The Founder (Trillionaire Boys' Club Book 7) Page 7

  Rebecca seems to understand that she’s said something off. She sees my visual caress and demurs, she wipes at something on her face with the napkin.

  “I believe you as a consultant.”

  “I just say whatever’s in my head.”

  “What’s in your head is exactly what interests me.”

  “I’m never on time.”

  “For a consultant, there’s no firm schedule.”

  “I once accidentally took a consulting call topless because I didn’t know the video was on.”

  I really wish she hadn’t said that. I can tell it’s just another thoughtless thing that fell from her lips, but now I’m picturing it. Her dress is elastic enough that it could come straight down, right here, without unzipping. I can’t tell if she’s wearing a bra; decorum prohibits my looking closely enough to look for lines. But in my imagination, she’s got nothing beneath. In my mind’s eye, the top slides down as we sit here. I imagine her flesh emerging. I imagine reaching out to touch her bare breasts. I can practically feel the firm nipple against my palm. I’m glad I’m sitting because my cock has gone hard.

  “Look,” I say, trying to gather myself as she blushes, probably realizing what she’s said, what my wandering eyes might have been thinking. “I’d like to make you an offer. Point blank.”

  “What kind of offer?”

  “A consulting contract, like I said. Try not to take your calls …” I stop the inappropriate thoughts, now at full attention under my napkin. “Well, try to be a touch more professional when the calls come up. Beyond that, it’d be an easy position.”

  “I got the impression you wanted me to shut down my website, but I’m not sure I want to.”

  “I’m not into censorship. And I’m not into monopolizing your time. I get the feeling you don’t do well with tight restrictions.”

  It was an innocent enough thing to say, but now my mind is filthy with things that are “tight.” Becca’s body, for instance. Her warm little pussy.

  “I just need you to sign a nondisclosure agreement, meaning you can’t talk about what we do together.”

  What we do together. I can picture that, too.

  “But if you want to keep talking about Steve, that’s your business.”

  She gives me a long, assessing look.

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “I know your work.”

  “You don’t know that I can deliver what you seem to want.”

  “That’s okay, considering that I don’t yet know what that is.”

  Except that I do.

  I force myself not to look at her body. I will my hard cock to stand down.

  “I’m not for sale.” She says it like a challenge, not like she means it. “This is too weird for me.”

  “What would it take? To make up for the weird?”

  “A million dollars.”

  She laughs. It wasn’t an ask; it was more like an irrepressible exclamation.

  “Okay.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “I want you to be comfortable. LiveLyfe has a large discretionary budget for R&D. A million dollars is nothing for something with this much upside potential.”

  “You don’t know the upside potential.”

  “That’s right. Because I don’t know what the project is.” I smile at this because that’s already an inside joke between us.

  “You’re serious.”

  “I’m serious.” And I am, but I’m also making this up as I go along. I always follow my gut, and that’s what all of this is. But is it my gut I’m following?

  “It’d be a retainer,” I say, still pulling ideas out of my ass. “You can keep doing what you’re doing, but you have to come when I need you.”

  You have to come.

  When I need you.

  “You’d need to sign NDAs, as I said. Our work would be completely confidential. We’d make it up as we went along.”

  “Just me and you.”

  “You’re all I need.”

  I don’t know why I said that. I also don’t know why I didn’t add, “… for right now.” I wonder if I’m making decisions with my right mind, or if I’m acting like a sugar daddy to a gold-digger who’s not even mining.

  “All right. It’s your funeral if you want to pay me but don’t even know what you’re paying me for.”

  “Whatever I want you for,” I say. “Whatever I need you to do with me.”

  We lock eyes — those fathomless, sapphire eyes.

