by KB Winters
I wasn’t just terrified. No, I was beyond terrified.
Fuck this, I thought, ripping open the third package with my teeth, as I began to laugh maniacally.
Chapter 13
Gabe
I went into work that morning, unable to concentrate on anything but the feel of Meg in my arms.
I texted her while stuck in traffic but didn’t get a reply. As I strode through the doors of my office, I punched in a call to her and lifted the phone to my ear. But it went right to voicemail.
Odd. Maybe she was resting. That was good for her. She had a bumpy night last night. We both had.
Bumpy, but un-fucking-forgettable.
Being with a woman had always been uncomfortable to me. I fumbled around the whole dating scene, and I never liked going out when I could stay inside, behind my computer. But last night had been the perfect night. We’d stayed inside, eating pretzels, drinking beer, watching and commenting on reality television. We’d made out like two teenagers, and the best part was, there was no curfew. We’d undressed each other and made wild love on the sofa, in the soft glow of the television set.
It had definitely been my kind of night.
As close as we were becoming, I still sensed hesitation in Meg. She was the type to go headstrong, full gusto, into every situation without thinking it through. I didn’t know what it was, though. She kept herself to herself, that was for sure. She never told me what she’d been doing, since high school and college, never invited me to her place, and always changed the subject when it went it veered close to why she’d left.
When I asked her if she’d ever had a long-term relationship before, she didn’t answer. Maybe this was new, uncharted territory for her. And as much as I wanted to jump in, without looking, part of me was a little worried, too. What if I pushed the wrong buttons, and she picked up and left again?
Most of the office was abuzz with industry by the time I got in and unlocked my office door. Funny, I used to be the first one to arrive in the morning, before the sun even came up. Since Meg, I’d become the latecomer, the loser who always stumbled in when most of the people had been there for hours. I powered up my computer and checked my schedule, then frowned.
Fuck. I had another meeting with a handful of the biggest investors in half an hour.
There was a time, not so long ago, when I would’ve prepared for weeks for a meeting like this. When I would’ve come to work in a suit, instead of my rumpled dockers and dress shirt. When I would’ve cared. But then I thought of Meg, moving against me in perfect rhythm, and nothing inside the walls of my office mattered.
Fuck it, I thought to myself. The app sells itself. All I have to do is stand back and let it shine. And no one gives a shit if my shoes aren’t polished, as long as the app delivers.
Actually, they really didn’t care what the app did. They wouldn’t care if I showed up in my birthday suit. All they wanted was money. But I didn’t want to deliver crap. My name was attached to that app, my reputation, not theirs. As confident as I was that it was a groundbreaker, I wasn’t going to let it out without testing it fully.
“Ready?” Heller asked as he poked his head in my office. I was nursing my first cup of coffee. “The investors are assembling in the boardroom.”
I stood and stuffed my folder under my arm, then picked up my coffee cup. “Lead the way, man.”
The boardroom was in a corner of the building, overlooking a large park and fountain. It was a nice piece of real estate and this particular room had attracted me to the space as the headquarters for E-Ventures. Heller wanted a place over the river in Manhattan, but I’d convinced him that our investors wouldn’t mind the trip through the Lincoln Tunnel for what I was going to deliver.
As I walked in and looked at their grim faces, I wondered if I’d made a mistake. They were all dressed in matching black suits, as if this were a funeral. I looked down at my dockers and red tie and felt instantly inferior. “Hello, there,” I said, starting to shake hands all around.
They gave me nods and curt greetings. I’d expected a little concern, as we were drawing close to launch date, but I hadn’t expected full-on grief.
I came to the end of the rounds and shook hands with the last man, a goateed man who looked familiar. I tried to remember if I’d seen him at the party two months before, and that was when it clicked. He was the one leaning in to Meg’s ear, ready to bite it off. I’d heard him say something about fucking her in his limo before I’d interceded.
Asshole.
