Showdown: Tech Billionaires

by Ainsley St Claire

  The room erupts.

  “Man, we could’ve made a bundle with that tech,” Landon says wistfully.

  “Like you don’t already have enough,” Walker chides.

  “It’s the right thing to do,” Landon says. “Honestly, I just wish we’d developed it ourselves.”

  “I want to let you all know that we’ve raised six-million dollars this weekend for three very worthwhile charities. Thank you all for your kind donations. And now I have some awards.

  “To Jackson Graham, who hosted our first off-site tournament in Maui, I present this surfboard keychain. Thank you, Jackson, for being so kind to host us away from Las Vegas when I wasn’t ready to be here. I can’t wait to get back to the Halona Moana Estate for your wedding and another round of poker this fall.”

  The crowd claps. And he takes some ribbing from some of our friends.

  “Next is for Landon Walsh, who kindly hosted us at his ranch in Montana. That was a terrific spot for relaxation away from prying eyes. I have for you a gold-plated pile of shit for all the crap you dish.”

  “I have just the place for this!” he announces.

  “I hope it’s your office or the trash,” Tinsley says.

  The crowd laughs as Landon holds it over his head in celebration.

  “I also want to include a bottle of the special reserve rum from Patrick’s estate. There are only six bottles left, so be sure to invite me over when you open this.”

  “No doubt, man.”

  “Mia Couture, I know these past few weeks have been rough on you. Thank you for being an amazing friend and the fiercest poker player of us all. I will always wear my Rolex with pride, and for you, I offer a matching one for always smiling and being such a great player.”

  “Agreed,” Walker says as Mia turns a shade of crimson and slips on the watch.

  “For Walker Clifton…” I take a deep breath. “Man, I had no idea how much you were doing to help Cecelia get the justice she so rightly deserved. We will be forever grateful.” The girls struggle to give Walker an almost-four-foot-tall trophy that says 1st Place. “Once you put your bid in for governor or even president, you call me and I’ll be your first donor. I’ll stump or do whatever you need.”

  “I may need a chief of staff,” he offers.

  “That’s a job for Mason Sullivan,” I retort. “And speaking of Mason Sullivan, many of us are here due to faith, support, and financial backing from Mason and SHN. To count your billions, here is a cash register.” I hand him a kid’s cash register that counts to four.

  “Thank you, this will be rather helpful.” Mason shakes his head. “Regardless, I just want to say, you can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends. But I think all of the partners here tonight would tell you that you’re family.”

  That gets a collective awwwww from the crowd.

  “We love ya, man,” Landon hollers.

  “And I also want to thank Jim Adelson.” I try to hold back my tears of gratitude. “For Jim I have this Maglite flashlight. Many of you know that Jim and I were in the Marine Corps, and he saved my ass over in Fallujah more than once and quite a few times since. I don’t think I’d be here without you lighting the way. Thank you, man.”

  The crowd goes crazy. Almost everyone here uses Clear Security, and we’d be lost without Jim.

  I look over at the girls and give them the nod to start. They pick up the signs they made this afternoon.

  “This last item is not an award; it’s an ask and a promise. Lillian Duval, the accidental nanny, can you please present yourself here front and center?”

  Lilly has been standing with Caroline, who made sure she was close. I reach for her and pull her up on the riser.

  I give Bex the nod.

  “For all you do,” Bex begins. “Driving us to school, taking us to our horseback-riding classes, listening to us, and keeping us on schedule, we love you.”

  “And for always thinking of us before yourself,” Katrina adds. “We were wondering if you’d become a permanent part of our family?”

  I get down on one knee. “Will you make us complete and marry me?”

  The girls flip their brightly colored signs with lots of glitter. Both read Please say YES.

  Lilly covers her mouth and nods. “Yes, I would be honored to be a part of this family.”

  I slip a four-carat, princess-cut diamond with a platinum band on her finger, and the crowd roars.

  “It’s perfect,” Lilly says. She steps in and gives me a very non-PG kiss, and the girls come in for a group hug. “I love you all so much.”

  My friends close in around us to congratulate us. I feel ten feet tall, and I’m certain I’m the happiest man on Earth. This is the start of a new adventure.

  Sneak Preview

  Champagne Brunch

  The Stiletto Sisters Series book 1

  A Preview

  by:

  Ainsley St Claire

  Chapter 1

  Mia

  “Thank you, Ms. Couture. We’ll be in touch,” Agent Shelly Davis says as she stands.

  I sit with my lawyer and watch her leave my conference room. I want her long gone and out of earshot before I say a word.

  “You did great. Don’t let the FBI get to you,” Marci Peterson-Clifton says. “They don’t have any evidence linking you to Viviana’s crimes, but they need to make sure they have everything lined up for her trial or whatever the State Department might do.”

  I nod. “Thank you. I really appreciate that you’re here.”

  Marci pats my arm. “Any time. You have my cell number. If they call or you just want to talk, please feel free to reach out.”

  I try to smile as she leaves, but I’m not even sure the corners of my mouth turn up. My best friend, Viviana Prentis, is not who I thought she was. She fooled all of us and was recently arrested for being a foreign intelligence agent, participating in cybercrimes, and committing murder—an FBI trifecta.

