Tech Titans: The Complete Billionaire Romance Series

by Swann, Marcella

  Oh, Gigi, you’re such a fool, she thought. The son of a bitch played you.

  She felt tears well in her eyes. She looked down again at the screen. Karen had hung up.

  She sat for several long minutes, till she heard Damian’s shower cut off.

  Nope, she thought. Not gonna happen.

  She deleted Karen’s call from his phone and placed it back on the nightstand.

  Chapter Sixteen: The Flight Back

  Gigi was suddenly not herself, Damian saw, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why.

  Leaving the house, riding to Malpensa, boarding the plane—Gigi had been mostly silent, and her few utterances had been terse.

  “You okay?” Damian had asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You hungry?”

  “No.”

  And so on. Damian had been with enough women to know that some of them had peculiar, mercurial post-coital reactions, a kaleidoscopic array of emotions that baffled most men. Having no other idea what the problem might be, Damian let it go at that. Was she regretting having slept with him? He honestly didn’t know.

  They were over the Atlantic now, hours into the New York leg of their journey. Gigi had mostly slept—or at least had given the impression of sleeping. Damian wasn’t sure. Her eyes had been shut and she hadn’t talked.

  But now she was awake and sitting up.

  And staring at Damian.

  “Sure you don’t want something to eat?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Gigi—” He stopped himself.

  She raised her eyebrows, indicating she was awaiting a statement of some kind.

  “Gigi,” he continued, “are you regretting last night?”

  “No.”

  “Because personally I thought it beat the hell out of ‘Netflix and chill.’ Have I done something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Then…then what’s the problem?”

  Gigi looked out her window and her gaze seemed to search the grey seas below. “You haven’t really discussed your partners,” she said finally.

  “My…partners?”

  She turned from the window to Damian. “Not the women you’ve slept with. I’m talking about your three partners, your three co-founders. You’ve never really talked about them.”

  “You’re upset I haven’t talked about my business partners?”

  “I’m not upset.”

  “Well, you’re not exactly dancing a jig, either. Gigi—”

  “Tell me about them.”

  Damian took a long, deep breath. Let’s play this out, he thought. Let’s see where this goes. It’s a negotiation, and there’s nobody better than you at negotiation.

  “Well, there’s the brothers, Hayden and J.D. They’re twins, though not identical. They’re…I forget the term.”

  “Fraternal,” said Gigi.

  “Fraternal. Yes. Fraternal.” God, the way she’s looking at me. What the fuck did I do? “So…yeah. Fraternal twins. Anyway, they’re very different in terms of personality. Hayden’s kind of cool and cerebral, while J.D.’s all words and motion. He’s kind of like me. Of course, no one’s quite like, well, me.” Damian offered a grin, but Gigi’s flat demeanour swatted it down. Holy shit, he thought, exasperated.

  He continued: “It was like the internet had been created just for them, to take advantage of all their talents and creativity. They started a company in high school. It didn’t real work but these guys are real visionaries. They looked around and noticed all the peer-to-peer music file sharing. Napster and whatnot. Hayden especially is a bigtime music fan and thought there might be an opportunity. They could see file sharing and downloading wasn’t sustainable. There was no quality control. Shit got uploaded at whack bit-rates, sounded like a record was playing two doors down the hall. Plus, they knew the record companies weren’t gonna just bend over and grab their ankles for some pimply-faced teenager who didn’t want to pay for music.”

  Damian looked at Gigi. She was still hiding someplace deep within, he could see, protecting herself from God knows what, but at least she was engaged.

  “Apple did the iTunes thing, which wasn’t bad. Made music portable in a way that it hadn’t been before. And there was some semblance of quality control. Bit-rates were higher. Not CD-quality, but at least the songs didn’t sound like they were being played through blown speakers. Hayden and J.D.—did you know we were in high school together?”

  “I think I read it somewhere,” Gigi said.

  “Yeah. We go way back.”

  Gigi said nothing.

