by Lily Menon
Annika’s cheeks heated as she caught June’s wide eyes. Hudson chuckled knowingly behind her, as if he knew exactly what she’d been daydreaming about. Anger crept up Annika’s face, like a living mask.
“Excellent!” Callum called out. “Now we’re seeing it, Annika—you’re merciless, you’re murderous, you’re savage!”
“It’s easy when you actually feel that way about your opponent,” Annika said. Both Callum and Emily laughed, but Hudson, she noticed, was very quiet. His back had stiffened.
“Save it for the interview, Annika!” Emily called, and Annika grinned at June.
Once all the pictures were taken, they took their seats again, and Emily pulled up an extra chair to sit in front of them. June walked off to speak with Ziggy in the corner, and Annika sat up straighter. It was showtime.
“Let’s start with an easy one,” Emily said, smiling. Her canines were very, very pointy, Annika noticed. “Both of your businesses deal with relationships in very different ways, and yet both of you rely on pretty innovative app technology to provide customers what they want. Can you speak to why you wanted to marry—pun intended—technology and a time-honored tradition like courtship?”
Annika began speaking before she’d fully articulated an answer in her head. She was going to say her piece, and she wasn’t going to apologize for it. “Technology is the perfect vehicle for love,” she found herself saying. Yes! Pull quote potential! “Intertwining the old with the new, the fairy tale with science, is exactly what Make Up is all about.” She’d practiced that with June, and it flowed out of her seamlessly now. “Why not give customers every advantage we can while still preserving the magic of love and second chances?”
Emily looked impressed. “I see. Hudson, do you agree?”
Hudson chuckled and rubbed his square jaw in that insouciant, confident way he had. “Not at all, Emily. It should come as no surprise that I don’t believe in fairy tales or happy endings for most people. The cold, hard truth is, people are busy. Technology makes our lives easier in almost every arena. So why should relationships be any different? We have apps that make it easier for people to find others to hook up with, date, marry, whatever. There was a gap when it came to breakups, and that’s what we’re here to fill.”
Ugh. Robot. Total robot. Did he think people’s lives were widgets to be fixed?
“Interesting,” Emily said, studying Annika’s expression. “Annika, what do you think of Hudson’s summarization?”
“Frankly, Emily, it baffles me,” Annika said, shaking her head. “How can someone sit there and be so dispassionate about bringing heartache to hundreds of thousands of people around the country? I go to work every day feeling optimistic and happy about what I’m putting out into the universe. I know Hudson can’t say the same.”
Emily looked like all her Christmases were coming early. “Really!” She turned to him. “And what are your thoughts, Hudson?”
Hudson’s green eyes were narrowed; he was staring at Annika as if Emily hadn’t spoken at all. “Our app has been downloaded over a million times,” he said. “What about yours?”
“It’s not all about downloads and money and popularity!” Annika said, throwing her hands up. “Right there is exactly why this would never work!”
Hudson froze. Emily, on the other hand, looked thoroughly confused. “What would never work?” she asked, checking her notes as if the answer might be there. “A … collaboration between your businesses?”
Annika felt her cheeks get warm. Shit. This was a Time interview, not a reason to rehash the reasons she couldn’t be with Hudson. Not daring to look at either June or Hudson, she cleared her throat. “Yes, exactly. Our business philosophies are just completely opposite one another.” She attempted a smile and continued, “Yes, a business is about making money. But is that the only reason to own a business? Shouldn’t it also be about what you’re doing for the world? Shouldn’t it be about people, taking care of them and making sure they have their shot at happiness? Otherwise, what’s the point of anything? What is all of your money, all of your success for?”
“My success is so I can give back to the people responsible for where I am today,” Hudson said slowly. In spite of his measured cadence, one big hand was curled tightly around the arm of his chair, and Annika was a little afraid he’d crack the plastic. Why was he getting so bent out of shape, anyway? “It’s how I can tell whether my days on this earth have been worthwhile or not.”
