He cracked a grin. “True.” Josh glanced around and noticed that everyone seemed to be having a good time. The buzz of conversation only lulled when the players down below got close to one end zone or the other. Then an eruption of cheering would happen, or a chorus of unhappy boos, depending on the outcome of the play.
He tried to enjoy it, he really did, but his gaze kept straying to the clock on his phone, ticking down the minutes until halftime.
The minute the team was off the field, he hopped up and gave Caroline a look. “You said halftime.”
She frowned a bit. “Don’t you want to see who wins?”
“Not really.”
“You don’t have any feel for the game, do you?”
“Not when there are other things occupying my mind.” Like you. Sitting next to her, unable to touch her, unable to lean closer to her, was killing him slowly. Even now he resisted the urge to reach out and grab her hand and pull her along with him.
“What’s your rush?” Carvales said, clapping him on the back. “The Hawks are winning!”
Josh smiled at Carvales. “You enjoy and let me know how it turns out. I’m going to show her the basement.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
He could tell without words that Carvales was worried about Caroline’s reaction.
“Nothing like starting at humble beginnings to find out what makes a person tick,” she said lightly.
Carvales shrugged. “Your call, man. As for me, I’m going to supervise this rowdy crew.” He raised his voice and his red Solo cup, and everybody from Softech cheered.
…
Caroline followed Josh into the ranch house. He flipped a switch, and a tall floor lamp lit up the ceiling. It was like stepping back in a time machine. Everything was circa 1970s. From the crocheted multicolored afghan spread over the avocado-green couch, to the dark faux wood paneling on the walls and the yellow crackle-glass globes hanging in a cluster by the entryway on bronze chains. The musty odor of things sitting too long without use mingled with the faint, sweet, smoky scent of cigars.
“Did your dad ever change anything?”
Josh shook his head. “Place looks the same as it did from pictures when my mom and dad first bought the place. I don’t think he wanted to change it. He didn’t see the point.” He glanced back at her over his shoulder. “Come on, the basement is this way.”
The avocado-green and harvest-gold pattern of the linoleum in the kitchen had worn down in places to the white background. Josh cracked open the basement door and flipped on a switch. The single exposed lightbulb overhead illuminated a set of plain wood stairs, and the damp, musty odor of a basement drifted up around them.
“Why do I get this sudden feeling we’re in a horror movie and I should not be following you down into the basement?”
He gave her an amused glance. “Who says you aren’t? I could have a chain-saw maniac waiting in the basement.”
Caroline smacked him on the arm. “If you have a chain-saw maniac in your basement and I die, I’m going to haunt you. Just remember that.”
Josh chuckled. “Nah, the only thing down here is the greatest collection of vintage Star Wars memorabilia you’re likely to find on the West Coast.”
Caroline pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Fine. Let’s begin the tour already.”
Their footsteps echoed as they clomped down the stairs into the space beneath the house. Whatever she’d imagined Josh’s secret teen lair of Star Wars geek-fandom looked like, this was ten times worse.
Small toy starfighters and Rebel Alliance X-wing fighters hung suspended on nearly invisible filaments of fishing line from the beams overhead. The walls were painted black and studded with what looked like little plastic, glow-in-the-dark galaxy stars. There were posters and large blankets featuring the characters and the Death Star tacked up as well.
All along one wall were three thrift-store-reject desks, each with two or three dated monitors. The keyboards had a thick layer of dust, and scattered around them were various plastic Star Wars action figures. In the corner was a roll-away whiteboard, similar to those in a college classroom. Against the far wall sat a row of mismatched metal filing cabinets and a drafting desk with several rolled-up blueprints on it. A worn plaid couch in burnt orange, harvest gold, and browns sagged against one wall facing an old television set. In all, it looked like an underground clandestine headquarters for Star Wars fanatics.
Caroline bit her lip to keep back the giggle.
“What do you think?”
She shook her head slowly and locked gazes with him. “Wow. I knew my brother was a geek, but this tops anything we had at my house.”
Josh grinned—a boyish, proud-of-himself smile that made his blue eyes light up with pleasure. “So you like it.”
Caroline rose a brow. “I didn’t say that, but it definitely shows you have passion. You know, this could make a great press piece. Just one or two photos and we’d have front page coverage of the beginnings of Softech.” She paused for a moment. “Those blueprints have to do with Softech, too?”
Josh shook his head. “No, that’s Aeon. I keep it here because this is where it all began with my dad. The dreaming. The scheming. All of it to get me to this point.” He took her by the hand and led her over to the drafting desk where he spread out the blueprints. “This will be the cornerstone of Aeon, the first living colony on another planet.”
Caroline’s heart almost stopped beating. This was what Mr. X wanted, and Josh was all but putting it in her hands. She’d have to come back later for them now that she knew where they were.
She let her gaze continue to take it all in. That’s when she noticed the photos stacked on a gray metal upright filing cabinet. Her footsteps seemed to kind of take on a life of their own as she walked toward them, recognizing the faces. A much younger Josh, Antonio Carvales, and Connor. Some were taken at a lake, another at what looked like the school cafeteria, a third at graduation. And next to the pictures of the boys were pictures of Josh and what looked like an older, balding version of him.