  “Yeah,” Damian continued, “so anyway, they were sitting around one day and it hit them: Why would you even need a music file? Files are problematic. They can be accidentally deleted. They take up space that can be used for something else. And what if you had all your music files on an iPod—remember those?—that you accidentally left at home or on a plane or just plain lost? Then what? They came up with the idea of streaming. People were already streaming puppy videos on Youtube. Why not Slim Shady or Britney? What if you could stream the music wherever you are, on practically any device? Arrangements could be made with the record companies, fees and royalties and all that shit, so everyone gets a piece of it, everybody wins. That was Hayden and J.D.’s breakthrough moment. They were in college at the time and J.D. dropped out. He talked Hayden into dropping out, too, which took some doing. Hayden is the more…well, I wouldn’t say ‘serious,’ because it’s not like J.D. is some kinda wild child. But J.D. is more of a born risk taker. Like me.”

  “You like taking risks,” Gigi said. Not a question, but a statement.

  “Of course. But I’m not crazy, and neither is J.D. There’s a difference between taking a risk and being reckless.”

  “And you’re not reckless.”

  “No.” Damian opened his mouth to say something else but thought better of it. No need to be reckless, he thought.

  “So Hayden and J.D. dropped out of college and started SXz.”

  Barbara appeared from the rear. “Excuse me, sir, here’s your phone. I switched the SIM cards as you requested.”

  “Oh, thank you, Barbara.” Damian took the phone, turned it on and off, then slipped it into his pocket. Gigi’s eyes followed the path of the phone like radar. “I could either carry a second phone with a European SIM card,” he said to Gigi, “or just switch them out when I travel. I switch them out because I figure I’ll just lose the second phone, and I can’t afford having someone hack into my stuff.”

  “Can I get either of you anything?” asked Barbara.

  “Nothing for me, thank you,” said Gigi.

  “I’m fine, Barbara. Thanks.”

  Barbara smiled, turned sharply, and strode to the back of the jet.

  “You get a lot of calls when you’re in Europe?”

  “It depends on the trip,” Damian said, “and the season. It also depends if Michelle is doing her job.”

  “Michelle?”

  “My secretary. Good woman, good employee. But sometimes she lets herself get smooth-talked by people who don’t want to hear ‘Mr. Black is unavailable right now.’”

  “Getting smooth-talked is an ever-present danger in your world.”

  “Gigi…” Damian exhaled and made an exasperated gesture with his hands. “I’ve obviously done something you think I shouldn’t have. Or maybe I’ve not done something you think I should’ve. Either way, whatever it is, whatever’s going on, you gotta tell me. This is ridiculous.”

  Gigi looked out her window. The North Atlantic was dark grey and churning. “How much longer till we land in New York?”

  * * *

  Somewhere over Kansas, Damian, desperate to fill the awkward silence, said: “I never finished answering your question.” I want you to know everything, because I want you to be a part of it.

  Gigi made a gesture with her hand, signalling proceed.

  “I met Aaron at Stanford. He was – wait, have you ever seen him?”
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br />   Gigi shook her head.

  “A beast of a man. 6’3, 210. Hasn’t had any fat on him since the age of, like, five. In PeeWee football, he looked like he was in high school. In high school, he looked like he was in college. His freshman year at Stanford, he already looked like he belonged in the pros. Every friggin’ college in America recruited him out of high school, but he opted for Stanford because, believe it or not, he wanted that Stanford degree.”

  “And he read Playboy for the articles,” Gigi said.

  “I know, right? Everyone assumes he’s some kinda meathead jock, but truth be told, he’s the operational genius behind SXz. I company doesn’t run itself from day to day. You need management talent to get the whole damn thing moving in the same direction. That’s Aaron. If I’m Steve Jobs, then he’s Bill Gates.”

  Gigi raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re Steve Jobs?”

