Trillionaire Boys' Club: The Producer

by Aubrey Parker

  I HAVE MY BACK TO the doors when they fly open. Technically speaking, Roland is supposed to escort visitors into my office, but I definitely knew it wouldn’t be that way this time. Just like I know how infuriating it would be, for this particular guest, if I’d already adopted the most obnoxious position I could in advance.

  I’ve settled on the pose of powerful man looking out across his kingdom: back turned, gazing out a big window, legs slightly parted, hands clasped to the rear. I’ve worn my best suit for maximum effect. From my door, I probably look like the world’s biggest shitheel.

  Oh, he thinks he’s so awesome, standing there with his back turned, gazing out across the city with his perfect hair and perfect clothing?

  Then I’m supposed to say, Goddamn right I do.

  “Hey.” It’s a plain word, but not casual. Less a greeting than an irritated bark. The single word doesn’t leave with an exclamation.

  I don’t turn.

  “Hey, asshole. I’m talking to you.”

  That’s more like it.

  “Quit acting so fucking high and mighty and look me in the eye.”

  I turn, keeping my expression neutral. Alyssa is standing five feet from my burst-open office doors, Roland is right behind her with an I-tried-to-stop-her look on his face. I don’t blame him. Anyone getting in her way right now would probably end up neutered.

  I take her in. A long, slow look. She was amazing when she left this morning. She’s wearing last night’s clothes; I guess she never got to run home. Her hair is untamed. She strikes me as even more remarkable now that she’s being the bitch she’s so excellent at being.

  “It’s all right, Roland,” I say. “Leave us.”

  He goes. Slowly. The doors latch.

  “Hello, Alyssa.” I say it a bit like Hannibal Lecter said, Hello, Clarice.

  I tell myself to tone it down. Alyssa thinks she’s holding all the aces, and in a way she very much is. But I have my trump cards, and it will be delicious to play them.

  “Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  “I was admiring the view.”

  “Don’t act stupid.”

  “Maybe I am stupid.”

  She marches forward, no pause between her steady pace and the incredible slap she delivers hard across my face. “Onyx told me it was you. I’m not guessing, so don’t try and deny it. I know. You sweet-talked Aiden Page out of giving me a percentage in their Education project and at the same time, you called my boss and threw money at him until he agreed to let you take over the agency. Why?”

  “I’ve always been interested in education. And publicity.”

  Alyssa hits me again. “Stop being a pussy. Be a man and answer me.”

  “I wouldn’t have had to do it if you’d just talked to me this morning.”

  “You bastard.”

  “I don’t have a lot of time for fighting. But I do have a ton of money. So I buy options. Just like I bought you.”

  She swings to slap me a third time, but I grab her by the wrist. Her eyes flash. She’s still right up on me, but that’s the first chink in her confident armor.

  “Listen to me, Alyssa,” I say, trading my haughty voice for a much sterner one. “I never let you go this morning. Do you understand me? We had an agreement. You surrender to me, and I make every decision until your release. If I don’t say so, you’re not to reclaim the reins. You picked up the phone without my permission, then you left. So right now? By the terms of our arrangement, you’re still supposed to trust my judgment and do what I say.”

  Her expression is priceless. A cross between disgust and extreme disbelief. It was all worth it — every penny I paid Forage and Banner — just to see the way she’s looking at me now.

  She hates me for sure. But hasn’t that always been true?

  “Are you … are you kidding me?”

  I still have her wrist, though she’s already made an effort to yank it away. I tug her closer. She pulls back. I love how fury. I love how hard she’s fighting — in spirit if not in body.

  “Of course I’m not kidding.”

  She shakes her head. She’d probably laugh if she hadn’t just decided I’m out of my mind, maybe dangerous. “You’re insane.”

  “I honor my agreements. You could learn a thing or two from me.”

  I yank her toward me and kiss her, hard. It feels good, in the few seconds it takes before she starts hitting me again. I feel the response in her lips. And in myself.

