“Oh God, thank you,” said Gigi. “I need it.” She leaned her head back and downed the champagne in one gulp.
“Easy there, girl! The night is young and so are you.”
“I wish I wasn’t,” Gigi said. “It’s one reason why nobody here will take me seriously.” She peered thoughtfully into her empty flute. “Young, fresh out of college—”
“An Ivy League college,” Judy interjected.
“Yeah, but it was Brown, and for some damn reason everyone keeps forgetting it’s an Ivy League school. They know Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and that’s it.”
“Look here, Georgina: you’re the smartest person in this room and you know it. In the last half-hour, you’ve forgotten more about coding and techie stuff than everyone else in here will learn over the next ten years. And look at you, girl, you’re totally—”
“Don’t say ‘hot.’ You know I’m not even remotely.”
“Actually, I was going to say—”
“And don’t say ‘cute.’ You know how much I hate hearing that.”
Judy made an amusingly frustrated face. “But you are hot. You are cute. Just look at you in your smart little blazer and black jeans.”
“You’re not helping.”
“And those glasses! That beautiful brown hair!”
“I’m praying the Lord takes me right now,” Gigi said.
Judy laughed and sipped her champagne.
In fact, Gigi was brilliant and beautiful, and not wholly unaware of it. She wore her blessings with grace but not always with ease. Beautiful women, she knew, were seen not as equals, but as possessions, and smart women were threats to the established order. TrekTek, one of the more promising Silicon Valley startups, had taken remarkably little time in bringing her on board its research and development department, but Gigi sensed that she’d already plateaued at age 23 and could expect little more than a career of lateral promotions. She was a young, beautiful woman in an industry run by men with egos as big as California and as fragile as Christmas ornaments.
“By the way,” Gigi said, “you know you’re the only one who gets to use my actual name, right? Don’t go giving people ideas. I don’t want it to become a trend. I only allow you to do it because it’s a best friend privilege.”
Judy gave a look of melodramatic mock seriousness. “The dreadful secret of your first name will remain safe with me, Georgina.”
Gigi scanned the crowded floor of Club Terra, thick with sweaty partygoers dancing herky-jerky and not always to the beat. In the distance, over Judy’s shoulder, Gigi could see a T-Rex flashing in and out of view, the strobe effect of the DJ’s lighting setup rendering the dinosaur’s movements every bit as herky-jerky as the revelers.
“Dinosaurs, for God’s sake. You ever been to a party that had dinosaurs?” Gigi asked.
Judy thought for a moment. “Down in Bakersfield, I attended a party with a dinosaur.”
“Really”
“Yeah,” Judy said. “His name was Sidney Applebaum.”
Gigi laughed.
“Seriously, the guy was like 70 years old and had just married a girl our age.”
“Ew,” Gigi said, wrinkling her nose.
“You know what he gave her as a wedding gift?”
“No, what.”
“An antique organ.”
Gigi laughed out loud. “Oh, Judy, that’s terrible.”
There was a loud metallic bang, like someone throwing a giant switch in a fuse box, and suddenly, without warning, the room was thrust into total darkness. No lights, no music, no nothing. A beat of silence, then people started screaming.
Then, just as suddenly, a single bright spotlight illuminated the DJ’s table onstage.
But instead of the DJ whose name Gigi never cared to learn, the figure now lit by the spotlight’s glare was someone whose name she knew quite well.
Damian Black.
The crowd’s terrified screaming quickly morphed into wild cheering and clapping, and Gigi felt her face go warm.
For God’s sake, get a grip, she told herself. You know what he’s about. You know he’s no good.
“Holy shit,” Judy said. “Just look at him, girl. It’s gotta be a mirage. He’s too damn good-looking to be real.”
“Oh, there’s no doubt he’s gorgeous,” Gigi nearly shouted over the cheers. “And there’s definitely no doubt in his mind.”
“Be nice,” Judy said.
Damian raised his hands. “Greetings, Silicon Valley degenerates!”
The crowd laughed.
“I want to welcome you all here for this celebration of, well, me.”
More laughter, and from the crowd a female voice shouted, “You rock, Damian!”
He raised his hands higher to quell the cheering and said, grinning, “No need to point out the obvious, love.”
Everyone laughed.
Everyone, that is, except Gigi. She leaned toward Judy and said, “I just rolled my eyes so hard they fell out of my butt.”
Judy gave her a nudge. “You gotta get in the spirit of things. The guy’s not even 30 yet and already a friggin’ billionaire. Of course he’s a little full of himself. You gotta loosen up, girl.”
Gigi stared through the crowd at the sleek, glowing figure onstage. “According to the tabloids, he’s loose enough for both of us.”
Hard Drive Chapter 2
Damian
Damian had to admit it: Dude, you love this shit.
He looked out over the revelers and felt an unadorned mixture of pride and astonishment. Pride at having built, along with his three partners, the biggest, most successful music streaming platform on the planet, and astonishment that this was, in fact, his life. It often felt more like a dream: surreal, weightless, unspooling according to its own illogical logic.
He was the face of one of the world’s most used, most recognizable brands. SXz had taken the tech world, then the consumer world, by storm. It had all but shuttered Pandora and fought off vicious competitors like Spotify and Apple Music. SXz reigned supreme. Wall Street cheered and the public couldn’t get enough of the brash young tech titan, who moved through press conferences, IPOs, and Entertainment Tonight interviews with the easy swagger of a man twice his age.