  My heart beats faster, but something inside me realizes the truth:

  This is a terrible idea.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EVAN

  LIVELYFE’S CFO IS A WOMAN named Callie Osbourne. We get along while also not always seeing eye to eye. I’m visionary, and Callie is practicality: two frames of mind that are destined to clash. I’m always holding a clutch of balloons because I want to fly. Callie always tells me, Don’t do that, you idiot. When you get too high, those balloons will pop, and you’ll fall to your death.

  I get that it’s her job to save the company from me. But at the same time, fuck that. I made this company and can do whatever I want.

  “Go ahead, Evan,” Callie says. “You tell me if you’d like to pull rank. I’d rather know right at the beginning before I waste too much breath.”

  Callie is behind her standing desk. I’m standing on the plush rug in front of her. Past her, on two broad walls, is a floor-to-ceiling city view of the bay. Callie didn’t want the corner office. I insisted. At the top of this company are me, Callie, and LiveLyfe’s COO and CMO. Four corners of the top floor of the building, four offices. Left to her own devices, Callie would work in the basement, hunched over a kid’s school desk, probably with one of those old-school green bookkeeper’s visors. To Callie, the office is excessive. To me, it’s dignity befitting her position. But, shit. If I can’t even convince Callie that she is worth spending on, how do I ever get anything else through finance?

  “You know I don’t pull rank.”

  Her hands are on her hips. She glances at the standing desk, at the single piece of white copier paper on its top. I put it there five minutes ago. She read it once, then spent three minutes on her computer doing something mysterious while I stood like a penitent. I suspect she knows there’s more to my latest expense than can be said on a single sheet — the sort of thing, when pressed, that I might puff my chest to defend.

  “You don’t think you pull rank,” she says, “but you do. It’s not obvious. You just explain how everyone except you is wrong. And you do it in a tone that suggests this is going to happen and anyone who opposes you is a fool. You hold all the cards, and you can do anything you want, including drive this company into the ground. Sally, Ben, and I try to keep that from happening. But if you want to ignore us and do whatever the hell you want, we can’t stop you.”

  “All I did was come in here and show you that invoice.”

  Callie nods, sighs. “Uh-huh.” She picks up the paper and looks at it. If she wore glasses, Callie would be peering at it from over their tops. “Okay, Evan. Then it’s an easy no.”

  “What is?”

  “Are you going to pull rank?” she repeats. “If this is no big deal, then you can just say, ‘No, I’m not going to pull rank on you, Callie.’ I just want to know up front. I’d rather not waste my breath if you’re going to override me anyway.”

  Now I’m annoyed. I haven’t protested anything because we haven’t so much as discussed the invoice. My manner has been entirely reasonable. She’s acting as though I’ve been arguing like an asshole, banging everyone’s heads against an invisible brick wall.

  But then I realize why I’m annoyed. It’s not because Callie is picking at me. It’s because she’s accurately measured what the invoice means and has determined in advance that I plan to fight for it. The second she finished reading it over, she probably looked “Rebecca Presley” up on Forage. Or worse: Hampton Brooks had a meeting with her and Sally about his pitch
for the ZenDress app. Fucking Hampton probably told my team about our climbing trip, and about the woman I suddenly seem hung up on.

  I meet Callie’s eyes. A pure, flawless green. Her husband has the same pair. It’s kind of creepy, seeing them together. If they have kids, they’ll look like they have emeralds in their sockets.

  Callie has this all figured out. She knows what’s about to happen, how I’ll react, and how this will end. But we always have to dance.

  “This is important, Callie.”

  “How, exactly?”

  “It’s R&D.”

  “Okay. What’s the product? What are you researching and developing with this …” She looks at the paper. “Rebecca?”

  “Well, I haven’t fully articulated it yet.”

  “But it’s important.”

  “You know as well as I do that good ideas come from nothing. I have to listen to my instincts.”

  Callie consults the paper again. “For a million-dollar retainer.”

  “A million is a drop in the bucket if the idea turns into something.”