I smiled tightly at him as I strode to the head of the large desk. I set my coffee down and stood as the rest of the men took their seats. I planted my palms flat on the desk and leaned forward. “Now, gentleman,” I said calmly. “What appears to be the problem?”
A couple of the men started to speak at once, but it was Heller’s voice I heard. “There are rumors circulating that the app might not launch on time.”
I rubbed my temple. It was damp with sweat. “That’s nonsense. Any other concerns?”
“I’ve heard you haven’t even gone into beta testing yet. Is that true?” Asshole asked, in an accusing voice.
“That’s not true,” I said. “We completed the first round. However, I ordered a second round to ensure that any issues from the first round were adequately addressed.”
Immediately the room erupted in chaos. I might as well have said I intended to eat my firstborn child for breakfast. “But that wasn’t in the schedule!” someone called out.
That was true. Heller had urged me to go ahead without it, but I hadn’t felt comfortable without at least some level of testing. Maybe I was being overcautious. But I was the owner. I had to make the decision. And, therefore, I had to deal with any outcry from our investors.
I held out my hands to calm the storm. I noticed Heller, out of the corner of my eye, just standing there, not offering any help. “Wait, wait, wait,” I said, looking at him for assistance.
Now, Heller was a man who could silence a room with a look. He had presence. People listened to him. But he clearly wasn’t on his game today. He raised a hand and said, in an almost ineffectual, soft voice, “Let the man speak.”
Eventually, the voices calmed, and I reminded them, “We’re ahead on the original beta testing schedule, so that gives us wiggle room. And this schedule will be reduced significantly so it won’t impact the launch.”
The men looked at each other, grumbling. Somehow, the posted schedule, that had been in the prospectus from the very beginning, wasn’t alleviating their fears. What was this? Was someone spreading rumors behind the scenes that I was a massive fuck-up who couldn’t be counted on to deliver? All I could see staring back at me was wall-to-wall disgust.
“I assure you,” I said, in my loudest, most calming voice. “Everything is under control for release in late summer as planned. There are no issues.”
More grumbling. “Well, there better not be,” Asshole snarled at me. “I have a lot riding on this, and I need to recoup my investment within the first thirty days. If that doesn’t happen, I will be sorely disappointed.”
I wasn’t sure how long it would take them to recover their investments, as I wasn’t the money man. Heller, who had all the facts and figures regarding projected profits, just nodded lamely. I wanted to kick him under the table, but he was too far away. What the fuck, Heller? Throw me to the wolves and just sit there why don’t you?
Finally, mercifully, the meeting ended. I went through the same rigmarole I’d been through at the beginning of the meeting, shaking hands firmly, offering pleasant thank-yous, but my shirt was damp with sweat. I felt like I was roasting from the inside out. When they all drifted away, I turned to the window, stared at the fountain, and took a deep, cleansing breath.
Then I turned to Heller. “What the fuck was that?”
Heller said, “Ah, investors. Don’t worry. They get that way before a release. You just do what you did. Reassure them as best as you can.”
“I did, but .
. . goddamnit. They don’t get it, do they?” I asked, stalking across the room, then pacing back. “It’s not like I can whip it out there in one day and expect all the bugs to just work themselves out. It needs to be perfect from day one or else our customers will go somewhere else, and we’ll lose them forever.”
“Perfection is illusive,” he pointed out.
“Okay, maybe not perfection. But it has to be damn good.”
Heller nodded. “You understand that. And I understand that. But them?” He pointed at the door. “They don’t give a shit. It’s all about the money. Namely, how much you can make them. They don’t care if it’s not perfect. They just want it to start lining their pockets as quickly as possible.”
I knew that. “Yeah. I know, but it sounded like someone’s been bad-mouthing us, didn’t it? Have you read the trades lately?”
Because I sure hadn’t. For the first time in my life, I hadn’t picked up a trade magazine in weeks. He waved that away. “Oh, certainly. I haven’t read anything untoward.”