  “Steve Jobs didn’t design the iPhone. He didn’t design the Mac. He didn’t design anything, really. He wasn’t an engineer. The guy was taking calligraphy classes at Reed College. But no one understood image and brand better than Jobs. Without Steve Jobs, Apple never would’ve attained its current place in the industry and in the culture. The company needed a face, it needed someone it could build its brand around. You can’t think of Apple without also thinking of Steve Jobs. The same is true of me and SXz. You can’t think of one without thinking of the other.” He paused before continuing. “An image is needed. It’s the 21st century, it’s the digital age. People respond to visuals. They respond to stories. Steve Jobs didn’t just provide products, he provided a story. That’s my role—or one of them, anyway—at SXz. I’m the image. I’m the story.”

  “So, what’s the image?” Gigi asked. “What’s the story?”

  At least she’s talking, Damian thought. She’s still pissed off about something, but at least she’s talking.

  “You’ve seen TMZ,” he said. “You’ve seen the tabloids. My image is one of being—”

  “A douche?” Gigi interrupted.

  Damian made a face. “I was going to say, ‘A fun-loving guy.’”

  “You say ‘tomato,’ I say…‘douche.’”

  “Gigi, for God’s sake, what the hell’s wrong with you? Everything was rainbows and unicorns till right before we left this morning, and now you’re acting like you did when we first met. I think it’s safe to say that after last night, we’re no longer just casual acquaintances.”

  Gigi’s expression flickered with sadness, then she looked out her window. “No, we’re no longer that, I guess.” She turned back to Damian. “So how did it all come together?”

  “What?”

  “The four of you. The company. How did it all come together?”

  “Oh. Well, like I said, Hayden and J.D. had the vision and the technical skills. But they knew that neither one of them could be the face of the company and knew next to nothing about marketing. So I was hanging out at home during summer break and ran into them at a party. We got to talking and I totally knew right from the get-go they were onto something. We started hashing things out—the branding stuff, the lifestyle image we wanted to create. They were calling it Sonic Exchange; I changed it to SXz. Then we started talking about the actual business side of it and getting enough money to launch, and they really weren’t sure how to proceed, so I said, ‘Hey, I have this buddy at Stanford.’”

  “Aaron.”

  “That’s right. Aaron. So we brought him on board and he directed us to some VC guys who gave us the seed money to start up.” Damian made a flourish with his hands. “And the rest, as they say, is history.”

  Gigi nodded but said nothing.

  “I’m still kind of surprised how quickly the whole thing took off. I mean, I believed in what we were doing and knew it would eventually work, but even I, in all my arrogance, didn’t anticipate it working so fast.” Damian uncrossed his legs and stretched them out in front of him. “But look, I’m rambling. Enough about me. I want to hear about you.”

  “What would you like to hear?”

  You aren’t gonna give an inch, are you? he thought. You’ve retreated into a little interior room somewhere and now everything’s all formal and business-like between us.

  “Well…” He pondered for a moment. “I have a hard time believing that TrekTek is your ultimate goal in life.”

  “It’s not,” she said, “but for right now, it’s good. I could do a lot worse.”

  “True. It’s got a solid rep. John’s a smart guy. I mean, he hired you, after all, so that’s certainly a mark in his favor.”

  Damian hoped a compliment might ease some of the tension. It didn’t.

  “So what’s your goal?” he continued. “What animates you? What—” He made a swirling gesture with his right hand, like maybe he could snatch the right word out of the air—“inspires you?”

  She sat for a moment and appeared to genuinely ponder the question. Then she said: “Technology shouldn’t just make our lives easier. It’s great that it can, but that can’t be the ultimate meaning of it. It should make our lives better, richer, more fulfilling. It should contribute more to our lives than a succession of cool new Instagram filters.”

  Damian found it hard to disagree with her. And her idealism impressed him, and made her all the more attractive to him.

  “My division at TrekTek develops learning apps for kids. That’s great, I think, but I want to expand it to include apps for kids with learning disabilities.”

