“Girl, if I weren’t so addicted to the perfect year-round weather out here, I’d probably move to North Carolina with you.”
“But you’ll visit?”
“Of course. I don’t think I’ve ever had grits before. I need to have the experience before I die.”
Not the best choice of words, Gigi thought, but I know you meant nothing by it.
* * *
She’d not lived in San Francisco very long, but Gigi was nevertheless surprised by how few possessions she had. Packing to go back home wouldn’t be nearly the chore she’d imagined it would be.
Gigi was disciplined, no-nonsense, even thrifty. Her rent, of course, was enormous, but all rents in San Francisco were enormous. Her house was small and sparsely furnished. She’d not taken vacations. Her lone splurge was an occasional half-gallon of Moose Tracks ice cream. She’d been putting her money away, saving it for an eventual start-up of her own. The start-up would have to wait, however, because she needed the money now.
Her rent was paid through the end of the month. Judy had a key, and had agreed to take whatever furniture she wanted and sell the rest.
Gigi felt a sadness that surprised her. And what surprised her was the face that generated it: Damian.
Gigi had never been an active member of the social scene. She was not someone who opened herself to friendships readily. Judy was her one good friend out here. Leaving, therefore, was not the angst-filled drama that it would’ve been for someone else. So why the intense sadness over Damian? A voice in her head tried to convince her, You don’t even know him all that well. A second voice, arguing for the defense, countered: But I know him enough.
She didn’t even have a picture of him. And this fact, strangely, cut her to the quick, and she started crying.
* * *
Two days later, just past dawn, her little Kia stuffed, Gigi stepped from her house, shut and locked the door behind her, and walked to her car. She’d decided to drive. A flight would be quicker, of course, but Gigi would need a car once she arrived in North Carolina, and her Kia was still fairly new. Plus, the few days it would take her to drive cross-country would give her time to process all that had happened recently and plan for what was now her very uncertain future.
Gigi brought her little Kia to life and backed out of her driveway and onto the street. Pausing for a final look at her house, she slowly shifted the car into drive and rolled down the hill till her house was longer visible in the rear-view mirror. Then, she wiped her eyes with her hand, stomped the gas pedal, and sped off.
Chapter Twenty-One: Out Of The Blue
I’m Damian fucking Black, he thought. Gotta snap outta this.
Once he hit open water, he quickly throttled up and the Monterey M45 curved through the bay and toward the horizon. The marina receded behind him.
The Pacific was blue and calm and lit by white sparkles of sunlight. So different, he thought, from the somber gray of the Atlantic.
Slicing through the water, wind buffeting his body as he stood behind the steering wheel, Damian ran down his checklist.
You’re young. Check.
You’re a fucking billionaire. Check.
Your johnson’s so big you gotta use Dropbox to send a dick pic. Check.
World-class marketer. Check.
Your company shapes the culture on a daily basis. Check.
Woman desire you, men envy you, everybody wants to be associated with you. Check, check, and check.
So why are you so miserable right now?
The answer, he knew, was very simple: Gigi Stevens.
No woman had ever affected him this way and it annoyed the hell out of him. He was so used to being in charge—in the boardroom, in the bedroom, in damn near every room he set foot—that to have a relationship dissolve so suddenly and without his permission seemed impossible, an anomaly on par with a planet-destroying meteor impact. This sort of thing just didn’t happen to Damian Black.
Except now it had. And he hated it.
Not so much because it bruised his ego, but because he had genuinely cared for Gigi. His attraction had been immediate, and his affection had followed closely behind. Smart, beautiful, and sharp-tongued, Gigi had never once been obsequious or fawning. There had been an immediate tension between them—the good kind—that propelled their single night together, in Milan, to a frenzied conclusion. Their lovemaking had been hot and sweaty and, above all, right. It had just felt right. Genuine. Sex can be athletic and impersonal, he knew; and enthusiasm for it can be faked for any number of ulterior motives. But his wordless union with Gigi had been a revelation to him—and, he was certain, for her, as well. Why had she run? Had it been too real? Was she intimidated by his status, his fame, his wealth? He didn’t know.
In the distance, he could see the coastline. Point Reyes National Seashore.
He turned his head left and scanned the blue horizon as the Monterey skipped across a series of small swells. He’d spotted whales out here before, their barnacled bodies rolling gently through the surface, blowholes misting the warm Pacific air.
You gotta call her. You gotta find out what the hell happened.
He steered the Monterey through a wide turn, past Point Reyes, and set a course for the marina.
* * *
The SXz headquarters were surprisingly small for so global a brand. With buildings of burnished metal and glass and modern in every conceivable sense, the campus crouched in a leafy corner of a Silicon Valley business park. Damian’s Bugatti roared off the highway and into the parking lot, circling round back and dipping into the underground parking deck.
Just as the doors of his private elevator parted and he stepped into his office, his cell phone dinged. A text.
He checked it. Hayden.
Damian rounded his desk and tossed his cell on it. He plopped into his chair and exhaled loudly. He’d get to Hayden in a bit. If it had been something important, his partner would’ve indicated. Damian’s first order of business would be to call Gigi and set things straight between them.