  “Because whatever you want to build, Ms. Presley’s costs are the only ones LiveLyfe will incur? No developers needed? No trips? No other consultants, supplies, hardware? No—”

  “I’m sure there will be other costs. But this company needs to innovate constantly. We can’t sit on our laurels, or we’ll be another MySpace.”

  “I agree. So how does this million-dollar expense fit in with how LiveLyfe is already innovating?”

  “Well …”

  “I know you don’t know what you’re building, but you must have some idea for the basic subject or area. Is it tech?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Is it a service?”

  “Again, not sure.”

  “But you feel this woman is qualified to help you figure it out. To the tune of a million dollars. Not a hundred thousand, which would also be a hell of a retainer, but a full million. Nice, round figure.”

  “The size of the retainer means nothing if she delivers.”

  “Oh, sure. She’s qualified to deliver?”

  “Nothing’s a hundred percent. But—”

  “What is she qualified to do?”

  “Well …” The second I stammer, I know how fully I’ve stepped into the trap. Callie is smart as hell; it’s why I hired her. It’s why she’s the best CFO I’ve ever worked with. As annoyed as I already am, I’d be disappointed if any of this got by her without a raised eyebrow. “She’s excellent at marketing.”

  “Okay.”

  “And at customer bonding. And community. It’s totally natural.”

  Callie’s sarcasm finally breaks. She slowly shakes her head. “Evan …”

  “I know it’s a little strange. But I believe in her.”

  Callie nods. “Yeah. Hampton Brooks said he’d believe in her, too.”

  She turns her monitor so I can see two photos of Rebecca on her screen. One is a casual snap at a party. Rebecca is made-up and dressed to the nines. Her blue eyes are like beacons, calling me home. The other photo was taken at a beach. Becca in a two-piece — pretty but not dental-floss scintillating. Understated, true to the Becca I met earlier this week. But it shows me all the skin I’ve been fantasizing about since we parted, smooth and flat and fuel for the imagination.

  “Girl like that?” Callie says. “Hell, I’m practically into her.”

  “This has nothing to do with what she looks like. I’d never even seen her before I arranged our lunch meeting.”

  “But you had seen her before you offered her a retainer a hundred times bigger than the best lawyers in town.”

  “What are you saying? That I’m buying her like a hooker?”

  “I’m saying that maybe you aren’t making rational decisions. I looked her up when Hampton mentioned her; yeah, she’s got talent. I see what you mean about her transparency and how well she bonds with people. I’m not an idiot, Evan — I know that just because her site is there to make fun of her ex’s dick, that doesn’t mean there isn’t genius behind it. I even found her old company, the one with the ‘Make Guys Do What You Want’ course or whatever it was. It’s smart. So are the funnels around it. I saw that memo you sent up about her ads, and those are smart, too. But I think her success so far has been a combination of great instincts, guts, and luck. I’d be interested in hearing what she has to say, too; but we’re talking maybe one or two calls. On a specific subject, not just whatever, the way you’ve had her write the description on this invoice.” Callie shakes the paper. “Nothing I’ve seen justifies this. You don’t even know what project you want to use her for!”

  “Are you saying no?”

  Callie puts one hand on one hip. “Yes. Officially, in my capacity as your chief financial officer, I’m saying no. Are you going to accept my no, or do you plan to push it through anyway because you think I’m just not getting it?”

  We match stares again. I’m stuck because there’s no real win here. I can either accept Callie’s refusal and tell Rebecca the deal is off, or I can validate Callie’s attack by pulling rank. I can get Rebecca paid if I insist, but going over my CFO’s head is a little like building a wall around a fort and then leaving a hole in the wall so I can go out and get the newspaper. Callie is in place for a reason. I pull rank on her at my own — and the company’s — risk.

  “Do you think it’s not worth investing in innovation?”

  “Of course I think it’s worth investing in innovation. The question is whether I think it’s worth paying an enormous sum of money to some woman without any documentable qualifications and questionable mental stability for a project you can’t even explain to me.”