  I let her go. But she stays.

  “I could learn,” she repeats, incredulous.

  “Yes.”

  She goes on, deadpan, unbelieving. “I could learn from you. After what you did. And you have the nerve to sit there and talk about ‘honoring agreements’ and ‘trust.’”

  “What did happen, Alyssa?”

  “You let me fall.” Then she laughs. It’s bitter and horrid. “Hell. You pushed me.”

  “How?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Sit the fuck down. Stop running your goddamn impertinent mouth for a second and answer my question.” I give her a tiny sideways smile. “Like you said: Be a man. Or a woman. It’s just a question: How did I let you fall? How did I push you?”

  She’s so shocked that she actually sits.

  “How, Alyssa?”

  She swallows. Much of her bluster is gone, but she still sits proudly. “You took that appointment last night on my behalf. You told them I’d be there, then let me oversleep. You knew how important it was, and still you made me miss it.”

  “Important to whom?”

  Frustrated: “To me.”

  “I see. But who was making your decisions at the time?”

  “That wasn’t your decision to make.”

  “So now there are exceptions. Now we had a halfway agreement.”

  “Of course it’s an exception!”

  “Then what was the point? How can you relax if the mandate is I don’t need to be responsible … except for sometimes.”

  “This is absurd.”

  “Where is your integrity? How can I trust you if it’s not a hundred percent?”

  “You’re one to talk about trust.”

  “I honored my commitments. I honored your trust.”

  “You didn’t wake me! You didn’t tell me about the meeting — not even after it was over!”

  “And you never let me tell you why. You were too arrogant — too positive that you were right, I was wrong, and that I’d always been a bastard out to hurt you. You wouldn’t so much as sit down and listen to me.”

  That stops her. It’s subtle, but a shift in her body language betrays a beat of definite doubt.

  “I don’t want to play this game with you.”

  “It’s not a game, Alyssa. In my world, nothing gets done if people are dishonest. Everyone I work with must believe that they can take the other person at face value. I know that people think that guys like me are dishonest — that all of us are. And maybe it looks that way from the outside, but it isn’t true. We make mutually beneficial deals, and always honor our terms. That’s how things are done.” I point an accusing finger at her. “But you? You broke the pact.”

  Alyssa is fuming, but she says nothing.

  “Going to that meeting wouldn’t have served you.”

  “How the hell can you say that? It’s bullshit!”

  I shake my head: Not bullshit at all.

  “You can’t make deals, Alyssa. You’re not qualified. You’re downright incompetent at it. You think I don’t know about Onyx’s dirty little secret? It’s hardly confidential. I seriously doubt it’s press-worthy and I’m sure you know it. It isn’t severe enough to warrant such a generous moving bonus.”

  Her face scrunches. She’s torn between disbelieving me on principle and trying to reckon what I said — which amounts to me killing the deal to protect Onyx, who was giving too much away, instead of her.

  “You killed the deal for his benefit?”

  “I a
lready told you. I killed it for yours.”

  “How does it benefit me not to take Onyx’s deal, which you think was too skewed in my favor?”

  “If you move, you won’t have time to pay sufficient attention to my project. With Ross. And that, in the end, has so much more potential.”

  “But the Banner Agency—”

  “Was going to ask you to take over anyway.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I can. And I can show you the contract your firm’s owner already sent my legal team to review. It stipulates the conditions of my buying the company. The prime condition — which Cormac reiterated several times when we spoke — was that if I wanted to take over the firm, his succession plans had to stay in place. Plans, Alyssa, that have named you as his preferred successor for at least six months now.”

  She looks gobsmacked. “You’re lying.”

  “I don’t lie.”

  “You lie all the time.”

  “Name once.”

  Her lips move, but no sound comes out.

