6. Declan
“After you, milady,” Lincoln announces, bending at the waist and flourishing his hand through the air like an absolute buffoon as he holds the door open for Lex. What is she doing to us?
My brother could be a clown. As kids and in college, he was always the first with a joke or a laugh, loving any opportunity to rile a crowd. But I haven’t seen him perform for someone in years, not since before…her. Before Anne-Marie.
Shane’s voice, deep and gentle even in the cavernous warehouse, breaks through my thoughts. He’s explaining our RD equipment to Lex, walking her through the basics of what we have and what we need. She listens thoughtfully, asking intelligent questions along the way. She even poses some that give him pause, make him think. It’s not often I see someone stump him, but I have the nagging suspicion she can. Another reason not to trust her.
She laughs at something Linc adds to Shane’s explanation, and discomfort settles in my gut. There had been no laughter for the last hour as I walked her through my records, no smiles as I explained the financial data she’d demanded at dinner the night before. In fact, we’d both been hanging on by a thread when Linc stopped by my office to collect her for the tour.
“Why did you target these investors?”
Lex pointed to three line items in our early budget. All represented funding we’d secured from other sources after Athena had shown us the door.
“We needed funding from somewhere.”
I didn’t want to admit Anne-Marie was the reason. She’d been adamant about who we should pursue, but didn’t explain why they were the right choice. We trusted her, so after asking a few questions, I didn’t push. I knew now that was a mistake, but I had no desire to admit my failings to Lex.
She narrowed her eyes at me.
“There are thousands of options for funding sources, Declan. Why did you pitch them? They’re big names, but have few resources in green tech or heavy manufacturing. They were ill-equipped to help you, unless there’s an angle I’m missing.”
“What’s done is done,” I dismissed her line of questioning, unwilling to dig at the open wound. “Do you want to tear our history apart bit by bit, or should we do something useful with this hour?”
Her eyebrows arched and her lip sneered slightly. “By all means, let’s do something useful. Where do you suggest we start?”
She gave me enough leeway to damn myself by the end of the hour. Our books were in order, I’m meticulous about that, but she had too many questions I couldn’t satisfactorily answer. I’m not willing to tell her how much we allowed Anne-Marie to dictate, how much I gave up to her control. Lex is frustratingly intelligent, and I suspect she saw right through me.
“I’ll be honest, Declan. I expected a clearer vision from you.”
She searched my gaze for a moment, the picture of calm professionalism while she cut my pride to shreds. We’d just finished reviewing my draft launch strategy for Solum after painstakingly combing through the financial statements from the last three years line-by-line. Lex didn’t pull any punches, and I was more than ready to hand her off to Shane and Linc and watch her cut them down instead.
“I expected a different answer from you three years ago.”
There was no use digging up the past, I knew that. But I couldn’t resist the urge to steer her away from the raw wound left by Anne-Marie. It was more than my pride under threat, it was everything I thought of myself–as a leader, as a brother, as a businessman. I was the one responsible for everything, and I’d dropped the ball. It was hard enough to admit to myself, let alone allow someone as strikingly intelligent and beautiful as Lex see through me.
She scoffed and shook her head.
“I’m not sure why you’re so defensive around me, but you need to let it go. If I remember correctly, this entire operation was your idea. You were the genesis of Procerus and now Solum.”
She leaned a hip against a low cabinet along the far wall, facing me head-on across my office.
“So tell me, Declan, why you seem so disinterested in working with me now. We can’t change the past, so why aren’t you jumping at the opportunity to change your present and future? How long will you let the memory of Anne-Marie and her betrayal have a seat at the table?”
None of what she asked was out of bounds. Harsh, yes, but not unreasonable. And she wasn’t wrong about any of it. I was letting Anne-Marie and her duplicity affect me; I hadn’t been able to get her out of my head since she walked out the door with our plans in her desperate, selfish hands.
The man I was when I had the idea for Procerus was wildly different from the man I’d become. Recent graduate Declan was idealistic and trusting. He was analytical but took people at their word. He had ten years of challenges, failures, and betrayals awaiting him.
Lex laughs again, the sound arresting. I hate how I can’t walk away. I scoff in response, loud enough for the three to hear. Lincoln turns to me, brows furrowed.
“You okay, man?”
I go to say something biting about how hard they’re working, but catch Shane’s warning look. I desperately want to tell my best friend to fuck right off, but I hold my tongue.
“Fine,” I answer, waving a hand at him. “Don’t let me interrupt your fun.”
Shane tsks, his blue eyes sparking in challenge. He was playing middleman between me and Linc more than usual lately, and I knew he hated it. Something about my brother’s enthusiasm sets me off, especially when it comes to our new investor.
“I’m surprised, Declan,” Lex cuts in, the small smirk on her lips a warning. “I didn’t think that word was in your vocabulary.”
“What word?” I challenge.
She arches one elegant eyebrow, crossing her arms under her chest. “Fun.”
Linc barks a laugh and Shane stifles a grin as I shift, discomfited by the ease of her banter. Something dark and ugly rises in my chest in response. I push it down, choosing not to engage, though I know my frustration is written all over me. She’s not Anne-Marie.
“No biting comeback?” Lex presses, tilting her head. “Pity.”
My brother chuckles and turns to settle the cover he’d lifted to show her some aspect of the equipment. Shane cocks a brow, either checking in or telling me to calm the fuck down. He was always doing one or the other lately. Lex holds my gaze for another beat, then dismisses me by turning back to Shane.
“What’s next, then?”
Even her voice is different with them. Softer, lighter. Every question she’d asked me earlier felt like a blade–sharp, pointed, aimed for the heart. Like she knew where my weaknesses were and wanted to expose them.
