Willow had taken off without so much as a glance over her shoulder. Like I was nothing. Like she could drop me, forget that minutes before I had been inside her, that I had made her moan and scream and laugh all at the same time. The jasmine from her hair still lingered on my pillow the morning after we’d slept together. There were a few strands of her hair on the mattress and the hem of my sheets were smudged pale pink from her lipstick. Willow had come into my apartment wanting me, taking me, letting me take her back and had left traces of herself behind. Then she’d been gone before I could stop her. She’d left and it seemed like hours afterward I could still feel her everywhere in my room.
And then… Sookie died in my dream.
There was a lot for me to mourn.
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Duncan’s loud question erupted as he thundered through the doorway, the brass doorknob slapping against the glass wall. It happened so quickly, with such a force, I was surprised the glass hadn't broken. “You cannot cancel on me. Not again.”
He didn’t bother to ease into this fight. Duncan had been gripping so tightly to the thin hold he had on his patience that this one canceled meeting had him losing it completely. His face was red, like he’d just contracted rosacea and hadn’t bothered to treat it. Duncan’s already small, beady eyes had taken on a wet, glassy look and the rims around both were blotchy and red. He looked exhausted, old and out of breath and I knew it was my fault. I had let everything in my head destroy the company he was so sure would make us millions. He took a moment to close the door, then turned on me.
“You are fucking with my patience and you’re threatening everything I—”
“You?” I said it because it occurred to me that Duncan, no matter how upset he was, didn’t have any real claim on the work I did. He made phone calls. He took rich assholes out for rounds of golf or for fancy meals I couldn’t pronounce at restaurants I’d likely never be able to get a table at. But the work? The idea? The plan for it all? That had been me, not Duncan. “You, man? Your work?”
“Don’t start with that again.”
It took me a minute, but I stood, slowly, hands resting on my desk because I wanted to give him time to calm, to restate what he’d said. But Duncan didn’t apologize or backtrack. In fact, he only got redder in the face and his eyes grew glassier. “Maybe you wanna try that again?”
I wasn’t a jock. Despite my size, it wasn’t in my nature. I was fit and large but that was Nation genetics. I looked like my dad and my granddaddy—big and brawny with not a lot of neck and too much lip. If I needed to, and sometimes you just damn well needed to, I could move my shoulders a certain way or pop my neck at just the right time and look intimidating as hell. But I rarely needed to use it.
Just then, I needed to strut a little because Duncan looked a lot like he might lose his entire shit.
He ignored my question, mouth quirking like he wasn’t sure how intimidating he could look if he curled his lip and bared his teeth. We weren’t dogs and I had a good four inches on the guy—I also knew that without me Duncan had no deal. He had zero leverage. That asshole didn’t scare me.
“You need to understand one thing,” he said, voice high and cracking, but he didn’t seem to notice and leaned forward, copying my stance as he glared at me. “I can make your life fucking miserable.”
I stood up, flexing my arms a little when I crossed them. “That right?”
“You better fucking believe it.” He straightened but kept his hands at his side. The red splotches over his cheeks and across his forehead lightened just a little. “I can call in favors, of which I have a shit-ton. I can pull your business license and make it impossible for you to get rental space or staff. Trust me, Nash, without my help you’re just a code monkey with no way to get your product to the public.”
“And you’re just a rich prick scratching your ass until someone smarter than you, more creative than you, comes along so you can ride their coattails.”
“Fuck you.”
“I don’t think so.” My laptop shook when I slammed the lid closed and I came around the desk to glare down at Duncan. “You can’t fucking intimidate me, man. I might not have your connections, but I have a product that a lot of people want, and you have zero legal claim to any of it. You pull my license and I’ll go somewhere else to get another one. You block me from renting and I call a few favors of my own. You think I went to MIT and didn’t network? Man, please. Code monkeys stick together.”
I knew I’d flaked out on Duncan. My life, my distractions, my damn dreams had split apart the work I’d done with him like a sledgehammer, each blow fracturing another split, each dream cracking apart what I knew as normal. It was my fault, I knew that, but something had always been unsettling about Duncan. Something had always told me that with him, I’d always have to watch my back. And now it was time to cut some ties.
When he went on glaring, unable, maybe unwilling to answer back from my insults, I decided right then he wasn’t worth the drama. There might not be a Nations with Duncan, but I knew for damn certain there would still be a Nations on my own.
“You know what? I don’t need this.” I stepped back, grabbing my laptop and a few notebooks I kept in the top desk drawer.
He watched me as I moved around the office, picking up chargers and books, a few Post-Its with shorthand notes I’d made to myself before stuffing them all in my backpack and loosening my tie.
Duncan watched in silence until I had grabbed the doorknob and opened the door. It was only when I’d stepped over the threshold that he decided to speak.
“You walk out of this building, Nash and I’ll sue your ass. I don’t like people who walk away from me.”
The door flew open just as Duncan stepped to me, his hands curled into a tight fist. Harmony was at his side, looking like a fucking executive in a designer suit and three-inch heels.
“Uncle Dee, please,” she said, her voice calm, her hands pressed against his chest. “Please,” she said again, stepping fully between us. “Give me a minute with him.”
The man glared between us, his mouth tight, nostrils flaring before he listened, letting his niece move him from the room.
When she turned, I already had my laptop packed in my bag. “You can save it,” I started, not bothering to look at Harmony.
“Nash, you have to forgive him,” she started, her voice even. “He’s a frustrated old man, angry that he’s not getting his way.”
“Yeah?” I turned toward her, head tilted. “And how the fuck is that my problem?”
“It wouldn’t have to be a problem at all,” Harmony said, stopping me with a hand to my wrist when I gripped my bag. “Nash, you cannot imagine the money we could make together.”
“We?” I said, stepping back.
“You think Duncan has any clue how this tech works? Or the five other companies that I green-lit last month? He’s a dinosaur who’s about to be put out to pasture.” She moved to my desk and sat on top of it, her mile-long legs stretched out in front of her. “We’ll keep him on as a consultant and figurehead, but the board is very clear about the direction of the company. They want me to be CEO and if I can deliver you… you can literally write your own check without any interference from anyone.”