Chapter 22
Dane
I hadn’t planned to leave Chicago and follow Ava to New York, but here I was, getting out of a cab in front of Tower VC’s SoHo office building. Kaito Okada had given me a week to make a decision, and as he’d predicted, I’d spent some time thinking. It was time to meet with the partners and discuss it.
Noah was flying in from L.A. and Alex was flying in from Dallas. None of them knew why I had called this meeting, and I knew they were all curious. But in the history of Tower, I had never called a meeting like this, so they knew it was something important. Noah had flown in late last night, Alex at some ungodly hour this morning. In half an hour, we’d all be here.
I nodded at the security guard at the front desk as I walked through the lobby. Tower only had a small number of employees, so we rented the top floor of this small-but-expensive building in Soho, away from the big egos of Madison Avenue or Wall Street. Aidan, our real estate expert, had tried more than once to buy the entire building from the owner, but he’d failed every time, something that pissed him off whenever anyone mentioned it. If Aidan had his way, we’d own every building in New York. He was working on it.
The receptionist looked briefly surprised when she saw me—she didn’t know who I was at first—but she quickly collected herself. “Mr. Scotland,” she said. “Would you like to meet in the boardroom or in Mr. Winters’ office?”
“The office,” I said, walking toward Aidan’s office, the largest and most private in the trendy, open workspace. This conversation was too confidential to hold in the glass-walled boardroom. “And when the others get here, don’t let us be disturbed.”
Aidan must have heard my voice, because he came to his office door when I approached. He was wearing his customary black suit, black shirt, and black tie—the outfit that had gained him the nickname of the Man in Black. He claimed the sinister look helped him gain the edge in real estate deals. He looked surprised when he saw me, too—shocked, actually.
“Who the hell are you, and what have you done with Dane Scotland?” he asked when I got close enough.
“Go fuck yourself,” I replied. “I thought you wanted me to dress better.”
“I did.” He looked up and down my outfit of dark gray dress pants and white shirt, unbuttoned at the throat. He took in my expensive watch, belt, and shoes. “Jesus. I knew Ava would do a good job, but I didn’t think it would actually take.”
I shrugged. “You told me to wear whatever she buys. So I am. It isn’t so bad once you get used to it.”
“And the hair?” His gaze moved up to the top of my head. “The last time I talked to her, she couldn’t convince you to get rid of the man bun.”
“She convinced me.” I didn’t look in the mirror very often, so I sometimes forgot about the haircut. I was getting used to that, too.
What I wasn’t used to was Ava being gone. It weighed on me day and night. I missed her—and yet, on some strange level, I didn’t feel parted from her. Not completely, at least. Just a few hours ago, as I’d boarded the plane, my phone had given me an alert that someone had disarmed the security system at my beach house. I’d pulled up the live video and watched, unnoticed, as Ava opened the front door and came inside, dragging a suitcase behind her. Standing on the breezeway on the way to board my flight, I’d drunk in the sight of her: pale face, no makeup, hair piled roughly on top of her head. She looked tired, a little bedraggled, but she was in one piece and she was okay. I’d taken another long second to memorize every line of her, and then I’d shut the video feed off, unwilling to spy on her.
She needed time, she’d said. She was taking that time at my beach house, and I knew where she was, knew that she was okay. The question was, would I join her? Did she even want me to? Or would I take the opportunity with Okada and get on his expensive private jet to Japan?
I had no fucking idea about any of it.
“Sit down,” Aidan said, leading me into his office. I sat in one of the chairs and he rounded behind his desk. “Any news?”
I blinked, caught in a moment of panic that he knew about Ava and me, about the potential baby. “News?”
“About the Okada deal.” Aidan sank into his chair, frowning. “Kaito Okada and his team left after one night. That wasn’t how this was supposed to go.”
“Kaito and I talked,” I said. “We didn’t need four days. He gave me his offer. Now we have to discuss it.”
Aidan frowned harder, his dark and handsome features severe. “I hope that means there’s a deal.”
