Chapter Six #2
Their words swirled around me like a thick wind, spitting out information, but I hardly listened. I might as well have been holding my breath under water. Blood rushed to my ears, and all three of them sounded like they were miles away. All I could think was his name.
Adam. Adam Greene.
Oh my God.
Lila
15 YEARS OLD
Two days after Adam’s kiss, I still thought about it.
I tried to stop—but I couldn’t. And maybe a big part of me didn’t want to stop. In less than ninety seconds, my holiday break had gone from boring and stressful to exciting and even thrilling. Suddenly, I had a secret. We had a secret.
“Lila?”
I looked up from my granola at the sound of my mother’s voice. “Yes?”
“Are you all right?” She peered at me over the rim of her coffee cup. She always took her coffee black, with no cream or sugar, and she called that breakfast instead of the spread our staff provided every morning. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Your question?” I blinked at her. Great, I hadn’t been listening to her, and she’d just caught me. “I’m sorry?”
My mother put her coffee cup on the breakfast nook table and let out a long, exasperated sigh. “What have we talked about? You need to pay more attention when adults are speaking to you. It’s very rude.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied, fumbling around for answer. “I’m just—”
“In fact, over the last few days, you’ve been distracted—worse than usual.
Everyone has noticed.” She waved her manicured hand, fresh red nails glistening.
“Oliver, Delilah, the rest of the staff. They’ve all seen it.
” She studied me. “This wouldn’t have something to do with the Christmas party, would it? ”
“No.” The reply leapt out of my mouth, sounding sharp and jagged, and I immediately regretted that. I cleared my throat. “I mean, of course not, Mom. The party was great.”
“That’s not what I heard. Your father said you left a conversation he was having with you very abruptly and didn’t rejoin the party for almost a half hour.” She tapped her fingers on the table. “I’m a little embarrassed I didn’t notice but hosting an event like that takes so much effort.”
“I was sick. My stomach hurt, and I needed to lie down.”
“Hmm, is that so?” She grimaced. “It’s funny, that’s the first I’ve heard about you not feeling well that night.”
“Well, I didn’t.” A flush of heat spread across the back of my neck.
Not entirely a lie, but not the full truth either.
Still, as much as I hated to keep things from her, I couldn’t tell her about Adam, couldn’t afford to let her even suspect anything at all.
She needed to stay in the dark about it, and what happened between us needed to stay a secret.
She would never understand. I knew that much.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have. ”
“Yes,” she said, still eyeing me as if she expected me to add something else to the conversation. “You certainly should have.”
Adam
Preston found me in the wine cellar, drinking a glass of my rarest merlot and watching college basketball on the TV anchored to the wall. He plopped down in the overstuffed leather chair across from me.
“One day, I think it would be great to have a party down here.” He surveyed the dark room, which included a seating area with twenty shelves of wine, and a long wooden table running through the center.
The environment felt like it could have been the basement of a castle in France during WWII.
Where my mansion was light, this was dark, and I favored this room over all the rest because of the quiet solace it brought me.
“I’m sure Kurt can come up with plenty of ideas for this space. ”
“Too intimate.”
“I forgot. You don’t do that.” Preston held up a black velvet mask with gold trim. “You are throwing a masquerade, you know. So, if you went up there, no one would see you.”
“They’d see me.”
“There are some quality ladies up there tonight. You might like them if you give them a chance.”
“No, thanks.” I didn’t need to watch for Lila’s arrival on any of these nights really.
I’d written an extra code into the security protocol, one designed to immediately alert me if her name or photograph showed up on the list of attendees.
Yet, still, I had watched. Tonight, I had fewer fucks to give.
So here I sat. Alone. Until my best friend inserted himself into my solitude.
Preston ran a hand through his wavy blond hair and settled deeper into the chair, studying me. His own mask perched on top of his head, a green one with purple trim and glitter around the eyes. “Sometimes, I wonder why I even try.”
“Because you’re stubborn, just like me.”
He laughed. “True dat.” He pointed at the TV, which had turned away from the game, and to a commercial. “Who’s winning?”
“Duke.”
He made a face, which I could have predicted. “By the way, we’re down to two properties for the second HQ.”
“Which ones?” I finished my wine, welcoming the chance to talk business with him.
Both of us cared deeply about the InstaPost expansion; moving the company in this direction would really say something to the venture capitalists and angel investment funds in Silicon Valley, and further set us up for an IPO on the NASDAQ the following year.
Our fledgling company had traversed so far in the five years since we cofounded it over coffee and laptops at a Starbucks in Midtown Manhattan; a fateful day that came two months after Preston and I returned from our final deployments to Afghanistan.
This expansion would bring us at least an additional 150 employees and help position our service as the leading provider of news updates and articles on mobile platforms. We would further cement our Forbes designation as the app to watch in the coming year.
It was everything I was supposed to want. But it still felt so hollow.
“I should have mentioned this on the call yesterday with the New York team, but I didn’t want to say anything until I could be sure.” Preston took his phone from his pocket and unlocked it. “I’ve got a walkthrough of this property on Wednesday. Check this out.”
Preston handed me the phone, which had a listing for a large warehouse in Wellington, located in the back of a business park. I thumbed through photos of executive space, conference rooms, and an open-air central room designed for cubicle-less workflow, all at the discount price of $40 million.
“You don’t think it’s too big?” I asked.
“It might be, but the owner is looking to get rid of it, because it’s been vacant for a few years. We can seize it now and renovate the inside for our needs. Put in a cafeteria, yoga studio, game room, design center, break room, even a gym if we want to.”
Preston always said InstaPost’s fringe benefits were a huge advantage in the tech game.
He’d been the one to spearhead our generous compensation package, array of stock options, and team-building amenities.
I, on the other hand, had come up with the original JavaScript for the app.
He served as the yin to my yang. In five years, that had given InstaPost a four-billion-dollar valuation, and each of us a net worth of $500 million.
“Then I like it,” I said. “Keep me posted.”
“I will.” He put his phone back in his pocket and stood, and as usual, flicked his right hand over the Breitling on his left wrist, as if it still amazed him after all this time what we had achieved.
The same month InstaPost turned its first hundred-thousand-dollar profit, Preston and I had celebrated with a night at Cipriani and bought matching watches.
Nothing would ever entice me to give that away.
Moments like that made me smile, remembering where we’d come from.
He put the black mask on the wooden coffee table between us.
“Since they won’t know who you are with the mask on, you might as well come upstairs and join the party. Just an idea.”
He exited the room, and I sat there a while longer, mindlessly watching the game. Why he insisted on me being social was beyond me. He knew me better than anyone…although he didn’t fully grasp my obsession with a certain raven-haired beauty from my past.
When the game reached halftime, three quick pulses on my cell phone altered that decision. And changed the night’s course.