Ziggy and Blaire broke out into spontaneous applause. Annika was less than impressed. So was he saying he was successful for other people? What sense did that make?
Annika leaned forward, her eyes flashing. “So how much are you going to keep giving back to them? Is it ever going to be enough? And, anyway, who says money is the definitive way to give back to the people who supported you along the way? Isn’t the way you treat other people, what you put out into the world, a bigger payment?”
Here, June cheered, much louder than Ziggy and Blaire put together. Annika smiled at her. Hudson glowered, his jaw set.
“Annika, how would you define success?” Emily grinned and crossed her legs on her chair, obviously enjoying the direction this was now taking. “At the end of your life, looking back, what would prompt you to say you’d been successful?”
Annika took a moment to think about it. “I would like to look back and think that I helped every single person who reached out to me,” she said, hastening a glance at Hudson. It was exactly the kind of romantic notion he’d generally ream her for. But right now, his grip on the chair had loosened and his face was free of derision. His expression was soft, thoughtful, considered. She looked away, back at Emily. “I would love to have a big stack of holiday cards or wedding invitations from happy couples who are together because Make Up gave them their second chance.” She blinked, her throat suddenly tight as she thought of the letter from the bank that was sitting in her desk drawer. She couldn’t let Make Up go. She wouldn’t let it go.
“Really,” Emily said, with a bit of an evil smile. “That’s a pretty idealistic view of success, wouldn’t you say, Hudson?” She was clearly trying to start something. “Do you think it’s realistic to run a business that way?”
Annika looked full-on at Hudson, ready for him to unleash his arrogant sarcasm on her. But his eyes were soft as he regarded her. “Is it idealistic?” he asked, almost wonderingly. “Sure, I guess.” He shrugged and continued, “Is Make Up clearly the more moral company? I’d say yes. Does Annika do more good in the world than I do? Again, the answer is yes. Hands down.”
Annika’s mouth popped open. Of all the thousand and twenty verbal insults she’d been mentally preparing for Hudson to lob at her, she hadn’t expected him to actually say something so … so nice. “Um—” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, unable to think of a single thing to say. She’d been disarmed. Completely, thoroughly disarmed.
Wait a minute. Was this just one of his verbal kung fu tricks? Giving her a compliment to keep her on her toes? Saying seemingly nice things with a patronizing, arrogant edge? Maybe she’d just missed the edge because she’d been mentally preparing a response. “I don’t need your pity,” she snapped. “Make Up’s doing just fine being the more moral company. Moral doesn’t equal unsuccessful or pathetic, Hudson.”
She expected him to laugh, to have a pithy rejoinder at the ready. Instead, his eyes widened just a touch, and he looked almost … hurt. It was a minute change, and probably wouldn’t be noticed by anyone else except her, but he looked like he’d really meant what he’d said, like he’d put a bit of himself out there, and she’d just shit all over it. What the hell was going on? Annika blinked, feeling disoriented—which wasn’t uncommon for her around Hudson Craft.
Emily grinned. “Well, on that note: Are you both ready to go head-to-head at the EPIC pitch event in Napa? From what I hear through the tech grapevine, Make Up and Break Up are two of the top contenders. I’ve heard the board of judges has a soft spot for bu
sinesses that have a philanthropic or humanistic bent, Annika, but on the other hand … Break Up’s been steadily getting more and more popular. It has a working business model. Who wouldn’t want to be part of all its success?”
“Break Up’s ready,” Hudson said, his confident smile back like it had never slipped at all. “We’re going to go in there and really dazzle those judges, Emily. It’s not our first time pitching at such a large-scale event.”
“That’s right,” Emily said, making a note on her pad. “Annika, any nerves about going in front of a lineup of superstar judges, one of whom is world-renowned billionaire businessman Lionel Wakefield?”
Annika laughed, an easy laugh she’d practiced with June over an entire afternoon. It came out pitch-perfect, and for a moment she was disappointed there wouldn’t be video. “Lionel Wakefield is known as the bleeding-heart billionaire. Who do you think he’s going to identify with more, Emily—a business that specializes in tearing people apart, or one that Hudson Craft himself calls the more moral company?”