“What deal?” Noah came through the door—tall, his hair dark blond and mussed, his skin lightly tan. His entire being shouted California, even though he was a Chicago native like the rest of us. “Jesus, it reeks in New York when the weather is warm. I’ll take L.A. any day, even with the exhaust fumes. Scotland, it looks like Ava finally cleaned you up.”
I grunted in response.
“Let’s do this.” Noah dropped into one of the other chairs. He was wearing a dress shirt and dress pants, like me, but his were cut differently—slimmer around his waist and skimming his torso, the better to show off his shoulders and biceps. All of Ava’s talk about fashion must be rubbing off if I was noticing these things. I should probably go punch someone or shoot something to get my testosterone back.
“Alex will be here in a second,” Aidan said. He had barely glanced at Noah before looking back at me, his gazed fixed as if he was trying to figure something out.
“What?” I said.
His voice was unreadable. “How did it go with Ava?”
“It was fine. You’re looking at the results.”
“Not the clothes,” Aidan said. “I mean, how did it go with her? Tell me the truth. Because Samantha told me this morning that Ava left town. She told Samantha about it because she didn’t want to talk to me. In fact, I haven’t talked to Ava at all, and I have the feeling it has something to do with you.”
He’d always been smart, my best friend Aidan. Perceptive and ice-cold. It was why he was so good at real estate deals, but right now it was starting to annoy me. “Ava is fine,” I said. “If she doesn’t feel like talking to you, then I guess you have to wait until she changes her mind.”
“Or I could ask you what’s going on.”
“What’s going on?” This was Alex, coming through the office door. He was tall and lean, dark-haired, wearing tan dress pants and a blue shirt that made his eyes look more blue-green than usual. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to the elbow, showing the tattoos on his forearms. “What the fuck did you drag me from Dallas for, Dane? Hey, your hair is gone.”
“Not all of his hair,” Noah said. “Just the pretentious man bun.”
“It wasn’t pretentious,” I argued.
Alex shrugged. “Whatever you say.” He closed the door and sat in the last unoccupied chair. “How was the meeting with Okada?”
I looked around the room at them, these three friends I had known forever. I had wrestled with Okada’s offer for days, and in the end I’d realized I couldn’t make this decision alone. I was part of Tower, and this decision was as much theirs as mine.
“Kaito Okada is working on advanced cancer treatment,” I said. “It’s top secret and he’s putting all of his resources into it. But he doesn’t want our money.”
“Then what does he want?” Noah asked. “Money is kind of our thing.”
“He wants me.” I leaned back in my chair, suddenly tired at the sound of those words. “He wants me to leave Tower and go work for him in Japan.”
“No,” Aidan said. “Absolutely fucking not.”
Alex and Noah exchanged a glance. “Okay, wait,” Alex said reasonably. “That’s it? That’s the entire offer?”
“I get to work on the cancer project,” I said.
“He’s got to be fucking kidding with an offer like that,” Aidan said. His voice was cold, which meant he was pissed off. “We’re not doing it.”
“I’m not sure it’s up to us,” Noah said, his gaze fixed on me, thoughtful. “It sounds like it’s up to Dane.”
“We’re partners,” I said. “We’ve been partners since we were twenty-one. So, yes, you all get a say.”
Aidan made an angry noise, and Alex said, “You’re asking us to tell you whether we want you to quit?”
“I don’t know what I want.” I rubbed my forehead. “I’ve been going over this for days. You know I don’t contribute to Tower the way the rest of you do. I don’t travel and I suck at sales. No one wants me to go to a meeting if they can help it. Aidan sent Ava to make sure I didn’t fuck this entire meeting up, and Kaito still flew home the next day.” I dropped my hand. “I don’t have a driving desire to go to Japan, but it’s a big opportunity. And I’ve never really been a venture capital guy.”
Alex laughed at that. “And the rest of us are?” He looked around. “None of us knew what we were doing when we started this. Half the time I’m making things up.”