Damian’s success may have been welcomed by SXz stockholders and a public grown bored with billionaire tech nerds wearing hoodies and Chuck Taylors, but Silicon Valley’s old guard were not so enamored. They resented not so much his success but his manner in living it. Damian was devilishly handsome and knew it, and parlayed his genetic lottery win into a seemingly endless string of dalliances with pop singers, starlets, and models. His enviably robust love life made him a staple of the tabloids and gossip columns, and bred resentment among the tech industry’s older, less sexually viable brahmins.
“We’re here to celebrate me, of course—because it’s always a good time to celebrate, well, me.”
Damian’s easygoing arrogance was half-shtick, half real. He knew he was handsome, he knew he was smart, he knew he was a ferocious negotiator who never felt cowed in the presence of powerful businessmen; but he also knew he had a deep-seated desire to be liked by the public at large. He would never sell out, but neither would he intentionally alienate the fan base that had, however improbably, grown up around him. His casual inclusion of “well”—“It’s always a good time to celebrate, well, me”—was no accident. He was savvy enough to recognize that a few well-placed, well-timed words could take the edge off his cockiness and even make it endearing.
“Yes, I’m always worth celebrating, but every now and then, something else is also worth celebrating. Not often, but…you know, every now and then.”
The crowd laughed.
“I have a little announcement to make. As you may have heard, I enjoy having a good time.” Cheers and whistles. “And I do. What is life if not to be enjoyed? Am I right?”
The partygoers whooped and clapped for a full minute.
Damian held up a hand to quiet them. “But to
enjoy life, you have to first have life. Too many among us have their lives cut short by disease, and in particular, by cancer.”
Damian’s sudden seriousness had surprised the crowd into silence.
“That’s why I’m announcing tonight that SXz is partnering with SamiriGen, one of the leading medical research firms in the world, to raise half a billion dollars for experimental cancer treatments. These treatments will be made available free of charge to those without access to health insurance. I’m kicking things off by personally donating 100 million dollars”—an audible gasp from the crowd—“to make cancer every bit as extinct as those dinosaurs over there.”
A split second of absolute silence. There was the sudden awareness of history being made. Then the crowd erupted into frenzied applause and cheers. The revelers chanted, “Da-mi-AN! Da-mi-AN!”
“And if I can give a hundred million, then surely you slackers can pony up, like, ten bucks or something, right?” As the crowd laughed, he added, “We have some very attractive ladies manning the doors. When you leave tonight, how ’bout digging deep in those pockets and donating a little cheddar for the cause. Cash, credit, postage stamps—we’ll take anything you got. But that’s later. Right now—” Damian stopped and flashed his gigawatt smile. “Right now, I want you people to party your asses off.”
On cue, the spotlight extinguished as the DJ let loose a tsunami of bass. The dance floor throbbed with bodies and music and a sense of wild abandonment.
* * *
Damian made his way largely unnoticed through the dancing crowd. As a boy, Damian had watched a David Copperfield TV special and had suddenly obsessed over learning every aspect of magic. One of the first lessons he learned was that the most obvious move is usually the one that’s least expected. And since no one would have expected Damian Black—the Damian Black—to pass right through the dance floor throng, that’s precisely what he did.
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He’s mega rich and used to getting
everything he wants.
But I don’t give a shit about his money.
Or even that I once wanted Jesse Valentine
to be my first.
Now he’s walked right back into my life.
And wants me to pretend I’m his fiancée.
What the f***!
Download Good Girl, Bad Boy by Marcella Swann
Also by Marcella Swann
Reckless (A Santa Barbara Secrets Novel)
Careless (A Santa Barbara Secrets Novel)
Breathless (A Santa Barbara Secrets Novel)
Speechless (A Santa Barbara Secrets Novel)
Love & The Bad Boy (The Complete Boxset)
Hard Drive (Tech Titans Book 1)
Hardwired (Tech Titans Book 2)
Hard Copy (Tech Titans Book 3)
Hard Bargain (Tech Titans Book 4)
Tech Titans (The Complete Series)
Reunited (A Lost Love Novella)
Redeemed (A Lost Love Novella)
Rekindled (A Lost Love Novella)
Reclaimed (A Lost Love Novella)
Lost Love (The Complete Series)
Dream Baby Daddy (Billionaire Boss Mistake)
Forbidden Dream Lover (Billionaire Boss Mistake)
Dream Bad Boy Billionaire (Billionaire Boss Mistake )
Billionaire Boss Mistake (The Complete Boxset)
A Very Merry Christmas (A Feel-Good Holiday Romance)
About the Author
Marcella Swann is an Amazon #1 bestselling author of heart-thumping and heart-melting contemporary romance. She’s plied her trade in the newspaper business, written and produced a way off Broadway play, and is the proud mama of a singer-songwriter. When she’s not trying to save newspapers from imminent doom (by subscribing to them all), she loves to take her readers on dreamy journeys to that place where all the men are hotties and the women are beautiful and strong. She also swings a mean kettle bell at the gym and likes people watching at Grand Central Station on a busy day. For more information, visit www.marcellaswann.com. Marcella loves to hear from her readers. You can follow her @MarcellaSwannRomance on Facebook and @Marcella_Swann on Twitter or contact her at [email protected].
Making Out with the Billionaire Page 16
