by Sadie Hayes
66
Final Contract
It was early in the morning and Amelia’s phone lit up from its spot next to her laptop on the table at University Café. Her heart swelled as she read Adam’s name. “Thank you,” it said simply, and that was just enough.
“(-:” she typed back, wondering if an emoticon had ever carried so much weight before.
The recoding had worked in the end. Patty had called Laurent in Paris and pretended to be a radio-show host, claiming he was the winner of a sweepstakes but that to collect the prize he had to come to the station’s studio across town immediately. Patty grinned with pride when she recounted the conversation to Amelia and the two giggled imagining poor Laurent’s face when he showed up at the address Patty had given him, an old stocking factory buried in Montmartre.
Dawson had packed his bags and left Palo Alto. He and Amelia exchanged a meaningful hug before he boarded the bus, the first time she could ever remember hugging him. She still didn’t trust Dawson, but her heart felt lighter somehow, like the whole sequence of events had freed some part of her soul.
And it felt good to be back in the real world, no longer sneaking around and hiding and pretending she wasn’t there. She’d e-mailed T-Bag and they planned to meet up for drinks and ZOSTRA tonight in the LAIR. She was trying not to get her hopes up, but suspected he was corralling a group of her friends for a surprise party and was secretly giddy with excitement. She also hoped, desperately, that T.J. would be there.
It was too late to reenroll in classes this term, but she’d go by the registrar’s office on Monday to see what her options were for summer classes.
As for Doreye: She still had to figure out how to get ownership away from Ted Bristol, but for now her worst fears about what he would do with the company were appeased. Violet had been extradited, and Amelia knew Adam wouldn’t try to sell user data again. The other piece could wait until next week.
For now, she was back in University Café working on a new array she’d dreamed about last night during a fifteen-hour nap in Patty’s parents’ pool house, where she was recovering from two weeks of perpetual all-nighters.
A gust of cold tickled her bare toes as the door to the café opened.
“Amelia.” T.J. appeared in the seat opposite her. His eyes were bright and he leaned so far across the table she could smell his spearmint breath and the spice of his cologne. “Amelia,” he said, folding her laptop and putting it to the side, reaching across the table to take her hands in his.
“T.J.—” she started, feeling her heart push up into her throat and her hands start shaking in his. They’d talked about Doreye during the whole meltdown, but she hadn’t seen him since the day she left for Tahoe, even if the thought of his face had been hung like a picture frame in her brain the whole time. His rugged jawline was covered in stubble and his blue eyes sparkled. The muscles around his eyes tensed and released as he spoke, looking straight at her with his speckled eyes. Everything in her body tingled.
“Amelia,” he said, smiling helplessly, “Amelia, marry me.”
She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Was she dreaming? Yes, she must be: Everything about this felt significantly less real than anything about T.J. she’d allowed herself to imagine. “What?” she finally croaked.
“Marry me.” He said it again. “Be my … wife.”
She shook her head in confusion, and he gripped her hands more tightly. “T.J., I—”
“Amelia, I know it sounds crazy but…” He laughed. His voice was giddy with excitement to the point where she thought he might be unstable. “If you marry me, you get Doreye back.”
She let out a sob. No no no, she screamed inside. Why do you let yourself think it’s something else when it’s always, always about Doreye? That is the only thing he sees you for.
She swallowed and tried to wind back her emotions, saying as calmly as she could, “What are you talking about?”
“You were right. My dad used my trust fund to buy Doreye. My trust owns fifty-one percent of your company. But I don’t get control of the trust, and therefore control of Doreye, until I turn forty or…”
“Or what?”
“I get married,” he said as though it were obvious. She stared, not comprehending. “My mother,” he said, laughing, “my crazy mother put it in because she was afraid I’d need it before I turned forty—if I had kids or whatever—but they couldn’t change the age, so they put this clause in that says if I’m legally married I get to take control. I guess that makes me responsible or something.” He laughed again, as though it were totally unserious.