Emily laughed, but Hudson was quiet. “Great point, Annika! Could you tell me a little bit about the tech Make Up is using? I hear it got a lot of attention when you first announced what you intended to do. You even won a prestigious grant.”
Annika took her eyes off Hudson to answer the question, though something about his posture bothered her. He was still—too still. Gone was the brash confidence, the boastfulness, the aggravatingly self-assured way he talked about Break Up and his role in its success. He’d folded into himself, which was … disconcerting.
Tucking her hair behind her ear, Annika put on another smile for Emily and brought her thoughts back to what she was here to do. “Yes. My developer’s building a deep neural network. We’ve named it OLLI—the Original Love Language Interface—and the idea is that it’ll function as a Google Translate for couples who need help with their communication patterns. OLLI will be the relationship therapist you don’t have to pay two hundred dollars an hour to see.” She took a breath, mentally rehearsing the next thing she wanted to disclose. She and June had decided the Time article would be the perfect vehicle to introduce it to the public. “I’m also really excited to talk exclusively with you about something we’ve been working on in conjunction with the main framework of OLLI: We’re also working to create a future projection feature, in which people can upload their social media profiles and pictures to view a custom video predicting a future for them. Our hope is that it’ll inspire people to keep working on their relationship, to not lose sight of what could be.”
Emily looked genuinely impressed as she scribbled away on her notepad. “That sounds incredibly ambitious, but if you can pull it off…” She shook her head, her dirty-blond hair flouncing. “That could be a game changer.”
“Exactly.” Annika propped her elbows on the arms of her chair, pleased. “You can count on it, Emily. We’re going to change lives.” She darted a look at Hudson to see if he had any reaction, but his head was bent, his fingers tracing the texture of his slacks.
Emily beamed at them, seemingly failing to notice that he’d withdrawn. “Well, I know that I, for one, am going to be at the edge of my seat, waiting to see the outcome of that event.”
Annika sat back against the uncomfortable chair, knowing she should feel triumphant about the way she was handling herself. And I am, she thought, as she glanced sidelong at Hudson’s profile. She felt good about how she’d represented herself and Make Up. But there was also a part of her that was … thrown by the things Hudson had said and the way he was acting. A part of her that felt bad because, oddly enough, she may have unintentionally hurt the CEO of Break Up.
Who was he really, under all that bravado and masculine rakishness?
* * *
“Megan, my friend at Time? She says Emily thinks this is going to be their most popular article next month when they publish it.” June grinned at Annika across her desk, which now featured a taped-up photograph of her and Ziggy dressed like Princess Leia and Han Solo from a recent nerdy convention—Cosmic Con—they’d been to. June had blushed furiously while taping it up, insisting they’d given her the photograph for free. That didn’t explain why she was taping it to her desk, but Annika hadn’t pushed.
“Good!” Annika clapped her hands. It had been a couple of days since the interview, and though she felt confident about how it had gone, she’d been nervous. “That makes me feel so much better.”
It was a slow day, so Annika, dressed in a T-shirt and capris because they weren’t expecting any visitors, had decided to take the day to really prepare for the EPIC pitch next month. She’d been pacing the office barefoot with her flash cards, trying out about four thousand different permutations of the pitch for June.
The pitch was to be no more than ten minutes long. In just ten minutes, Annika had to convince a panel of four extremely high-powered strangers—Lionel Wakefield being the most famous of them—that Make Up was worth investing in. That she was worth investing in. She couldn’t fall, not even a little. She couldn’t stumble, she couldn’t pause, and she definitely couldn’t show any hint of uncertainty.
From all the online reading she’d done, all the podcasts she’d listened to, and all the YouTube videos she’d watched until her eyes felt like they’d burn right out of her head, she knew that angel investors wanted to see passionate, bubbly, excited people whose energy blew them away. They wanted to see people who looked like the next Steve Jobs, Whitney Wolfe, or Mark Zuckerberg. They didn’t want to know about your insecurities or your doubts. They wanted a dream they could invest in, and that’s exactly what Annika would give them.
