Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
MAIA
“ M r. Gatsby Spearman called. He wants to discuss Haux Drinks with you,” Jackie says as she enters my office.
“Ummm, hello? I feel like we didn’t greet each other, and you’re already slapping me with bad news.”
“I would never slap you.”
“That’s not what…sorry, I’m not ready to hear about him .”
“I understand, but he was very insistent about meeting with you as soon as possible.”
Suddenly I feel nervous. We’re talking clammy hands and shallow breaths.
Why would he want to discuss it?
It occurs to me that it’s the damn article that came out today about MarkTech taking over Haux.
My public relations department is taking care of the issue, but maybe Gatsby found a way to stop the acquisition of 59PM.
He’ll hold Haux Dinks hostage unless I give him what he wants. Why does he care about it?
My pulse quickens, alarms shooting through me.
I’m not strong enough to destroy him—not just yet. He wants to buy the Spearman twins…and suddenly, my blood freezes. Is he related to them?
Nah. Spearman is a common last name. It’s not as common as Smith, but just because someone has that last name, it doesn’t mean they’re related to The Hellspawn, a.k.a. Gatsby Spearman.
I wish I had gone to the first couple of meetings Suzie had with them. As the director of Market Express, she deals with the grocery stores, restaurants, and retailers. I’m the behind-the-scenes person. There’s no reason to go and meet with every single supplier or client.
Did I want to meet the younglings who invented the best mocktails? Yes. But I have to be smart with my time. Suzie, my right hand and best friend, handles that side of the company. Though, if I had gone, I wouldn’t be wondering if that’s why he is calling me.
I tap the side of my wrist. It’s going to be okay. I’m okay.
First, I need to speak to Suzie and the Market Express team, and then I’ll figure out Gatsby’s angle. It’s been fourteen years since the last time I saw him, but he’s predictable.The guy won’t just barge through the door and demand he speak to me.
Once I regain my composure, I say, “I don’t have time for him.”
“I told him that your schedule is full until next year.”
“Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
She gives me a tight smile. The same she uses when she’s about to deliver bad news.
“He said to tell you that you better find the time to see him, or he’ll find it for you.
Also, if you do anything to Haux Drinks, you won’t get a pass this time—no one messes with his little siblings.
” She shrugs. “That’s what he said, and then he hung up the phone. ”
I swallow hard. He is related to them. Who knew? Obviously not me. This is an easy fix, I tell myself, tapping the side of my hand.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
After a minute or two, I finally relax. He’s concerned that I’ll do something to his siblings. I won’t.
Do I want the world to know how amazing their mocktails are? Yes.
Suzie and I love them. If I add tequila to their Hauxarita, it’s like drinking the best margarita ever.Champagne to Curiousa, and you get a yummy mimosa. And since they don’t contain alcohol, we can distribute them without the need for a liquor license.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could deliver that along with meals?
It’s perfect, but this is a problem… “Damn it. I’ve been so careful to stay away from his radar and him.”
Jackie gives me an are-you-kidding-yourself look.
“What?” I ask innocently.
“You hired me, an assistant who helps screen for articles about him that might be relevant. You go and snatch his deals every single time.” She glares at me disapprovingly. “That’s not being discreet. I know you’re a go-getter, and I support you, but maybe you have to back off?”
“I’m just trying to catch up to him and then leave his sorry ass behind. The day I decided to start this race, I promised myself I’d win.”
“You’re obsessed with him.” Jackie always calls me out on my shit.
“I’m…” Jackie doesn’t understand. No one knows what he did to me. “Has anyone ever destroyed your entire career and your dreams?”
She shakes her head. “No, but I’ve seen people do that. I think you’re doing it to Mr. Spearman. He seems like a nice guy. He helps many charities.”
“I do too—and I don’t publish it everywhere.”
“Yes, you do. All I’m saying is that you’re going after a man who?—”
I interrupt her. “A man who destroyed me when I was just eighteen. We went to college together…” I tell her my story from beginning to end. She learns about the na?ve girl and then about the woman who’s taking charge of her life and teaching him that even when he broke me, I’m still standing.
Her nostrils are flaring when I finish my tale. “We’ll find a way to show him you’re better than him. I can’t believe he stole your ideas, and I was feeling sorry for him.”
“No one should feel sorry for that asshole. I’ll make sure to crush him. There’s a plan.”
Jackie arches an eyebrow. “You have a plan?”
I pull out the laminated sheet I made at the age of twenty-six. I have several copies—in case I forget. This one is tucked in my personal file cabinet. It’s a way of manifesting my wishes.
1. Destroy his company.
2.Hire him out of pity.
3.Make him fall in love with me.
4.Rip out his heart.
5.Ghost him while he’s crying from a broken heart.
“It’s been almost six years since I put everything in motion. This is why I can’t meet with him just yet. I need at least a couple more years before I go in for the kill.”
She hands over the sheet. “I don’t think you can avoid him for long. Not after you went after his family.”
“But I didn’t. I had no idea he was related to…”
I open the electronic file and search for their names.
We call them the Spearman twins, but I never paid attention to their names.
This is something Suzanne does. If I had to look at every little detail, I wouldn’t be able to get things done.
That’s why we have a corporation with different moving parts to work like a well-oiled machine, except, this time things didn’t work out accordingly.
When I read their names, Cordelia Maren Spearman and Huxley Rhett Spearman, terror cripples through my body. “Cory and Hux…”
He’s mad.
He’s fucking mad because those two are the ones he protects the most out of all his siblings. They’re the babies.
I should make a new rule. This corporation doesn’t do business with anyone whose last name is Spearman. But how can I avoid his family when he has like a billion uncles and aunts and a gazillion cousins.
Be smart. You’re an entrepreneur, a brilliant computer scientist. “The deal with Haux Drinks is separate from Gatsby’s company.”
Jackie’s gaze says, don’t be a na?ve child .
“I think this is the part of the plan where you keep working hard and show him you’re the best, but you leave him alone.” This is the voice of a wise, almost sixty-year-old woman who sometimes takes care of me the same as she does with her children. I should listen to her.
Jackie cares about me and puts me in my place if I screw up. She spends hours on the phone with Mom, complaining that I don’t take care of myself, that I’m a workaholic, and that my dating life is atrocious.
Who wants to date when all the men in the world are just like Gatsby Spearman? No, thank you. I’d rather be single and happy.
“Please don’t tell Mom about what happened in college. My parents don’t need to know that my college life was a disaster and that it took me a long time to get back on track.”
They will be devastated and worried about me. I can already hear Mom, “Maia, come home and find yourself a nice man.”
She might support me, but sometimes I feel like she still lives in the twentieth century.
She should learn that nice men are a fantasy, and women don’t need to have a man to be successful or achieve their dreams. Tiggy, my middle sister, did everything they told her to do.
She didn’t date until she was twenty-two.
They married a year later. She lived in an abusive marriage for three years until I got her out of that hell.
Maybe it was good that Gatsby left me before he broke me the way Bram broke Tiggy.