  “I need to explore it before I know what it is.”

  “And you need her?”

  “Yes. I don’t know why yet, but yes.”

  “For a million dollars?”

  “That was her price.”

  Callie regards the photos again.

  “It’s strange, Evan. You’d see how strange it is if you were in my shoes.”

  “I see it, Callie. But you have to trust me on things like this. I need this latitude.”

  “How many people on this project of yours?”

  “Just two.”

  Another glance at the swimsuit photo. “Just the two of you, huh?” She exhales, gives her head a slow, subtle shake. “You know what Hampton said? He said you were talking like you were into her.”

  “I barely know her.”

  Callie still doesn’t believe me. It’s plain on her face.

  “Drop the retainer to $100k. A factor of ten.”

  “I can’t do that.” I don’t know why I insist; I haven’t even asked. But I insist anyway.

  “Then the answer is still no.”

  Dammit.

  “Then I guess you were right. I’m going to have to insist. Pay the invoice, Callie.”

  She sighs. “All right, Evan. I guess it’s money we can afford to flush. Which is good, because I get the feeling that’s what we’re doing.” She moves the invoice to a pile, due for payment. “Just promise me one thing.”

  “Sure.”

  “Waste the company’s money if you have to. Or turn that million into a billion; I’d love to be proven wrong. But promise me you’ll keep it professional. I’ve read a lot of Rebecca Presley since Hampton told me she might end up on my desk, and there are two things I know for sure about her.”

  I wait patiently, feeling a new need to be reasonable now that I’ve gotten my way.

  She nods to the screen. “The first is that she’s volatile. Her site reads like a lunatic’s confessional. It’s funny, but there’s a lot of pain behind the humor. She’s probably manic at times, depressive at others. Up and down. Maybe medicated. She’s got a damn big mouth, Evan.”

  Callie brings a new window to the front onscreen. It’s the homepage of Becca’s site, SteveHasATinyDick.com. Callie taps the banner.

  “And the second thing I know about Rebecca
Presley is that she’s incredibly vindictive. When you get on her bad side, watch the hell out.”

  I’ve read the site, too. I think Callie’s perspective is skewed. The reason Steve gets so much ire is that Steve was a major asshole. Or is that just the impression Callie supposes Becca wants me to have?

  “A million dollars is a lot of money, Evan, even for LiveLyfe,” Callie tells me. “But it’s nothing compared to the damage someone like this could do to us if you cross a line and become more than a boss and then piss her off.”

  Callie’s words send a shiver up my spine.

  “It’s just business,” I say.

  “Do you promise?”

  “Of course. She’s a brilliant marketer. That’s all the interest I have in her. It’s one hundred percent professional.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  REBECCA

  THIS IS THE LEAST PROFESSIONAL thing I could have worn without getting arrested.

  I’m in the ladies’ room of LiveLyfe’s Austin offices, standing in front of a mirror and hoping that no one comes in. They’ll think that someone hired a stripper if they do. Because it suddenly seems that my skirt is way too short, and my top too revealing. I’m wearing panties, but this get-up is a classic no-underwear affair — the kind of thing a girl wears when she wants to sit across from her man and flash him to harden his cock. I wish there were a way I could declare, definitively, that I am wearing panties without showing them off. If I had a second pair with me, I’d put them on to maximize panty lines. Because I’m suddenly sure everyone here is going to think I’m a slut.

  Stop it. You look fine.

  But that’s a lie. Even if you dismiss my skirt that’s probably too short and my boob-maximizing bra-and-blouse, I’m a total fucking mess. That’s my default state, and the reason I hate cameras. I do those webcam events because my fans love them so much, but I never watch them. I look like a spaz. Like a crazy lady. My hair won’t lie flat, and my eyes get too buggy. I talk too damn fast when I’m nervous, and my lack of a filter means I’m as likely to tell you about a tampon malfunction as I am to answer simple questions about what I did over the weekend.