  “That’s admirable,” Damian said, and he meant it. For maybe the first time in his life, he felt a twinge of embarrassment at the relative frivolity of his own endeavors.

  “As for the future, I…I have some plans,” she said, and looked down at the carpeted floor of the jet.

  Do you think they could include SXz? he wondered. Do you think they could include me?

  “I might go back to school, get an MBA. Chapel Hill has a good program.”

  East coast? Damian thought, experiencing a kind of panic totally alien to him.

  Gigi’s gaze never lifted from the floor. Damian’s gaze never left her face.

  They remained silent the rest of the flight.

  Chapter Seventeen: The Phone Call

  She took a sick day.

  The jet lag was killing her and she simply didn’t feel up to heading into work and facing the tasks on her desk.

  Had any of it really happened?

  She’d flown to Europe and back (without a passport!), ate lunch at the Galleria, took a shower with the hottest man she’s ever seen in her life, engaged in a marathon bout of debauchery with him—him: a man who just so happens to be the most eligible billionaire on the planet.

  Did I ever even leave this house? she wondered. Am I insane? Losing my grip on reality?

  The previous 48 hours seemed too good to be true. That is, until the phone call from the skinny blonde bitch. As Granddaddy used to say, “Sugar turned to shit real quick.”

  Gigi lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling. When one has seen the world in color, it’s hard to go back to black and white.

  Yeah, but you know what he is. What you saw wasn’t the world in color; it was a painting, something made up by Damian for your benefit.

  She wanted to cry but couldn’t find the requisite tears. Deep down, Gigi believed she deserved the disappointment. It’s your punishment for having taken your eyes off the prize, for having forsaken your idealism for a pretty face and pecs that could buttress a church. Admit it: you got snookered by a player. Don’t hate the player, though—hate the game. And don’t ever play it again.

  Still, no matter how good a line she talked in her head, she couldn’t deny the shock of having seen Karen’s face pop up on Damian’s phone. Had Gigi never seen her before, she could’ve dismissed it. But she’d seen Karen with Damian in the online tabloids. She knew there was something there. And whether it was with Karen or some other woman, there would always be something there, something not-Gigi. She would never be enough.


  You really think you’re enough to tame the man that everybody calls “the Bad Boy Playboy of Tech?” Yeah, right. Wait’ll he gets a load of your family.

  The sudden chirping of Gigi’s phone startled her.

  She reached over to her nightstand and picked it up.

  Judy.

  “Morning,” said Gigi.

  “Is this the party to whom I’m speaking?” Judy’s standard greeting always made Gigi laugh.

  “It would be she, yes,” Gigi said.

  “On your way to work?”

  “No, taking a sick day.”

  “Oh, sweetie! Get motion sickness from all that boot-knockin’ you been doin’?”

  “Uh, no, that’s not it.”

  “By the way, you know it’s not my nature to pry, but just where the hell have you been? Two days you been gone and you never answered my calls or my texts!”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “You couldn’t?” Judy was silent for a second. “Oh, my God, girl, he had you tied up? Were there handcuffs and hot candle wax? Did he make you write bad checks? Details, baby, I need details!”

  “No, he never tied me up.”

  “Aw, that’s too bad,” said Judy. “There’s always next time.”

  “No…no, there won’t be a next time.”

  “Holy shit, Gigi, what happened?”

  “He got a call. It was a girl. I’d seen her before with him. He doesn’t know I know.”

  “Well, to be honest, I don’t know either. I can’t figure out what you’re saying. There was a girl?”

  “Yes, Judy, a girl. A skinny, blonde girl. A model. I’ve seen her photographed with him in tabloid articles.”

  “And?”

  “What do you mean, ‘And?’ That’s all I need.”

  Why was Judy being so hard-headed?

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Gigi, did it ever occur to you the girl could be an SXz employee of some kind? You know they throw all kinds of parties and shit, she could be an event planner for all you know. Hell, she could be a caterer!”