“I… I don’t care what people say.”
He moved his jaw, working his teeth together so that the muscles along the side of his face flexed. “Sometimes, you got to. Sometimes what people say are the things that get the wrong people moving toward something stronger than words.” Isaac tapped his finger to his temple before he frowned, making me feel, for the first time, like I was the one who needed lessons. “It’s like I always say, we don’t live in the same world. We won’t ever.” When I only stared at him, unable to keep my eyes from glassing over, Isaac lowered his shoulders, giving up something—a small, nearly insignificant thing he wouldn’t be sorry to see go—that softened his features and took the snap from his tone when he spoke. “I don’t say these things to be mean.”
“I know you don’t.” Those weren’t just words spoken to ease the guilt he might have felt with his small rejection. But that didn’t mean my chest had stopped aching or that I’d rush to explain myself. Trent wasn’t my “fella”. Not like he pretended he was, and I knew people would gossip about me and Isaac up on the fifth floor organizing his letters of recommendation, trying to make his essay eloquent and appealing to the admissions board. We’d done that away from the gossip I knew circledcampus, just the two of us, cloistered from anyone who’d interrupt.
It would likely be best to walk away, free him from his worry that those gossiping people would go on fussing at him for the company he kept. But something inside my brain niggled fierce and persistent; it was the constant refrain that this man needed me, and louder still, that I needed him. Something beyond a whim, something familiar, something deep beyond reason.
“Well, then, Miss Riley, I suppose I’ll see you next week if you still want to meet with me.”
He nodded when I smiled, taking two steps back to watch me before he moved down the stairs and I watched him a good thirty seconds longer, until I couldn’t hear his boots on the marble steps anymore; until I knew it was safe enough to sit back down at that table and let those poorly disguised tears fall.
Six
Nash
The dreams felt real. Too damn real.
“Mr. Nash?” my assistant asked. “Mr. Shannon is on his way up.”
“Fine.”
They’d seeped into my head, interrupted my sleep and now had taken root in my daily life, working their best to keep me from the things I needed finished. Like my damn job.
I loved what I did. I loved what I was trying to do with Nations, my company. I loved the planning, the programming, the stretch of time it took to finalize the source code and rework the software. I loved the late nights, the impossible deadlines and the way total strangers looked at me and saw dollar signs. It made me feel good, better than any woman ever had. Hell, better than almost anything.
Desire, drive, ambition got me up every morning, hopping the bus to the city to work on making Nations a reality. It held me up late nights at my office as I tweaked and molded my code into something unique. It had me putting up with Duncan Shannon, the investor who had big plans for the company and for me. He had slick tactics I knew would someday pay off in stupid amounts of cash.
But the dreams that felt like memories? They were chipping away at my drive. They were turning my ambition, my desire into stupid, simple things.
Two taps on the door and Duncan barged into my office. “There he is!”
It was going to be one of those mornings where Duncan said a bunch of nonsense he thought I’d believe. Most of it would be flattery. It was how he rolled. He did this, I guessed, to pressure me, to make me sign on the dotted line. We had nothing concrete yet. Nothing that gave him any control over my company. This was still the courting phase and for now, Duncan was still trying to entice me by showing me what all his slick tactics could do for the both of us.
“Man, have I got some good stuff lined up for us.” He sat on the corner of my desk, folding his fingers together as he watched me. It was a tactic he used—give off that ‘I’m your buddy’ expression even though I always called him on his bullshit.
I’d stopped paying attention to him the second he’d knocked on my office door. “Such as?”
“Vegas.” Even the way he said the word sounded filthy, like throwing money at me, getting me laid, getting me drunk would ease me into his contract. No denying it wouldn’t put me in a good mood. It would damn well keep my mind off those crazy-ass dreams, but I doubted it would get me to change my mind.
Duncan’s smile was tight, a little forced, and I had to refocus on my monitor and the loop of code blinking back at me. This guy’s excitement was fake, just like everything else about him. Like his veneers and how wide and toothy his smile was because of them, or the perfect fit of his suit, the gold and diamond tie pin he wore, part of a set as far as I could see, all with diamonds, all too much for my small office.
He had a square jaw which reminded me of a Marine recruitment poster, if that Marine was graying and pushing sixty. His eyes were too narrow and his mouth too thin, both of which gave him the air of a weasel, sneaky, preying with a simple smile that never lit his eyes.
Duncan had snooped around an MIT alumni meeting, something he’d begged off an invite from a guy he claimed was a friend but who hadn’t bothered to talk to him the whole night. Duncan had ditched him right away, I bet, listened in on conversations, trying to pick up a tidbit of info, anything that would finagle his way into an introduction. He must have liked the way I’d called him out right away. Must have liked my moxie, thought it meant I cared.
“You’re coming off as a poser,” I’d told him as I’d handed over my glass to the bartender.
“Excuse me?” He’d held onto a half-drunk glass of Scotch that looked to be more water than whiskey. “Do I know you?”
“No,” I’d said. “You don’t, but I’m gonna do you a favor and let you know you’re spooking the programmers. They don’t like the eavesdropping, and it’s pretty damned obvious that’s what you’re doing. You’re not nearly as smooth as you think you are.”
A warning. A small one and I’d landed the shark, even though I hadn’t been trolling. He stayed and talked to me for an hour that night, then his assistant found me on Facebook and arranged lunch the next week. The man squirmed his way into my life and I was still trying to figure out how I’d let that happen. I didn’t really like Duncan, but at least he did have a little imagination. He wanted Nations to succeed as much as I did. And he could see the potential. That alone had me sticking around.
“No time for Vegas, man.” A quick nod at the monitor and I started typing again. “I got work to do.”
“See, that’s what I thought, but then I came in here this morning and you were just staring off into space.”
He kept that smile tight and wide when I looked at him, my eyes narrowing. “You checking up on me, man?”
“No,” he laughed, throwing a shoulder up in a shrug as though he thought I was simple. Then came a bigger laugh bunched up with an insult. “I pay your assistant to do that.”
“I pay my assistant, Duncan. Don’t get it twisted.” He lifted his hands, a surrender he sure as hell didn’t mean and then laughed again, fast, hurried, failing at his lame-ass attempt to squash the tension he’d caused. “What do you want?”