  How could I have been so blind?

  She went out of her way to work with all the various millionaires and billionaires in Silicon Valley tech, and unbeknownst to any of us, she was collecting technology. She also managed to access several government secrets that she gave to her Russian government handlers while extorting and stealing money from others—what a gem.

  She worked with a US Senator who was on the foreign intelligence committee and extorted him after their affair. She and her Russian hacker trolls broke into companies, including possibly mine, Diamond Analytics, to harvest sensitive data that had been developed for our clients.

  And in the process, she killed an incredible friend of ours and then tried to kill her husband and children.

  How did I miss the signs?

  The FBI and my security company have been crawling through my company severs and interviewing employees to determine whether Viviana stole data from us for the Russian government.

  My board has called a meeting for tomorrow, and I’m not looking forward to it. One board member has already warned me that they’re going to call for me to take a paid leave of absence until this investigation calms down. I can’t blame them for feeling that way, even though I know I was not involved. But I did miss all the signs.

  I look out the windows of the conference room at the view of the North Bay, Alcatraz, and the Sausalito home of the family she destroyed. I feel a migraine coming on. I just want to go home and sit in a dark room for a decade.

  My cell phone pings.

  Claire: Are you coming? I’m here with Elena, Toni, and Ryder, and Caroline and Emerson are on their way.

  Me: I have a headache. I think I’m going to go home.

  Claire: Don’t make me come get you. You know I will.

  I blow out a breath of air. I’m not up for telling her what a shitty day I’ve had or about the crap blowing down on me because I exchanged over five thousand text messages with Viviana in the last year. Claire would pull me out anyway, because when she was ghosted by her fiancé, that’s what I d
id for her.

  I straighten my back and resign myself to pretending today was a good day.

  Me: Fine. I’ll be there shortly.

  We made plans while we were in Las Vegas last month after sharing our shock over cocktails. We were all tight with Viviana, and the only comfort I feel is that I’m not the only one blown away by the news.

  My group of friends are fierce women. We’ve mastered our careers, and most of us are self-made billionaires in a city where men outnumber the women—and unfortunately, shrinking the pool even more, men tend to be intimidated by women who are smarter than they are. We’re all shell-shocked and decided we needed group support to manage this Viviana aftermath. But today just happens to be a lousy day.

  I gather my things and ride over to The Tiger’s Den, a small bar downtown that we’ve taken to meeting at regularly, in the back of my G-Class Mercedes with my security team. I look at the text that my now-former boyfriend, Justin Price, sent me this morning. I’ve read it over a dozen times today, and I still can’t believe it. Stunning.

  Justin: This thing with your friend has gotten out of hand. I think it’s time we be realistic. You’re not moving to Austin, and I’m not interested in moving to San Francisco. Let’s stop wasting each other’s time. Good luck.

  Good luck? What the fuck? Who says that in a break-up text? Who breaks up with a text? Justin had been avoiding my calls for a few days, so it shouldn’t be a surprise, but it’s still a kick in the gut. I mean, grow a pair and break up with me over FaceTime at least. That used to be your favorite way of communicating with me and my bare breasts.

  Whatever.

  I can’t wait for this day, week, month, and year to be over. I’m done with it.

  My driver stops in front of The Tiger Den. I get out and start to run across the sidewalk and somehow I bump into a man walking by.

  “Oh, excuse me.”

  He smiles. “A beautiful woman bumps into me while walking into a bar. Maybe I should buy her a drink?”

  I blush. He’s stunning as he towers over me with his six-foot-tall frame and three-piece suit. “Not necessary. I should just watch where I’m going.” I flash him my most brilliant smile, and he smiles back. It takes my breath away. Almost reluctantly, I walk into the bar to join my friends and leave him grinning on the sidewalk.

  I don’t look back, though I wonder what he would have done if I’d taken him up on his offer? How would I explain it to my friends?

  I look over the crowd of happy-hour revelers.

  “There she is,” Claire announces from the corner. “You finally made it!”

  I look at my watch, and it’s hardly after six. As far as I’m concerned this is still the workday. I don’t often leave my office before dark. That’s the problem with running a Fortune Fifty company that I created and built.

  Claire hands me a glass of champagne. “We’re here to celebrate.”

  I survey my friends, and we appear unassuming, but if you look around the bar, each of us has at least one bodyguard with us. Caroline has been traveling with a female bodyguard, but it’s like Navy Seal convention here and they do attract the attention of the single women in the bar.

  Claire raises her glass. “To wonderful friends.”

  “Wonderful friends,” I repeat and raise my glass.

  Caroline smiles from her spot next to me. “How are you doing?”

  I paste a plastic smile on my face. “I’m doing great.”

  She looks at me thoughtfully. “You don’t have to put a brave face on with this crowd.”

  I shrug. “Everyone knows my best friend was just arrested. It’s not like wallowing in self-pity is a wise use of my time.”

  “No, but what about getting drunk and getting your man to meet you at your place to ravish you until he has to fly home tomorrow?”