The most frustrating part? I want to join their fun. I want to rise to her challenge with a snappy comeback, something to make her laugh or smile. The me from four months ago would’ve been bantering back and forth, not seething from the outside. Feeling like a failure. I shove my self-pitying thoughts into the box they belong in at the back of my mind, lock it up, and throw away the key. I don’t have time for that shit.
I follow as Shane leads us around to the makeshift showroom he and Lincoln created. It features scale models built with our product, along with four full size prototypes of our green construction materials.
“Can I pick it up?” Lex asks, reaching for the nearest prototype.
“Of course!” Lincoln snatches up the piece and tosses it to her.
“Oh!” Lex gasps as she catches the brick, eyes wide. “Wow, it’s so much lighter than I expected.”
Shane nods. “One of the benefits from an installation and repair perspective. Still durable, though.”
She turns the brick over in her hands, inspecting it from all sides. “And the temperature weakness?”
“We think we’ve solved for it,” Linc chimes in. He reaches over and picks up another prototype, holding it out to her. “This is the latest one. It’s passed all the testing we’re capable of, but we need to get new equipment to be confident it’ll hold up under extreme heat, cold, and wind.”
Lex hands the first prototype back as she accepts the new one. “This seems denser. Still light, but it has more heft.”
“That was part of the change, yes. We updated the composition slightly. Same ingredients, altered recipe.”
As Shane goes into more detail about how he and Linc cracked our biggest development hurdle, I cross my arms and lean back to watch.
When she joined us, Anne-Marie fit seamlessly into the group. Lincoln introduced her to us, both of them bright-eyed with excitement for what the future could hold. Anne-Marie was as tenacious as she was exuberant, and she quickly became the public face of Procerus. And now Lex wants me to take on that mantle.
The conditions Lex shared at dinner last night weren’t what I anticipated. Part of me expected her to rake us over the coals with a terrible valuation and unreasonable demands, expecting her to be as duplicitous as our former business partner. Contrary to my assumptions, everything she laid out made sense. It was almost overly generous of her to handle Solum personally, given her schedule and how in-demand Athena was.
I glance up as Lex hands the prototype back to Lincoln with a friendly smile. She isn’t what I expected after our two meetings at Athena, either. Seeing her at dinner and here in our space, she’s more relaxed and open. I can see Linc trying to charm her, see how he brightens at every positive reaction he gets. Everything I witness spells trouble. I don’t know her angle, but I’m positive she has one. We should’ve stuck to the plan and done this on our own.
“Declan, anything you want to add before I head out?”
I look up to find three pairs of eyes on me, Lex’s brow arcing in question.
“Did we scare you off sufficiently, then?” I taunt.
Linc widens his eyes, a “dude, what the fuck?” look on his face while Shane sighs. Lex just smiles, a harsh glint in her eyes.
“No, you didn’t scare me off. Were you trying to?”
“Maybe.”
She laughs, as though my terrible attitude has no effect on her whatsoever. The fact she can be so at ease when I want to crawl out of my skin in aggravation makes me want to hit something, or yell. And as I watch Shane and Linc smile in response to her laughter, visible relief on their faces, something sharp twists in my gut.
“So what now?” I sweep one arm out to the side in question.
“The analysts at Athena are going to pore over what you’ve shared, raise any questions or red flags they deem appropriate. Then it’s off to the races.”
She speaks nonchalantly, as though she doesn’t hold our future in the palm of her perfectly manicured hand.
“And what have you done to prove we should trust you and your people?”
“Dec, take a beat.” Lincoln holds a hand up, palm out, as though to calm me.
“I’m sorry, has something changed since last night?” Lex crosses her arms again, extending one leg to the side.
It’s a power stance if I’ve ever seen one, and I answer with my own–feet planted, arms crossed.
“No change. I still don’t trust you.”
“It seems you keep forgetting you came to me.”
“They came to you,” I counter, jutting my chin out toward Shane and Lincoln, who stand together to her left.
“Last I checked, all three of you have a stake in this business. Or are you telling me I’ve walked into some kind of internal territory dispute?” She glance over to Lincoln and Shane. “I have to be honest, gentlemen, I don’t have the patience or resources to handle internal turmoil on top of the drama with Anne-Marie and Greenstar.”
“No, Lex, there’s no issue–”
“Respectfully, Linc, take it up with your brother.” She casts me a cold look, relaxing her arms. “I’m done here.”
Lex turns on her ridiculous heel and stalks out of the warehouse. As she disappears down the hall toward my office, no doubt to gather her things, Shane rounds on me.
“My office. Now,” he demands, thrusting a finger toward my face. He turns to Linc. “Go. Try to fix this.”
“You got it.” Linc turns and jogs after Lex without a backward glance.
“This is a waste of fucking time, Shane!” I growl, throwing a hand out. “We don’t need her. Haven’t we learned enough about the dangers of bringing in someone new?”
“Cut out the willful ignorance, Declan. She’s not Anne-Marie and you fucking know it.”
I run a hand through my hair, frustration rising. “I know she’s not.”
“Doesn’t seem like it from here.”
“I just–”
“I know what you just, Dec. You don’t want to feel responsible for the next bad thing that happens.”
My eyes fall closed as I blow out a low breath, my head dropping. His words are a gut punch. I’m not ready to confess. “I just have a bad feeling about this.”
“I don’t.”
I look up, lips parting. Shane and I rarely disagreed, but he’d been adamant about supporting Lincoln’s idea to go back to Athena from the start.
“I think you’re off base on this one, Dec. And I need you to get back on track before you take us all down with you. Anne-Marie wasn’t your fault.” He sighs and scrubs a slow hand over his jaw before meeting my eyes. “Tanking this over your own unresolved guilt and fear would be.”