She picked it up. “Your dad?”
He hesitated, then walked over, his smile now gone, and looked over her shoulder. “Yeah.”
“So he let you three degenerates sit down here and create your own kingdom, huh?”
Josh shrugged and glanced around. “It was everything a kid could ask for. Hanging out with his buddies, working on code, and playing games. Dad bringing down pizza. No one to bother us. No one to beat us up for being geeks.”
Caroline looked away from him. A flash of memory, intense and full-color, blazed across her vision. It was a week after Scott had punched Josh so hard he’d blacked out in the hallway. A much younger Josh stared at her with angry eyes and a pinched mouth as she caught him spying on her and Scott making out under the bleachers at the school. That had been a week before she’d been packed off to Slovakia. Hot, angry tears pricked her eyes, but she held them in check, and looked up at the beams overhead, blinking them back. She didn’t want to cry in front of Josh.
“What’s wrong?” His question pulled her out of the memory.
“What?”
“You just got this look on your face like you were going to throw up or something. You feeling okay?”
Caroline rubbed at her nose and took a deep breath. “I’m fine.” Her tone was rattled, angry, and Caroline hated that she couldn’t control it.
“Are you—?”
“I said I’m fine!”
Josh narrowed his eyes, the CEO face replacing the carefree, smiling man from minutes before.
“I’m going to ask you a question and I need you to be honest with me.”
Caroline eyed him with suspicion. She wasn’t feeling charitable at the moment. In fact, she was a complete mess. The anger she felt seemed misdirected at this grown-up version of Josh, but she held that in check. What burned worse was the knowledge that Connor had been down here, in this basement for years with his friends, but when
it was time for him to share in the rewards, his friends had ditched him.
“Why do you hate me so much?”
She wanted to tell him the truth. God, she so wanted to. But not here. Not now. When she’d done what he was paying her to do…when Mr. X threatened her brother’s very existence.
Caroline looked into his eyes. There was no getting past this. She’d already held it all in too long. And she figured if she was waiting for the right moment, there wasn’t another like this.
She took a deep breath to center herself. “You cut Connor out of Softech knowing the idea was his. You’re the reason I got sent off to boarding school hell at sixteen. It ruined my life. It was a prison, not a school. Do you have any idea what they did to me? How they assaulted me and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it? How alone and vulnerable it made me? If that’s not enough to bear a grudge, I don’t know what is.”
…
Confused, Josh frowned. He ran his hands over his head, cupping the back of his skull. “Wait. What?”
“That letter you ‘anonymously’ sent to my father,” she said, making quotation marks with her fingers, “was the last straw for him. He had them come to school and threaten to zip-tie me and throw me over their shoulders if I didn’t go willingly to that hellhole of a school. I didn’t even get to finish my junior year.”
“I didn’t send your father the letter. Hell, I barely knew him. Besides, he scared the crap out of me back then.”
“You were the one spying on me and Scott.”
Josh gritted his teeth. Yeah. He remembered clear as day. That stupid jock had been all over her, his hands up under her shirt. Josh had wanted to kill him, but he was still sporting a black eye from where he’d gotten punched the week before and knew he didn’t stand a chance. “I might have seen you, but it wasn’t me who sent the letter.”
Caroline paused a beat; he could almost hear her brain processing. Her eyes narrowed. “It had to be you. Who else could it have been? You were the only one who saw us, because I left right after that.”
“Look, it wasn’t me. I cared about you. I never would have humiliated you that way. And I sure as hell didn’t want you to leave the country or be threatened and hurt. Yeah, seeing you like that with Scott was kind of like getting a light saber through the heart, but I would never have done anything to hurt you.”
“Fine, let’s say you didn’t—”
He glared at her. “I didn’t.”
“Then who did? Answer me that.”
He felt a muscle ticking uncontrollably in his jaw. Torn, he hesitated. Tell the truth and she’d never forgive her brother. Lie and she’d forever hate him. He knew how much his friend desperately needed her, but Connor was a grown-ass man. If he had issues with his sister, maybe it was time he finally dealt with them. It hadn’t turned out the way either he or Connor had intended. Not by a long shot. Caroline deserved to know. Holding the truth from her now wasn’t doing anyone any good.
“Josh? Come on, after all we’ve done in the last few weeks? Please tell me who it was.”
“I don’t want to hurt you…”
“I was hurt then. It can’t hurt me to know the truth now.”
Still he hesitated, then meeting her eyes, Josh said evenly, “I was torn up about it and turned to the only person I could…”
“C-Connor? You’re telling me my little brother ruined my life?”
Josh reached out to steady her as her legs gave way and she plopped onto the old couch. Her skin was pale, too pale.
“You’re not going to get sick, are you?”
She swept a shaking hand over her damp brow. “I might . . . how could he?”
“For the record, he felt like shit about it after he realized he screwed up and was the reason you had to go. It was a stupid mistake. He was fourteen and he thought he was looking out for you by letting your dad know that jock was getting physical with you.”
Her face turned blotchy and her eyes red.