  “As fun as that might be, Justin has decided that all the drama with Viviana, it’s time for him to move on.”

  “What? What does Viviana have to do with him?”

  I roll my eyes. “Justin and I both had visits from the FBI today. I probably wouldn’t be here if Marci Peterson hadn’t been able to join me for the interview.”

  Caroline hugs my shoulders. “She’s amazing. But I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too. At Clear Security, Jim Adelson has his technology guru working with FBI Cybercrimes going through my company. They want to be sure she didn’t figure out a way to burrow into our systems since we have some big military spending contracts.”

  “Shiiiiit,” Claire breathes. “That would really suck. What does that mean for you?”

  I’m sure whatever my board has for me tomorrow at our emergency meeting will make the trade papers. I’m not going to talk about it here. Who knows who might be in this bar, and besides, I don’t want to think about it right now.

  I shrug. “Sometimes I wish I did something fun and fanciful.”

  “Like have a one-night stand?” Claire’s eyes grow big, and a few men at the bar glance over.

  I chuckle. “I meant for work. But as far as that’s concerned, as soon as the guy asks what I do and I tell him—even the light version—he either has to mansplain how he’s so much more successful than I am, or he makes a polite excuse to run away. Usually, it’s the latter.”

  “Men are idiots,” Claire says.

  “I think Caroline snagged the last good one,” I quip.

  Caroline was just married a few months ago to her long-time love, Mason Sullivan. They’re the power couple these days in San Francisco. Mason and his company were the initial investors in my company, and I owe all my success to them. They gave me a great runway and provided me with help doing all the things that typically distract a startup, so my development team and I could concentrate on what we do best.

  Ryder sits down next to me. She’s a vivacious blonde with all the right curves, and it actually makes me feel better knowing it isn’t just me. She’s beautiful, funny, and doesn’t need a man to take care of her. “I’m not ready to give up yet,” she says.

  “No way,” Elena adds. Elena Tuskin is a tall, beautiful brunette with big brown eyes that are golden in the sunlight. “We’re too awesome to just give up.”

  “You know,” Emerson says. “When I was single, Caroline and some of our friends used to have fake jobs that made us less intimidating when we were out.”

  “What do you mean?” Claire asks.

  “We had what we called chick jobs.” She smiles. “I would tell guys I worked in human resources and operations.”

  “I would tell them I was a makeup artist,” Caroline offers. “My childhood best friend, who’s a pediatrician, would tell guys she was a nurse.”

  I put my glass down and grin. “I get it. Rather than say I’m CEO of a multinational trillion-dollar company, I could tell them I’m working on a new app.”

  “Yessss!” Caroline says.

  “Rather than saying I’m developing the software that banks use to move money around behind the scenes, I could say I’m a bank teller,” Elena says.

  Emerson is nodding.

  But Ryder shakes her head. “Lying to start a relationship seems a little disingenuous.”

  “I suppose it is, but if you’re just looking for fun, what’s the harm?” Caroline says. “All of those jobs are amazing. They just aren’t threatening to a man’s delicate ego.”

  Ryder grins. “Fine, I’ll be a science teacher focused on climate change.”

  “Good that you’re true to your course,” Caroline says.

  We spend the rest of the night plotting our quest to become guy magnets, and we drink more than we probably should, but we have fun. I’m just grateful we didn’t spend the night dissecting what my brain has been wrestling with since Viviana’s arrest.

  As I walk out with Claire, she puts her arm around me. “Are you okay?”

  “I am.” I give her a side hug. “I’m really grateful that we’re friends.”

  “I am, too.” She looks at the line of vehicles and bodyguards
ready to whisk us home. “Viv did a number on all of us. But together we’ll get through.”

  “I agree.”

  Peter stands beside my vehicle, and I salute him as I climb into the backseat for the drive to my home in the Marina.

  When I arrive, I bypass additional alcohol and go right for graham crackers with a swipe of Nutella and marshmallow fluff. This snack takes me back to my days of being a Girl Scout and my favorite s’mores. Chocolate should definitely be its own food group. I look out at the marina, where people are still celebrating and enjoying their night.

  I need a bath to relax.

  I run through my tried-and-true preparations and have it ready in no time. As the bubbles cover me in a warm blanket, I think about the man who offered to buy me a drink earlier tonight. We had a minute of flirting, but nothing more, and no way to follow up.

  What might an app do for people interested in flirting?

  No fake jobs required.

  No histories or education exchanged.

  Just flirting over drinks and sharing a mutual attraction.

  I don’t think there’s anything like that out there. Too bad. It would be perfect.

  Something woke me at twelve forty-four tonight, and I can’t go back to sleep. My mind won’t stop circling the drain of my life. It’s like a pinball machine that ricochets between a Viviana Prentis bumper, a Diamond Analytics bumper, and the sharp pain of Justin and why he broke up with me.

  I stare at the ceiling. The shadow from the water’s reflection is like a shiny line that zig-zags above the blackout curtains.

  I don’t want to read. Nothing interests me right now.

  I’m cold. I reach for the quilt my grandmother crocheted and curl up in a fetal position.

  Now I’m hot.