He picked up his phone and rang her contact.
Nothing.
When her voicemail picked up, Damian almost said something, then decided against it. He thumbed the Off button and tossed the phone on his desk.
Well, damn.
He leaned forward and turned on his computer.
Why are you avoiding me, Gigi?
His phone dinged again. He tilted the screen into view. Michelle. Call me when you get a sec, she texted.
On his monitor, he moved the cursor to his email and clicked it open. He picked up his phone and called Michelle, who picked up immediately.
“What up, homie?” she asked.
“I can’t call it, yo.” For reasons that neither could now remember, Michelle and Damian routinely greeted each other with rap lingo. “Whatcha got for me?”
As Michelle ran down her list, Damian checked his email absently.
Suddenly, he sat up and turned away from his computer monitor.
“Who?” he asked. His eyes were wide. “Is that all they said?” Damian reached for a pad and pen. “Gimme that number.”
* * *
Two hours later, Damian was standing at his office window, gazing out over the sloping green landscape, when it came to him.
Of course.
One of the many advantages of being both a Stanford graduate and a billionaire is that you have a circle of acquaintances that encompasses pretty much every profession on the planet.
Damian thumbed through his phone contacts till he found the one he needed.
The ring tone sounded three times and a perky-sounding female voice answered, “Stanford University Research Center, how may I direct your call?”
“Teri Landi, please. Tell her it’s Damian Black.”
Chapter Twenty-Two: Home
I-40 East split the country horizontally. Passing through the unending flatness of northern Texas and Oklahoma, Gigi filled her time with competing scenarios of her return home. Her departur
e five years earlier had been, she now realized with adult clarity, a rash act of immaturity and spite. Her childhood had been difficult, yes, but not because of abuse or neglect. Her parents were, for all their other failings, good and decent and loving people. But they simply never understood her. And the more they tried and failed, the more frustrated they and Gigi became.
She had been, as she called it, an “oops baby.” Not unwanted, but unplanned. Her parents’ financial situation had always been precarious and often dire, with her mother mostly unemployed and her father pulling shifts at Oliver Timber Company. Government assistance had helped, but not much, and Gigi would later decide that the benefit of the assistance was never enough to outweigh the embarrassment of having received it. She decided early on that, once on her own, she would never find herself in a place of need. That she would be self-sufficient.
So she hit the books hard and excelled. Her parents were proud, but rarely said so, feeling—as did Gigi—the growing estrangement. A chasm had opened between them, Gigi on one side and her parents on the other. They recognized her as their own—How could they not? Gigi was the spitting image of her father—but regarded her as something of a mystery, a changeling who was theirs but somehow not.
In first grade, she was reading sixth grade science books. When her teacher, Ms. Taylor, informed Gigi’s parents of this during a parent-teacher night at her school, instead of elation and pride, her parents responded with concern. “Is she s’posed to be doin’ that?” her mother had asked, as if it were a disciplinary problem.
By third grade, the school had moved her to the AG track of courses: “academically gifted,” it was called, though when she got older, she joked that AG actually stood for “awfully goofy.” Her striking good looks had kept her from being the brunt of nerd jokes and teasing that plagued less fortunate bookworms, and in time, her fellow students rebranded AG from “academically gifted” to “aesthetically gifted.”
In junior high, she was captain of the Beta Club, and in high school, she led the local chapter of the National Honor Society. A wiz at anything math- and computer-related, Gigi amused herself by programming new video games based on classic ones. She named her “Donkey Kong” reboot “Mule Muffin,” despite it not making much sense.
By high school, she was slender and pretty and was urged to try out for cheerleading, a notion she’d found particularly ridiculous. She had adopted much of her ironic stance from late night comedians; and for Gigi, the thought of standing before a large crowd and shouting, unironically, “Firecracker-firecracker-boom-boom-boom!” while shaking blue and white pom-poms was too appalling and cringe-inducing to be entertained.
No, she was a nerd and content to be one.
Neither of her parents were educated, and it was Gigi’s scholastic excellence that seemed to unnerve them the most. At the time, Gigi couldn’t understand their awkwardness around her; now, however, cruising 75 miles per hour through the Texas panhandle, Gigi could see for the first time what they were seeing: a daughter who would eventually leave them for the wider world.
* * *
Gigi checked her gas gauge. She’d be good for another couple of hours.
How will they react when they see me? How will I react when I see them? Will there be hugs and “I-Love-Yous” all around? Will there be weird silences?
In the middle of this concern over her parents’ reaction to her delayed re-appearance, Gigi’s thoughts were suddenly occupied by someone else: Damian.
Oh, God, she thought. How would he have reacted had we ended up together and he met my family? Whatever Damian Black was, Gigi considered her parents the exact opposite. Who would’ve been more appalled, she wondered, Damian or my parents?
* * *
A few days later, she was winding through the Smoky Mountains, crossing from Tennessee into North Carolina. The awareness that she was now only four or five hours away from home crept over her like a shadow, and she was suddenly seized by the thought of Damian and wanted him near.