“You’re not going to cry, are you?”
“Of course I am! I just found out my little brother is the reason I was sent to hell in another freakin’ country, the reason I’m a screwed-up mess. All this time I’ve been hating you for it, and now I feel like an idiot.”
Josh sat beside her, folded her into his arms, and let her cry. It broke his heart to have her sob like this, but at the same time it made him feel like a superhero to be the one to hold her when she needed it most. God. All this time she’d blamed him. Shit! Hated. Him. It made him sick to his stomach to know that for all these years she’d harbored those feelings, and fed the negative feelings for him that were the polar opposite of what he’d always felt for her.
It was an irony that he’d spent most of his life protecting and shielding her from what her brother had done, not realizing how his actions would impact his own life.
He rubbed his hand in slow circles over her upper back. He could hold her forever, and it wouldn’t matter if he was in a torrential downpour. Having her nestled against him was worth it.
Eventually she wore herself out crying, and the soul-deep sobs evened out into deep sighs and sniffles. “You know Con loves you,” he said softly against her hair.
She sniffled and nodded against his chest, but didn’t look up at him. “You probably think I don’t have a professional bone in my body about now.”
Josh chuckled. “Given the decor down here, does it look like I give a damn about professionalism?”
She gave a small laugh and hiccuped. “I guess not.” Caroline pulled back from him and looked up into his face. Her eyes were puffy and her skin blotchy, and yet she was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He brushed a wave of dark hair back from her face, his fingers lingering on her hot, damp cheek.
“Even on your worst day, Caroline, no one compares to you.”
A softness stole over her eyes, easing away the pain that was there. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
He smiled. “With all my heart.”
She pulled away from him, wrapping her arms around herself. “Why?”
“Why not?”
“But why me? You don’t even really know me.”
There was a risk in laying it all out on the line, a chance that she’d reject him all over again, but surely she’d already noticed his interest in her. He hadn’t been at all subtle. He decided that waiting any longer wasn’t going to be beneficial to either of them. “You’ve always been my measurement of perfection.”
Her eyes widened. “Your what?”
Now was the time to go all in. “My idea of the perfect woman.”
Caroline stared blankly at him for a moment. “My own father didn’t consider me adequate, why in the hell would I be your—”
That was it. He couldn’t take it anymore. He pulled her into his chest and cut off her diatribe with a kiss, a soul-searing, I-think-the-world-of-you kiss that could leave no doubt in her mind he found her desirable.
When they finally broke apart, Caroline looked at him. Something deep in those green depths shifted, changed somehow. “I’ve got to go. I need to talk to my brother.” She scooted out of his arms and off the sagging couch as if jet-propelled.
Josh caught her hand in his, giving it a light squeeze. “This doesn’t change anything, Caroline.”
She gave a small shake of her head and let go of his hand as she headed for the stairs out of the basement. “That’s where you’re wrong, Josh. This changes everything.”
Chapter Ten
She waited for the knock at her door. Connor was late. It had been dark for hours now. Just how long did he intend to keep her waiting? The latte she’d made to calm herself was already growing cold. He knew she was pissed. She could hardly keep the feelings out of her voice when she’d left him the voicemail to meet at her town house.
The sound of his car coming into the drive agitated her further. It was because of her brother, not Josh, that her last few years as a teen had been a living hell. One little w
hite lie of omission pulled from context and her life had come down like a tower of Jenga blocks.
Caroline didn’t know whom to trust anymore. Not Connor. Not Josh. Certainly not her own judgment. Definitely not Mr. X.
The moment her brother walked in she gave him an icy glare. “Connor Brian Parker, you lied to me.”
His eyes turned glassy, a deer staring at a Mack truck bearing down on it. “I can see you’re upset. Maybe if you tell me—”
“Three words: Letter. To. Dad.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit.”
Connor shut the door behind him before he looked her in the eye again. “He told you.”
She resisted the urge to throw something at him, especially when the only thing handy was her cold cup of coffee, and instead fisted her hands tightly and crossed her arms. “How could you do that to me?”
Connor sighed. For a second he looked the same as he had when he’d been seven and broken her most prized possession, the little Precious Moments figurine her mother had given her before she passed away.
He ran his hands through his hair. “Look, I didn’t mean it to happen like that. Scott was just a jerk. I thought he was going to hurt you or push you into something. I wrote the letter to Dad because I couldn’t talk to him. You know what he was like. He would have told me to suck it up, be a man, and protect my sister, then sent me after the guy. I would’ve ended up in the hospital.”
“I know, but it still pisses me off that you let me blame Josh for it.”
“I was a stupid kid afraid that your boyfriend was going to do things to you he shouldn’t. Afraid I couldn’t protect you from a kid who was two grades ahead of me, and a quarterback on the football team who could have kicked my ass. I did the only thing I could think of.”
“And let Josh take the blame.”
Connor shrugged, looking as uncomfortable and guilty as he should. “He kind of stepped in and took it. I never asked him to. I guess he didn’t want you being pissed at me because he knew you were the only thing I really had for support in our family.”
The Geek Billionaire Makeover Page 11