Whether it was the forced sweetness in my voice or the words themselves that made him do it, he finally wrenched his gaze toward mine. His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed. “Wedding planning, huh? You really want to get into that right now? We’re not even engaged, Luna.”
“Yet,” I tacked on, but Landon’s eyebrows pulled together like he didn’t understand. I sat up straighter and looked him right in the eyes as I tried to tamp down the suspicion brewing in my stomach.
“We’re not engaged yet,” I said. “We’ve been talking about this for months, Landon. Have you forgotten about that? Or is something going on with you that I should know about?”
Conflicting emotions suddenly warred behind his eyes, his jaw clenching and relaxing before he licked his lips, nodding to himself. “I know we’ve been talking about it, but I’ve been thinking, and I can’t get engaged to you, Luna.”
Blood roared in my ears and my heart stuttered. What the fudge? “What? Why not?”
His tongue swiped along his bottom lip again, a nervous tell I hardly ever saw and it had made an appearance twice now. My palms grew slick with sweat and my hands were unsteady as I fumbled to fold them in my lap.
“I can’t get engaged to you because I’m already married.” The words came rushing out of him, each one of them a separate yet devastating blow to my plans, our future. “I’ve been married for a few months now. I didn’t know how to tell you. I thought about leaving her, but I can’t.”
My heart pounded wildly in my chest as thoughts spiraled through my head. Landon never letting me near his house. Landon always working late. Landon making excuses for every Valentine’s Day, birthday…
“Leave,” I demanded, my voice barely above a whisper and my entire body recoiling but refusing to move.
He reached for me. “She’s the kind of woman I’m expected to—”
“I said leave, Landon. Now. Don’t you dare try to rationalize it to me.” My gaze zeroed in on my water glass, even though I felt Landon’s drilling a hole in the top of my head as he tried to get me to look back at him.
When he didn’t make a move for the door, I threw out an arm and jabbed a finger at it. “Get the fiddling duck out of here, Landon. I never want to see you again. Lose my number and send my regards to your wife.”
I was practically spitting at that point, spots dancing across my vision and my lungs burning with the need for air even as I panted.
The slide of his chair against the wooden floor let me know he was pushing it out. Then I caught his shiny brown loafers in my periphery as he walked away. Salty tears burned my eyes as they begged to fall free, but I wouldn’t let them. Not here, not now.
Then a shadow fell over the table and I did my best to blink the mistiness away before looking up. The waiter stood there, holding a bill folder. “I didn’t get all of that, but I thought you might want this right around now.”
A bottle of wine Landon must have ordered sat in a bucket of ice next to the table. I hadn’t paid any attention to it before, but my eyes nearly bulged out of my head when I saw the price.
My throat tightened as I handed over my card, knowing that the wine was going to make a huge dent in my meager bank account. For someone who’d been adamant nothing was going to be able to ruin her day, karma had sure decided to teach me a lesson. Tramp that she was, she’d even decided to leave me with Landon’s check.
Maybe April had the right idea about men. Maybe marriage really was a sham made for losers, liars, and codependents. Or maybe it just wasn’t meant for me.
Chapter 2
Cyrus
2 Years Later
“Welcome to the Disrupt Entrepreneurial Retreat, Mr. Coning,” this year’s host said, holding out his hand for me to shake. “May I just say that it’s a real honor to meet you. Thank you for agreeing to address our millionaires in the making.”
“I had some time available in my schedule.” I gripped his hand in a firm clasp and released it after a brief moment. I’d learned a long time ago that there was power in a firm handshake—no pump—and how to harness that power without crushing anyone’s bones like some wannabe.
It had the desired effect on the host, who dipped his graying head in respect and gestured me to the stage where a solid wood podium was waiting. “We have you slotted in for twenty minutes, but feel free to take more time if you need it.”
I only just managed to hold back a snort. “Twenty minutes is plenty.”
No way was I hanging around there longer than that. They were paying me a pittance and I’d already achieved the only goal I’d had when agreeing to do this: to assess the supposed cream of the crop in emerging businesses so I could come in at ground level if I saw anything that caught my eye.
Nothing had, which meant I was pretty much done there.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Mr. Cyrus Coning,” the host boomed into the microphone. “Please put your hands together for the man who revolutionized security, disrupted the market with his products, and has agreed to tell you a little bit about how he managed to do it.”
How I managed to do it was pure, dumb luck and good timing, but I doubted any of the supposedly brilliant entrepreneurs gathered in the ostentatious ballroom wanted to hear that. After all, they’d paid over a thousand dollars a ticket to hear assholes like me make insightful, inspirational speeches all weekend long about how to make their dreams come true.
Nose to the grindstone, bitches. Companies don’t grow out of retreats. If I had a heart, I would have felt sorry for all these fuckers who’d wasted money on tickets when they could have made more by working through the weekend instead.
Crossing the stage to the podium in three long strides, I didn’t bother to thank the host. I slid the microphone out of the stand with one hand and hooked the thumb of my other into the pocket of my jeans.
Letting the mic dangle from my fingers, I leaned against the side of the podium casually instead of standing behind it like I was supposed to. I didn’t care if I looked like an entitled douchebag who was disrespecting the stiffness and formality of this prestigious retreat. I was what I was, which just so happened to be an entitled douchebag.
Now, anyway.
One side of my lips curled upward as I waited for the raucous applause to die down. It took a minute before the crowd quieted enough for me to start speaking.
“Five years ago, I was nothing. I didn’t have two pennies to rub together. I was living with my brother, busting my ass to cover my share of the rent each month.”
Lights blinded me, making it impossible to see past the first few rows. The people I could see, though, were riveted. Lips parted and sitting forward, like I was about to impart some great secret or wisdom. “I was a low-level coder stuck in a company with no opportunities for growth.”
The years I’d spent there had been dark times for me, but no one knew that. Other than Peter, my brother, the world thought I’d had it easy and had become an overnight success from nowhere. People didn’t have to know exactly how dark it had gotten over there at times, so I skipped that part.