush. His handsomeness does that to women.

  I’m not jealous, because he’s here with me. In the end, I own all his attention and that body of his. I remember those awful pictures in TidBytes, of him and countless other women. How different would those pictures have looked to me if I’d been there? If I’d seen the larger context that the pictures didn’t capture?

  Logan flashes Kyla a killer smile. But then his attention shifts, locks on me, and I get a better smile. A truer one.

  He’s mine, I think at her, more out of pity than jealousy. But there’s some of that too. I’m only human.

  “In a nonpatriarchal society, we wouldn’t have jealousy.” That’s what my mom always said. “When women are dependent on men, men become a resource. One we have to fight over. Take away the dependence, and jealousy is gone.”

  With all due respect to my mother, that’s bullshit. I don’t react with a snarl to other women coming close to Logan because I’m worried they’ll take him—I react because some deep instinct says “That’s the most precious thing in the world to you. Defend it.”

  “So.” Kyla looks me over with a critical eye. “What did we have in mind?”

  I blink and go stiff. “Um, I don’t know. This was a surprise.”

  “She needs a ball gown,” Logan says. “A spectacular one.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. Kyla trained originally as a tailor, and she’s made some killer, off-kilter suits. “I could use a suit. Where would I wear a ball gown?”

  For all the money washing through Silicon Valley, everyone consciously dresses down. The parties might be expensive, but the dresses the women wear don’t declare that. Sadly.

  “Hmm.” Kyla puts her hand to her chin, studying me. “You’d be perfect for a modern Le Smoking—”

  “No.” Logan doesn’t have to raise his voice, but he instantly commands our attention. “No suits. A gown. And it needs to be ready in a month.”

  “What’s happening in a month?” I ask.

  At the same time, Kyla protests. “A month! That’s not long enough.”

  “The launch party for the website,” Logan tells me. “I want you to be the most fabulously, originally dressed woman there. And you can do it,” he says to Kyla. “I’m sure you can make this dress your first priority for the next four weeks.”

  He means he’ll pay whatever it takes, but you don’t talk about money in situations like this. Funny, the more things cost as you move up the wealth ladder, the less people talk about the price tags.

  Kyla catches his meaning. “I suppose I could. And for a body like this…” She circles me. “Raise your arms please. Oh yes, you have the perfect figure.”

  “Yes, she does,” Logan says, his eyes hot and intent.

  Kyla and I both blush.

  “You’re very lucky,” she says to me, although she’s looking at Logan.

  I look at him too, because he’s that compelling. And he always was.

  “I know,” I say.

  Chapter 32

  “This is definitely not Airbnb,” Callie says, spreading her arms wide.

  I pop the cork on the bottle of wine I had delivered and watch Callie take in the infinity pool in the backyard and the view of downtown from our perch in the Hollywood Hills.

  “No, it’s not.” I fill a glass, then pass it to her. “This belongs to Paul’s family for when they’re in LA. I figured we’d stay the night, then fly back tomorrow morning.”

  “Oooh, this is our wine.” She takes an appreciative sip. I guess she’s changed her mind on wanting a winery. “You know, this is almost like a vacation.”

  It is. I’ve done zero work today, unless you count hiring the writers, which I don’t. That was basically a coffee break for me. I’m itchy about it—I’m still me—but I’m not going to give in to the itch.

  Callie is relaxed and happy, which makes me want to keep her relaxed and happy. Work can wait until tomorrow.

  “So you’re enjoying yourself?” I walk up next to her, taking in the view and the pool. It is pretty nice, but I prefer our view at home.

  Of course, the view is nothing compared to Callie. She changed before dinner into a dress that’s more art than clothing. It reveals very little skin, but it clings to her in a way that makes me jealous.

  She’s going to look stunning in the dress she’s having made. I can’t wait to pull it off her after the launch party.

  “I am.” She sighs and tucks herself under my arm. “Dinner was amazing, and meeting Kyla was like a dream come true.”

  “You deserve it.”

  “You know what I noticed?” she whispers to me.

  Jesus, but I love having her this clos
e, this intimate. I want to drag her into the nearest bedroom and kiss her until we’re both lust drunk. But it would be a shame to waste this wine and the nighttime view.

  “What?” I ask.

  “No one’s looking at us here.”

  She’s right. We get a lot of double takes in San Francisco, but here, no one even looks once at us.

  “We’re not LA famous,” I say. “It’s nice.”

  “It is. We don’t have to worry about our picture being in…” She ends on a laugh. “You know what, I can’t even think of a single celebrity tabloid. I should know those, for market research, right?”

  “Your target audience can’t name any celebrity tabloids either. I’d say you’re fine. Besides, our pillow talk counts as market research.”

  She waggles her eyebrows. “You joke, but the wives know everything. Brienne has been telling me all kinds of stuff. Most of it we couldn’t even publish—it’s just too crazy.”

  “Is she still set on writing a column for us?”

  Callie’s shoulders stiffen. “Yes. And I haven’t tried to convince her otherwise.”

  I hoped Brienne would change her mind and we’d be spared the headache of keeping her identity anonymous. Besides, it’s going to get out eventually, and then we’ll have to deal with the fallout from it. Which will be yet another headache.

  “I just think it’s wiser if we don’t have the wife of the CEO of Pixio writing for us anonymously. I mean, you wouldn’t write for the site under a fake name—you can see all the problems that would cause.”

  She’s now rigid beneath my arm. “No,” she says woodenly. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  Hell. I never should have said anything. “Forget I mentioned it. Let Brienne do what she wants. And when she’s discovered—and she will be—we’ll deal with it. It won’t be such a big deal.”

  Callie relaxes, her body once more flowing into mine. “Really? You’re okay with it?”

  There’s more hope and excitement in her voice than I was expecting. She and Brienne must be pretty good friends by now.