She stopped in Asheville for lunch at a small café. She ordered a veggie wrap, a small bowl of soup, and a glass of sweet tea. As she sat at her table waiting for the order to arrive, she glanced around the café. You’re the only person in this place who’s sitting alone. God, you’re pathetic.
The hipster waiter—Gigi would never understand those long lumberjack beards, not even if she lived to be a hundred—finally brought her order. As she ate, she thought seriously about her current singleness and what it meant. Will it always be this way? She took a sip of tea and corrected herself. No, will you always be this way? For it was becoming increasingly clear to Gigi that her problem was—and in fact had always been—primarily herself.
* * *
As she passed through Greensboro, she thought about the fact that a single interstate highway connected North Carolina and California across a distance of some 3,000 miles. It seemed significant to Gigi, though she couldn’t quite explain why.
* * *
Cedar Falls had not changed in the five years she’d been gone—at least nothing was obviously different. She crossed Deep River—a name that almost certainly had been given in jest, for the river would barely wet the ankles of a small child and was strewn with large rocks that sat obstinate and brown in the hot sun.
Gigi pulled slowly off the road and onto her parents’ gravel driveway and rolled down to the tiny house. The small front yard was overgrown and weedy. A patch of woods bordered the left side of the house; a small pasture bordered the right.
Her heart thudded in her chest and threatened to burst through it.
I don’t know if I can do this.
Oh, yes you can. You have to.
As Gigi opened her car door and stood up, she saw a shadow move behind the front screen door of her parents’ house. Like a ghost materializing before her, Gigi’s father became visible in the doorway. The features of his face were obscured by distance and shadow, but she saw that he’d raised a hand in greeting.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Reckoning
Like Cedar Falls, the interior of her parents’ house had remained, for the most part, unchanged. The only noticeable difference was a general dustiness that hadn’t been there before. Gigi suddenly had an absurd thought: This house looks clinically depressed.
“I’ll put some coffee on,” her mother said, and disappeared around the corner into the tiny kitchen.
Gigi and her father were alone.
The den was unadorned and square and dominated by a small woodstove that had an S-shaped pipe connecting to the wall behind it. During the winters of her childhood, Gigi’s father would keep the woodstove roaring and her mother would set a pot of water on top of it to boil for cooking.
Her father, to her surprise, didn’t look so bad. Slightly thinner and tired, but by no means ailing. He’d always been a worker, making extra money on the side cleaning horse stalls at Shuler Farms when he wasn’t working at Oliver Timber. The labor had kept him fit. Sitting across from him now, had Gigi not already been informed of her father’s condition, she’d have never guessed it.
Her mother returned with a small cup of coffee and handed it to Gigi. “We have some cream if you want it, but we’re out of sugar. I didn’t notice till just now or else I’d have run and got some.”
“No, no, that’s okay, Momma, that’s okay. This is fine just like this.” Gigi brought the cup to her lips and blew on the coffee before taking a sip. “Mmm, that’s good,” she said.
A silence settled on the room.
Her parents were sitting next to each other on the sofa. Gigi was in a chair at the end of the wooden coffee table.
The silence was terribly awkward, but Gigi realized she didn’t mind it. This is where you need to be, she thought. Right here.
She decided to bite the bullet. “Tell me what the doctor said. Is he scheduling you for any treatments or anything?”
“Well, he says he’s gonna start me on the chemo and maybe the…the…” He frowned and turned to Gigi�
�s mother.
“The radiation,” she said.
“Right, the radiation. Says we’re gonna try to fight it that way.”
The sound of the word fight on her father’s lips filled Gigi with sadness. He’d said it with so little conviction.
“Daddy, I …”
“Your momma and me want you to know we heard about all the work you’re doin’ out there in California and all, and we just…” He was no longer looking at her. His gaze had lowered to a spot between his feet. “We just…” His expression crumbled, and he began to weep openly.
Gigi put her cup on the coffee table and rushed to her father on the sofa. She wrapped her arms around his neck and cried, “I’m so sorry, Daddy, I never should’ve left you two like that…I’m just so sorry…”
Her mother leaned over and hugged them both.
But then her mother turned and, with a quizzical expression, stood up.
Gigi noticed and wiped her eyes. “Momma? What’s wrong?”
“Do you hear that?”
All three were silent.
Distant, but rapidly growing closer, was the unmistakable sound of a helicopter.
In a matter of seconds, the sound was deafening, passing directly over the house and rattling the windows.
“Oh, my God,” Gigi shouted over the roar, “is it crashing?”
She ran to the screen door and peered out. What she saw made no sense: wind from the helicopter’s rotors was whipping leaves and twigs and debris around the front yard and pressing flat the overgrown grass. The helicopter shifted right and lowered itself into the pasture next to the house.
Gigi’s father and mother stood behind her in the doorway. “What in God’s name?” her father shouted. “Are they havin’ engine trouble?”
Tech Titans: The Complete Billionaire Romance Series Page 9