  “I’ve always told you that you’re attractive. So much that you found it obnoxious. I’m so honest that sometimes I come off as aggressive or blunt. I go after what I want. It’s how I’m wired. That’s why I didn’t hesitate to tell you that I wanted to fuck you. And right now, I still do.”

  “Never. Never again.”

  “But why? You’re trying so hard to hate me. You always have. You think I’m trying to keep you down. You think I’m against you. But when have I stopped you without a plan to show you something better? I killed your deal because in that deal, nobody won. Onyx didn’t win, and I need him to because he’s part of the Syndicate. Aiden didn’t win because he wasn’t comfortable with Onyx’s deal to begin with. Banner didn’t win because even with you taking over per Onyx’s supposed request, Cormac had to stay on as owner. He doesn’t want that, Alyssa; he wanted a buyout, which I’ve given him. And you certainly didn’t win. You want to earn your successes through merit, but if you’d taken Onyx’s deal — which you would have no matter what I said, if I hadn’t made it impossible — you’d have become Banner’s president as part of an unrelated quid pro quo rather than earning it.”

  “What about the money? I’m losing the money.” Her arguments are dead. She’s grasping at straws, trying to believe what she no longer can.

  “I can offer so much more money with the job I have in mind.”

  “I already have a job.”

  “It’s not the same kind.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I raise a finger. “I won’t tell you just yet. You’re not done trusting me, Alyssa. I can only tell you that it’s a position you’ll need to earn, even though I’m convinced you’re perfect. It’s a job that, contractually, I could negotiate with you for any price … but which precedent says is above contracts. I could make you sign whatever I want, but in the law’s eyes, you would probably always be able to argue for a much larger sum.”

  “How large?”

  “$6.4 billion.”

  She thinks I’m kidding. “What, per year?”

  “In assets.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You yourself must be worth—“

  I cut her off. “$12.8 billion.”

  Her anger is gone. She’s dumbfounded, struggling with what she can’t fathom.

  “What’s the position?” But her eyes tell me she has ideas her mind can’t accept.

  “In time,” I say, “I suspect you’ll find out.”

  The office is still. Silent. I know she can’t fully believe me. Or maybe she doesn’t want to. But its claws are working into her. Slowly, she’s seeing the truth.

  “There’s one more party who wouldn’t have won if you’d taken that deal and moved to Inferno Falls, Alyssa,” I say, now a bit quieter. “Someone you’re forgetting. Someone you want to forget. But you’ll never be able, no matter how hard you try.”

  “Who?”

  And I say, “Me.”

  “You.” She says it simply, then waits to see if there’s more. Then finally, “You and I are through.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “Because you’re …” She stalls, then tries again. “Because …”

  “Because what? Because I’m what?”

  “You can’t just do all of this and expect me to accept it, Cole. You’re like a bulldozer. This isn’t the way things are done.”

  I want to keep pushing because logically, I know I’m right. Everything I did was for her. I didn’t let Alyssa fall; I lifted her up. I didn’t betray her trust; I took it to a new level. I didn’t ruin her career or sour the deal. I made a wiser choice. I made her deal so much better.

  Onyx will be fine in Inferno with his jilted girlfriend all by himself. Cormac will be happy in unattached retirement, now with a massive nest egg. And if she lets herself, Alyssa will be happy, too. If she’d accepted the offer, she’d never have known that Cormac had her slated to take over Banner all along. She’d have started to resent the position, because Alyssa doesn’t like getting anything for free. She’s like me in that way.

  But I don’t keep pushing. That’s what I would have done with Rachel.

  If I’m asking Alyssa to trust me, I have to trust her, and in a way I haven’t trusted anyone in nearly 20 years: with the heart I keep hidden inside, with the soft spot I keep covered in arrogance and anger. Rachel didn’t rise to that trust, at least in part because I drove her so hard that her only choice was to leave me.

  I can’t be sure that Alyssa won’t do the same. But in the end, I’ll need a leap of faith.

  I’ve been standing over her, but now I’m sitting, our knees almost touching.

