Chapter One #2
“You know how Thaata thought you and Peter Huntington Jr. would be a good match and it went to hell because he called you a giraffe with an oversized brain?”
Nush sighed. “I don’t need a reminder.”
Yana giggled. “It’s funny because I think he’s an overgrown dinosaur with a pea-sized brain. It’s common knowledge Thaata and Peter Sr. have been increasingly at odds since Thaata brought in Caio.”
“That was fourteen years ago and without Caio, the company would’ve never grown as it has.”
“I agree. And then Caio roped you in and OneTech grew beyond everyone’s expectations. That’s one reason Peter Sr. was pushing his son at you. You’re the golden goose for OneTech and he wanted to break up you and Caio.”
“I’d never work for someone who thinks Caio’s the enemy.”
“But Peter Sr. doesn’t know that and he’s a master strategist. Since you and his son went nowhere, talk now is that Laura Huntington and Caio could be the new partnership that could balance out the power struggle.”
Nush’s heart gave a painful thud. Laura Huntington was everything Nush wasn’t.
Sophisticated, beautiful, curvy, witty and not at all socially awkward—a perfect counterpart to smooth out Caio’s brittle edges.
She cleared her throat, trying to budge her heart, which seemed to have lodged itself in her throat. “I thought the Huntingtons hated Caio.”
“Not if they get him for a son-in-law. I hate to give her credit but Laura’s the total package.”
Despite the ever-tightening knot in her belly, Nush laughed. “Why do you hate to give her credit?”
“Huh? How are you so smart in some things and so naive in others, Nushie-kins?” Yana laced her arm through Nush’s.
“Because she’s direct competition for my little sister.
On that principle alone, I have to hate her.
Also the fact that Laura’s an intellectual snob who’s always looked down on me might have something to do with it. ”
On a sudden impulse, Nush wrapped her arms around Yana’s waist and planted a hard kiss on her cheek. Her sister stayed stiff at first but slowly relented. Nush bit back tears that felt like they were never far these days.
“We have each other. Always,” Yana said, tone full of emotion that she rarely let even her sisters see.
Her grandparents were gone, Mama didn’t want to talk to her most weeks, and now Caio might be making new alliances that would only make her an outsider in his life.
..it felt like her world would never stop rocking.
But she’d always have Mira and Yana, Nush reminded herself, breathing the floral scent of Yana’s perfume deep into her lungs.
For all that her father had never actually parented her for a single day in her life, he’d given her two wonderful sisters. Nush could forgive him a lot for that.
Yana dabbed at her cheek with a grimace. “I don’t see a good reason for Caio to say no to this partnership, Nushie. Laura’s brains and beauty and a steadying influence over her father. And we all know Caio will do anything to keep control of OneTech.”
Nush couldn’t contest the point.
Caio’s loyalty to her grandparents was only rivaled by his ambition.
More acquisitions, more mergers, more innovation.
..he’d been on a warpath the last year. While she mostly tuned out those meetings, Nush remembered even her grandfather asking Caio what would be enough and Caio laughing that not until he had something in his hand.
Over the years, Nush had tried to understand where his ambition stemmed from, why no amount of success or wealth was enough for him, but she’d got nowhere.
Which had made her realize now how ruthless his personal boundaries were.
Yes, she had a familiarity with Caio, more than others had, but she couldn’t delude herself that she knew all of him either.
And maybe that’s where your fascination comes from, a voice whispered inside her head.
For all that he knew every inch of her life, Caio was still a mystery to her.
And as a woman who built complex systems that ran some of the biggest infrastructures in the world, it was no wonder she was obsessed with peeling back the layers of what made him want a woman.
As if to prove Yana’s point, Laura Huntington ended up being the woman who did halt Caio’s purposeful stride toward Nush.
Her fingers clutching his, Laura said something to him.
Bending down to accommodate Laura’s petite frame, long fingers on her shoulder, Caio listened, rapt.
The ease with which their bodies leaned toward each other—there was a certain familiarity between them.
Nush’s belly crashed down like an elevator car whose strings had been cut.
She couldn’t help rolling the hem of her threadbare T-shirt up and down, couldn’t help contrasting her “weird” outfit, her thick glasses, her uncontrollable hair, and—the worst—her tendency to hide in corners during meetings and parties and gatherings.