“T.J., you can’t just…”
“Stop it, Amelia.” He put his finger on her lip, sending a chill down her spine. “We’ve got to get married,” T.J. repeated calmly. He’d clearly already thought this whole thing through and nothing about it seemed odd anymore.
Amelia adjusted her glasses and peered at him. Were his eyes bright because he was on drugs? “T.J., getting married is a really big deal.” The word made her head flood with all the images she associated with her wedding day. Not that she was the kind of girl who read wedding magazines and plotted out all the details, but she couldn’t help imagining being swept off her feet, wearing a white dress and a ring that reminded her someone loved her.
“It is a big deal,” T.J. chirped happily, moving from the chair to kneel on one knee before her on the floor. “That’s why it’s lucky for me you’re the most amazing person I know.”
T.J. pulled a ring box out of his pocket. A flash from someone’s camera phone went off behind him and Amelia realized everyone in the café was staring.
He opened the ring box to reveal a small round-cut diamond, then paused, wanting to say the next words perfectly. “Amelia Dory, will you marry me?”
Amelia was dumbfounded. She looked at him with mouth agape. Someone at the coffee bar shouted, “Aw, don’t leave the guy hanging.”
“Please get up,” she whispered.
“Not until you agree to be my wife.”
“I can’t … I mean…” She pinched her earlobe. He was so beautiful, and so smart, and so considerate and so … “Marriage is a really big deal,” she repeated.
“I know that.” T.J. nodded. “But I also know I care about you and I respect you and I…” He paused. “And you respect me,” he said instead, “at least I hope you do. I know we started off on a strange foot a year ago, but now we’ve been through so much together—I think we can get through anything together.”
Amelia pulled her hand from him and turned to start collecting her things. She couldn’t handle this. Not now.
“Amelia, wait,” he said. “This is the first thing I’ve ever done that actually feels right. Let me do right by you. I’ll give you the company back and I’ll … I’ll take care of you.”
She shook her head. “What about all your other girlfriends?”
“I don’t need—I don’t want them anymore,” he said. “It only has to be a year,” he said, his voice sounding more guarded, “for me to be able to transfer everything to you. I mean, you only have to stay married to me for a year if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“A year?” Amelia pinched her earlobe again.
“Yeah, but—”
“But what?”
“But I…” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe he was saying it. “I guess I wouldn’t mind if it’s longer than that.”
Her heart shot back into her throat. “You wouldn’t?” she tried.
He shook his head and grinned helplessly, as if the words were a relief to finally admit. Sensing the beating of her heart, he stood up and lifted Amelia out of her chair, taking her face in his hands. His lips weren’t even two inches from her own.
“Say something,” he pleaded.
Amelia felt buoyant tears brim on her eyelids. She thought about Roger telling her not to let them see her cry—when the reporters harassed her about her past, when Adam fired her, when the whole company seemed doom
ed—but these tears, she knew, were okay. These were tears of happiness, and she felt her whole heart sing with thanks and joy and love and the feeling that everything was going to be okay. Amelia looked into T.J.’s eyes, opened her mouth, and heard her voice enter the room.
“Yes.”
Also by Sadie Hayes
The Social Code
About the Author
Sadie Hayes is the nom de plume of a former Silicon Valley executive. With two degrees from Stanford University and years working in the tech industry, both as an entrepreneur and an adviser to its characters, she’s seen the effects of rapid success and shattering failure firsthand. If you work in Silicon Valley, you might not know Sadie Hayes. But she knows you.…
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE NEXT BIG THING. Copyright © 2013 by Palindrome, LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Michael Storrings
Cover photograph by © Kiselev Andrey Valerevich/Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Hayes, Sadie.
The next big thing / Sadie Hayes.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-250-03568-4 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-250-03569-1 (e-book)
1. Universities and colleges—Fiction. 2. New business enterprises—Fiction. 3. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 4. Twins—Fiction. 5. Social classes—Fiction. 6. Orphans—Fiction. I. Title.
PZ7.H3148727Nex 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2013018115
e-ISBN 9781250035691
First Edition: November 2013