“Okay, how about this?” Annika said, scribbling a note on her flash card. “I believe in happily ever after, even if it doesn’t take the first time. I believe in happily ever after, redux.”
June grinned and pumped her fist. “That’s it!” Then, looking solemnly at Annika, she added, “We’re going to get it.”
Annika blew out a breath. “I really want it. I really, really want it.” She got ZeeZee out of her desk and squeezed him.
“I’m looking for Make Up.” An authoritative male voice drifted to them from the hallway.
June frowned. “We’re not expecting a beta tester, are we?”
“No,” Annika said, frozen. “I think I know that voice.” She slipped her sandals on and walked down the hallway.
Her dad stood by the elevator, talking to a man dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase.
“Daddy?”
He looked over at her, his face breaking into a smile. “Ani!”
“What … what are you doing here?”
The suited man watched them, bemused, until the elevator doors dinged and he got on.
“I wanted to pay you a visit!” her father said, as if his presence here was the most natural thing in the world, as if he frequently stopped by to check in on her, when in reality he hadn’t visited her since the very first day she’d opened up shop. Even then, his visit had lasted all of fifteen minutes before he’d jetted off to his practice. “I had the hardest time finding your office, though.”
“It’s … this way,” Annika said. They began walking back together. “So … you’re just here to visit me. That’s it?”
As they entered her office, her dad said, “Well, that’s not all.” He cleared his throat and smiled at June. “Hello, June. How are you?”
June’s gaze flickered toward Annika before landing back on her dad. “Um, great, Dr. Dev! Just, you know, workin’, workin’, workin’!”
Annika led her dad to the couch, where he promptly plopped down, feeling the velvet with his big hands. “Yes, yes, very nice.” He looked around the room. “Nice art. And nice sign. You’ve done a good job, Annika.”
If she weren’t so furious with him, she would have laughed. He and the purple settee looked ridiculously incongruous, especially with his custom charcoal suit and bland, expensive haircut, both of which screamed, “My gold wedding ring is the f
lashiest thing I own!”
He smiled and gestured at her T-shirt and messy bun. “So … is this workplace casual?” When he saw her expression, he rushed to add, “I like it!”
“Dad,” Annika said, folding her arms across her chest. “What are you really doing here?”
He glanced at June, who’d been watching them with avid interest. “Oh!” she said, her cheeks getting pink. “I’ll just … um … see if there’s some, ah, tea.” She ran out of the office, closing the door behind her.
Annika turned back to her dad.
“Will you sit down?” he said, gesturing to the seat beside him. She’d never seen her dad nervous, and he didn’t look it now, either, but there was something about him that seemed off. He was discomfited, Annika realized, and that threw her. Her dad was never discomfited.
She sat next to him on the settee, but left enough space between them so that she could turn slightly to look at him.
He took a moment to polish his glasses with authority, his brown eyes thoughtful. When he finally looked at her, he said, “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
He took a deep breath that made his shoulders heave. “When your mom and I found out she was pregnant with you, you know one of the first things she told me?”
Annika shook her head.
“She said, ‘Raj, one day this little being is going to go off and live her own wild life, making decisions that we’ll deem mistakes and she’ll deem adventures. We’re going to want to toss a cold bucket of water on her, to wake her up, to slow her down. Let’s make a promise right now that we’ll stop each other from doing that. I’ll be your checks and balances and you’ll be mine.” He smiled, and Annika saw his eyes were misty. Her own throat felt tight. She blinked hard. “After you walked out Tuesday night, I kept thinking about your mom. What would she say if she could see you now? What would she say if she could see me?” He shook his head, lines of pain etching his forehead.
“I think about that a lot myself,” Annika admitted, her voice high-pitched with the effort of trying not to cry. “I hope Mom would be proud of me. But I don’t know.”