I shook my head, feeling shell-shocked, like I’d been through a war, where I’d come out on the losing side. And what had Heller done? Sat there and looked pretty.
“Well, thanks,” I grouched. “Thanks for backing me up in there.”
Heller kept a level head, as always. “All I’ve been doing is backing this app up. But sometimes they need a little extra assurance, from the man who knows it best.”
Right, right. I rubbed my eyes. Yes, I wasn’t being fair. He had as much invested in LuvMakr as I did. He’d likely reassured them as much as he could, and now they wanted to hear it from me, the developer. I’d done the best I could, even though it didn’t feel like enough. They were still jittery.
And if I fucked up now, if I made one wrong move, and the app didn’t release on time?
I’d have all of those assholes to answer to, and I’d probably be run out of town on a rail. I sighed. “I’m sorry, man. Just a little stressed out, is all.”
He smiled. “Haven’t seen much of you lately. Still with your girl?”
As upset as I should’ve been at the insinuation that I wasn’t giving this app my all, a smile touched my face as I thought of Meg. “Yeah. She’s . . . fantastic. Incredible.” I stopped short before I broke out into song. “I should probably bring her around here one day. Introduce her to you.”
He cleared his throat. “Perhaps after the app launches. I’m sure she wouldn’t want to see us running about like headless chickens.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
There I was again, in danger of being derailed because of Meg. It was so easy to fall into that, though. As hard as it was to chill out about Meg, to stop thinking of her, I vowed right then that there’d be no more late mornings. No more calling in sick. As much as I loved Meg, this app was my baby. I had to see it through and make the investors happy if I was going to grow E-Ventures. If I was going to have a life with her. Everything, virtually my entire life, was riding on this.
I strode back to my office, then checked my phone. No messages. Not even a text from Meg. Shit.
I punched in a call to her, thinking I had to hear from her, just once more, and then I would definitely get down to business and do those investors proud.
But the call went right to voicemail again.
Chapter 14
Meg
I rolled over in bed as I heard the door slam shut downstairs and groaned. I looked at my bedside clock. It was after noon so that could mean only one thing.
The warden was home to check on his prisoner.
I braced myself for the lecture. But really, I didn’t care what Heller said to me. I had other things to worry about.
The whole week, I’d been avoiding Gabe’s calls. Hiding out in bed, only getting up to puke in the toilet, and generally feeling miserable.
I was having a baby. Gabe’s baby.
But that wasn’t the part that had me feeling like shit. No, honestly, I’d always dreamed of raising a family, albeit in the very, very far-off future. I didn’t even mind the thought of losing my freedom, because freedom to me was just getting out from under Heller’s thumb. I didn’t see a baby as shackling me to anything — I saw it as the push I needed to finally grow up and take responsibility.
No, the thing that bothered me most was that I was screwing my baby’s daddy over, big-time.
How could I tell that to our child? Your father was a good man, but I fucked him over in the name of money.
I looked over on my bedside table, where I’d placed the flash drive. It sat there, taunting me. It held the key to my freedom. And yet, when I’d thought about handing it over to Heller, my insides ran cold. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t destroy Gabe like that.
If I had to raise this baby as a single mother, I would. So what if I had no home, no money, and no job? Plenty of women had done it before and survived. And I was tougher than most. I could handle this.
But I didn’t want our baby growing up without its father. I’d done that, and it sucked.
I sat up in bed, fighting the nausea, and made a resolution right then: I was done.
Done, done, done.
Today, I’d go online and look for a real job. Even if it was minimum wage, working fast food. I’d find an apartment. I’d get out from under Heller’s control, and I wouldn’t even look back. Then I’d tell Gabe the truth and hope he didn’t hate me for it.
I opened the drawer, swept the flash drive inside and was smiling with determination when Heller poked his head through the door. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said with a grim tone.
“I was just getting up,” I said, throwing my legs over the side of the bed.