“So am I,” Aidan said.
Noah shrugged. “I go to a lot of parties, where I smile and nod. That’s pretty much my entire strategy. I don’t have any others.”
“I’m the only guy in the Texas oil business who doesn’t wear Wranglers,” Alex said, “and I have tattoos. Most of the time they don’t know what to make of me, so I get my way.”
“But you actually do all of those things,” I said. “I don’t. I’ve spent the past two years writing a program that uses AI to teach without a human teacher. I haven’t been doing deals like I’m supposed to.”
“I didn’t know you were making an AI program,” Aidan said. “I knew you were working on something, but you were secretive about it.”
He was right, and that was part of the problem. “Okada has promised to assign staff to help me finish it,” I said. “As much staff as I want.”
“Well,” Noah said, running a hand through his scruff of dark blond hair. “It sounds like a great deal for you, Dane. And it sounds like a great deal for Kaito Okada. Sorry if I’m being calculating here, but there’s nothing in this for the rest of us.”
“I agree,” Alex said. “We lose one of our partners, who is working on something that could be worth a lot of money, and we don’t get anything in return.”
“What do you want, then?” I asked, exasperated. “Do you want Okada to pay Tower? Buy me off you? Is that what you’re looking for?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Aidan said. “We don’t put a price on one of our partners. That said, we also don’t give our partners away for free, which is what Okada is asking for.” He swiveled back and forth in his chair, his only sign that this had gotten under his skin. Then he stilled himself. “Dane, you’d have to leave Chicago and move to Japan, at least for a few years. Leave everything. Is that something you want to do?”
“I want to do more than what I’m doing,” I said. “It’s time I stopped pretending I’m a venture capital guy like the rest of you. I’m just a programmer who wants to come up with cool shit on the computer. As for moving to Japan…” I scrubbed a hand over my short hair. “I can’t answer that, because it isn’t up to me. It’s up to Ava.”
There was thunderous silence in the office as all three of them stared at me. “Up to Ava?” Noah said.
Aidan’s tone was decidedly chill. “What the fuck does that mean?”
I hadn’t meant to say it. I’d come into this meeting with every intention of keeping what happened between Ava and me a secret, but these were my brothers in everything but blood, and I couldn’t lie to them. I couldn’t sit here and tell them to their faces that nothing had happened in the past week, that I was considering a job offer like any other job offer. My life was in fucking disarray, or it was about to be, and my Tower partners were the only guys I wanted to talk to about it.
Besides, it was time to man up. If I wanted Ava—and I did—then I had to own it.
I looked at Aidan. “Ava and I got involved while she was in Chicago,” I said.
His face showed not a flicker of expression, which I knew from experience was very, very bad. “What did you say?” he said.
“You’re involved with Ava?” Noah said.
“I am.” I glanced at the others. “I want to be. We were involved eleven years ago, and when we were together last week, we started again.”
There was a loud clatter as Aidan pushed his chair back and stood up. “What do you mean, eleven years ago? Say it, Dane. You slept with my sister?”
Lots of times. Oh, and I took her virginity, and she took mine.I didn’t say it out loud, thank God. Instead I said, “We were serious. At least, I was.”
“When the hell did this happen?” Alex said, incredulous. “And where was I?”
“I didn’t notice it, either,” Noah said. “I know we were all distracted, but come on. I definitely would have heard the noise if you two were?—”
“Shut up,” Aidan said to him. He turned back to me. “Ava has never told me this. So both of you have been lying to me for all this time.”
Now he was being a dick. “It’s been none of your business all this time,” I shot back. “Ava makes her own decisions. She moved to New York and I stayed in Chicago. We’ve been broken up for years.”
“Until last week.”
“Yes.”
“Did you break her heart?”
This was why he was so mad, I thought. He’d told me that Ava was fragile, that he was worried about her. He was worried I’d hurt her, that I would hurt her again.
He was right to worry about it.