..against the polished and entirely social Laura.
“Are they...together?” she asked, hating the crack in her voice.
“Not yet, as far as I know,” Yana said with the authority of a woman who always had her finger on the pulse of all the gossip. “But even you must agree that they could be the force that would appeal to the different factions at OneTech. So if you want him, now’s the time to—”
“I can’t just...come on to him, Yana,” Nush said, even her words faltering.
The few times she’d tried to have sex—to get Caio out of her mind—had been utter disasters.
She was beginning to wonder if she had some kind of mental block.
If she tried it with Caio, she’d probably melt into a puddle of insecurities before she even touched him and further humiliate herself.
“Why not?” Her sister sounded genuinely confused.
“What if it destroys our relationship as it is?” she said, giving voice to her biggest fear. “I can’t lose him.”
Sympathy flared in Yana’s eyes. “Then move on, Nush. Start living your own life instead of being a spectator in the margins of his.”
“Why do you think I’ve been dating every Tom, Dick and Harry this past year?
Why do you think I lasted weeks with Peter Jr. even though he makes me want to pluck my own eyeballs out?
” That she’d hoped it would incense Caio, who hated Peter Sr. and Jr. with the same loathing as they did him, Nush kept to herself.
It felt more than a little twisted to let him direct who she dated but she’d done it anyway.
“Then be prepared to see them ride off into the sunset together, Nush. Who knows? You might get to be the flower girl at their wedding.”
“I’m not a kid, Yana,” Nush retorted, but she knew that Yana was right.
If nothing changed, she’d have to see him marry Laura or someone else equally perfect, drunk dance at his wedding because that was the only time she danced, buy his wife and him pretty crockery for a wedding gift, probably babysit his perfect kids and be their weird aunt who taught them coding in the summer and. ..
Nush shuddered. “Tell me what to do. Please.”
“Seduce him.”
The thought of his rejection—or worse, the thought of him laughing at her attraction to him—made hot acid gurgle up her throat.
Her shoulders slumped as she realized her stupid fantasies would have to remain just that.
She might be a genius when it came to computers and numbers but with Caio.
.. “I can’t, Yana. I don’t think I can even put it in words. ”
Yana sighed and pulled her closer. “Nushie-kins, you’re beautiful and smart and kind and funny... Any man would be fortunate to have you in his life.”
“You’re my sister. You have to say that.” Tears prickled and Nush blinked to keep them at bay. Maybe this was not only the year of loss but also of letting go. Of moving on. “What do I do, Yana?”
“If you can’t face trying to seduce him, then break this hold he has on you. Decouple yourself from him and OneTech. Start a new branch in New York, or better yet, Switzerland. Go on a tour of the world. Have a scandalous fling or five. Step out of your lab and live your life, Nush.”
By the time Caio reached her, Nush was trembling with the need for action. Marveling at how death and grief could fill one with a raw, painful urgency to live life. To move on.
Yana was right. She couldn’t spend another minute much less a decade mooning over him. Couldn’t stand still and be a spectator as he lived his life. Even now, she couldn’t turn away as he finished his conversation with Laura and made his way to her.
As his tall form drew near, Nush noted the dark shadows under his eyes. He’d forgone a shave this morning. There was a tension to his shoulders that she recognized. Her heart ached as she remembered he’d been a part of her grandparents’ life longer than she’d been.
She wanted to hold him through this aching emptiness Thaata had left in both their lives. She wanted to lean into him and help him through the grief she saw in his eyes.
But he wouldn’t lean on her. Because he was the one who was supposed to be the protector.
The one who looked after every legal headache that she and her sisters would have to handle.
The one who’d arranged every single detail with the funeral.
The one who’d made sure their alcoholic father had showed up to the funeral in respectable clothes and mostly sober.
Because Caio Oliveira didn’t need anyone in any way. Least of all her. Even as he’d entrenched himself into the very fabric of her life. And it was time to rip him out of it.
He handed her a glass of water wordlessly and leaned against the wall beside her, their shoulders just touching. Resentment built in her chest even as she took the glass from him. How did he know there was a boulder-sized lump in her throat?