“Before you do, I need to talk to you,” he said, coming into the room and putting his hands on his hips in a very I-mean-business way. “The app is going into a second round of beta testing, which means the release is soon, and I need to know when you’re going to get serious here.”
Under the weight of his stare, all my resolve to tell him off and storm out melted away. Telling him off now would be premature, and foolish, because he’d likely throw me out on the street if he knew I’d changed my mind about helping him. I decided I didn’t have to confront him about it. I could just pack up and leave, once I’d found a job and a place to live. That was easier, and safer. “I am serious,” I insisted, not meeting his gaze. “I’m working on it.”
“Are you?” he said with a hint of amusement in his voice. “Or are you just working Gabe? Because it seems like you are having too much fun doing that.”
“What do you mean?” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m trying to get him to trust me. That takes time.”
“Seven years?” he drawled, his eyes steel.
“What?”
“I get the feeling you’re not being entirely honest with me,” he said, sitting on the edge of my bed. “Because Gabe told me he knew you from high school, and yet, you didn’t mention that to me at all.”
I swallowed back the nausea that was now high in my throat, which had gone completely dry. “I . . . Yes, I knew him, but barely—”
“He said you were high school sweethearts.”
Fuck. What else had Gabe told him about us? I knew they were partners, but I didn’t know that they were besties. I steeled myself. “That was a long time ago. And I left him after my mother died, without a word. I needed to rebuild his trust in me.”
“Oh?” He smiled sadistically, like a creepy villain. “Does he know how you killed your mother?”
I inhaled sharply. Now I really was going to be sick. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes. “No. And I didn’t kill her.”
“Do you really think that? She’d still be alive if you weren’t such a pathetic whore. You think he would want you if he knew that?”
I felt my cheeks go cold. Sometimes I felt like my uncle could see right inside my mind, my heart. He knew Gabe’s feeling for me weren’t one-sided. He could see I was falling, even before I’d known I
was. And he knew my deepest fear — that no one would ever want me if they found out what happened to my mother. That I was the one who drove her to a dark place by sleeping with her boyfriends. I was so goddamn selfish and then I’d left her alone and miserable—to be with Gabe, no less. Ironic.
I shook my head, freeing a tear that splashed against my cheek.
“So, love,” he said, reaching over and smoothing my hair. I flinched at his touch, but felt pinned against the headboard, like I couldn’t move away. “Either you get the data I need from him, or I will find someone who can — and it won’t be pleasant.”
I sat there, trembling, my mind whirling with thoughts of what he could do. My uncle had never been particularly pleasant, but what kind of monster was he?
“And I assure you,” he continued. “You will never see your high school sweetheart again.”
I gasped at the thought. What did that mean? He couldn’t, he wouldn’t . . .
But I knew I couldn’t test that. Because he’d gone far enough already by hiring me. He was willing to destroy Gabe completely to get control of his company. It wasn’t out of the question that he’d harm him physically, too. And that was something I couldn’t bear.
I gave him a barely perceptible nod.
“Good.” He patted my head like I was a Golden Retriever, stood up, and disappeared through the door.
Oh, Gabe, I thought, opening the drawer to my night table and taking out the flash drive. I turned it over in my hand, thinking of how he’d react once he knew what I’d done. How could I explain this to him? How would he ever want me, or our baby?
I dropped the flash drive and rushed to the bathroom just in time to puke into the toilet.
Chapter 15
Gabe
It didn’t start out as a very good date.
Maybe because I was on edge about getting everything ready for the launch, and Meg sensed that, but both of us were uncharacteristically quiet and introspective when I met her at the restaurant. I’d picked the Burger Barn because I wanted to try it and figured she’d appreciate it, even though it was way out in Bergen County and a long drive. She arrived even later than usual, a full hour after the time we’d arranged. When she sat across from me, she looked at best, sulky, and at worst, just plain old pissed off.