Had I hurt Ava? It felt like we’d broken each other’s hearts, though we hadn’t meant to. It also felt terrifyingly like we might do it again, though it was the last thing I wanted. “I didn’t dump her eleven years ago, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said to Aidan. “We had a problem we couldn’t get past.”
“What problem?”
Fuck. The baby wasn’t only my story to tell. I wasn’t sure if Ava wanted me to discuss it. “It doesn’t matter now,” I said, hedging. “We both thought it was over. But it isn’t.”
“I can’t fucking believe this.” Aidan paced away from his desk. Outwardly he was calm, but we all knew better.
“Easy, Aidan,” Noah said.
“Actually, I think it’s nice,” Alex added. “I always thought Ava had a bit of a thing for you, Dane.”
Aidan’s voice was icy anger. “That’s easy for you to say. She isn’t your sister.”
Alex shrugged. “No, but she may as well be. So what if they like each other? You know Ava dates assholes. Dane is better than any of them.”
“He isn’t better if he’s been lying for eleven years,” Aidan said.
“Hold up.” Noah held his hands up. “Okay, so Dane, the two of you hooked up for a week.”
“Shut up, Noah,” Aidan said.
“Jesus, Aidan, your sister is thirty. She isn’t a nun. So she got it on with Dane. So what? My question is, why aren’t you together now? And what does this have to do with Okada?”
“Ava left town and wouldn’t say why,” Aidan said, pacing. “That tells you something about how happy she is about this.”
“She left town because she needed some time,” I said, trying not to get angrier than I already was. “There’s shit going on with her that you don’t know about. And it has to do with Okada because Ava might be pregnant, and if she is, I’m not going to Japan.”
Aidan stopped pacing and looked at me. “Pregnant?”
“This gets juicier by the minute,” Noah said.
I kept my eyes on Aidan. He looked like he might vault over the desk any minute and rip my spine out, Mortal Kombat style. “It’s what she wanted,” I said. “What we both wanted.”
“A baby?” Aidan said. “Ava doesn’t want a baby. She never has. She lives in a tiny apartment with roommates, for God’s sake. She works freelance work. She doesn’t want a baby.”
“Have you ever asked her?” I shot back at him. “Have you ever talked to her about what she wants at all?”
“I don’t have to ask her. I know my sister. She’s never even thought about having a baby.”
It came out. I couldn’t stop it. “She thought about it when we got pregnant the first time eleven years ago.”
This time he did come around the desk, fast and lethal. I got out of my chair, ready to take him, but he got to me before I could find my balance and shoved me back against the wall. “Tell me I’m mistaken,” he said in that cold voice of his. “Because I just heard my best friend say that he knocked up my sister. Twice.”
Now I was good and pissed. “Are you going to beat me up, Aidan? Because if you want to fight, we can fight.” We may be classy millionaires now, but we’d all grown up tough, and we were all able to fight. Aidan was wearing an expensive suit, but I knew for a fact he could hit quick and hard. And until today, he’d never even thought of hitting me.
“Okay, you two.” Alex and Noah had gotten out of their chairs and stood by, ready to tackle Aidan if he moved. “Back up, Aidan,” Noah said.
Aidan ignored him, his fists still in my designer shirt, his eyes still fixed on me. “Leave Ava alone,” he said.
He was out of his mind. “No.”
“We aren’t friends,” he said. “It’s all been a lie. We’ve never been friends.”
“We were friends,” I said. “We were brothers. But if you’re going to make me choose between you and her, Aidan, I’ll tell you right now: I choose her. I choose Ava. Every fucking time.”
There was a pause—Aidan on the edge of attacking me, Alex and Noah ready to drag him down. Me against the wall, watching the relationship with my best friend crumble into dust.
Then Aidan let me go and stepped back.
“Well, we’ve solved your problem, Dane,” he said, his voice as cold as ever. “Go to Japan, or don’t. It doesn’t matter, because you’re not a Tower partner anymore. I’m kicking you out of the company as of now. You’re done.”