  “If you had left, I would have missed you.”

  “That’s very sweet. But—”

  “No buts. It’s not something I’m willing to negotiate. Not at any price. The minute the deal includes you moving away from me, it costs too much. I need you here.”

  “We can work from anywhere,” she says.

  “I’m not talking about working with you.”

  She’s keeping her shields up, because I’m positive this scares her, too.

  “Our arrangement … if I moved … I mean, we could …”

  “Alyssa …” I reach out to take her hand. “Of all the things we did, would you like to guess the part I enjoyed most?”

  She blushes. She’s a tigress once she gets rolling, but the thought of our nights make her giggle nervously in the daytime. “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “That time you came into my office, two hours early for our appointment, and we …” Again she trails off, unable to say it.

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “Breakfast. The first time.”

  She wasn’t expecting that. I get an odd look, something almost like a smile. “You’re lying.”

  “I don’t lie.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it woke a part of me I thought was gone forever.”

  “You really love to cook, don’t you?”

  “Yes. And it was nice to do it again. But there’s something more important.” I take a breath. “Alyssa. I love you, too.”

  “How can you love me?”

  “Like this.” And I squeeze Alyssa’s hand, without otherwise touching her or leaning in for a kiss. I don’t take her and rip her clothes off. There is a place for that. Many places. But this is something different. A small squeeze. There’s more that happens inside, and judging by the way she watches my eyes, I suspect she can feel it.

  “I’ve always looked for the edges, Alyssa. I want an adrenaline rush. I do what’s difficult, and I take a lot of risks. I like to surf big waves, ski uncharted downhill slopes. I thought I’d used every little muscle my body had to offer, doing those things. But this is a muscle that’s been dormant too long. It’s weak. So this sport? This new challenge you represent to me — not as a conquest, but as a companion to whom I give my heart? It’s one challeng
e I guess I wasn’t ready for. You caught me off guard, Alyssa. When I realized what was happening, it made me feel weak and defenseless. I don’t like feeling that way, so I tried to ignore it. But then I realized something.”

  “What did you realize?”

  “That it wasn’t going to go away. I had to try my best, even if it turned out you didn’t love me back.”

  I’m so far out on a limb that the ground is about to give way beneath me. You’re supposed to negotiate from a position of strength, but that’s not what I’ve done. I’ve made myself weak. I’ve stripped my armor and put her sword to my throat.

  There was no other way. She captivates me. I couldn’t close down and walk away, no matter how much those old wounds still hurt.

  Her face softens. Finally, she squeezes me back. “I don’t know if I can love someone as fucked-up and weird as you are.”

  And I say, “That’s good enough to start.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  ALYSSA

  BY THE TIME ONYX’S RELOCATION is a for-sure thing and his movers are packing his enormous home into boxes, I’ve taken over most of Banner’s day-to-day. The lawyers are still juggling paperwork for Cole’s buyout and my takeover, but operations require a transition period anyway, if they’re to smoothly change hands. So I’m working on faith that the deal will go through, which Cole assures me it will. I don’t think beyond that. He made this agreement while in charge of my decisions, so I have to keep trusting it. To keep trusting him.

  “What exactly should I be doing, relative to Mia?” Onyx asks. “Do I need to … I don’t know … issue a press release or something?”

  I laugh. Onyx has no intuitive grasp of what I do. He’s brilliant with computers, but shit with media manipulation. It’s subtler than that. Press releases are a thing of the past, at least as far as I’m concerned. And Cole was right. It’s not that anyone cares about Onyx and his past mistakes unless he gives them a reason. His reaction, while media may or may not be watching, matters.

  Handling media can be like Newtonian physics: you have to watch for reactions, and knock something out of kilter, knowing natural laws say there will be another counter-reaction somewhere else. The trick isn’t to make announcements in advance or try and make things happen. It’s to anticipate where the counter-reaction will happen, then have a plan in place.