by Penny Reid
I was juggling my bags and trying to fish out the key to his place while navigating the lobby of the apartment building, when I heard a familiar voice call to me from behind.
“Kaitlyn, may I speak with you?”
I stopped and tensed, waiting a beat before turning and glancing over my shoulder. The voice belonged to Emma Cromwell and—good news—she wasn’t looking at me like I was responsible for Ebola.
But she did look determined.
CHAPTER 7
Atoms, Molecules, and Ions
I faced her, feeling caught and a little confused regarding what I ought to do next. “Um, hello, Emma.”
I’d always been raised to say, Nice to see you. But in this case I didn’t feel like it was appropriate because I didn’t want to lie. She crossed to me, her eyes moving over me and to the bags in my hands. She smirked. It wasn’t a nice smirk.
“Spending Martin’s money already?”
I sighed, because she was already being distasteful. “No. I don’t spend other people’s money.”
Her eyes narrowed as her attention moved back to my face. “Not even your parents’ money?”
“That’s a terribly rude question, Emma. Why do you feel like you have the right to be rude to me?” I asked this calmly because I was calm. She hadn’t upset me, but I was curious as to why she felt like attacking me constantly. As far as I knew I hadn’t salted the earth around her house or erased her DVR.
Her eyebrows notched upward and her lips parted. I’d obviously surprised her with my direct question.
“I…I…” She struggled for a few seconds, then finally her expression lost its hard edge. “I’m sorry. You’re right. That was rude.”
“You’re forgiven. Do you want to come up for tea? I can’t figure out his coffee maker, it has too many buttons. I feel like I might launch it into outer space.”
I didn’t wait for her to respond, instead I turned and walked toward the elevator. This was mostly because I was losing circulation in my fingers due to the heaviness of my bags. I knew she was following because her heels clicked on the lobby’s marble floor.
Once inside the elevator I waited until she boarded before pressing the button for his floor. A few other passengers also filtered in, so we remained quiet for the duration of the ride. As well, we walked in silence down the hall, and she stood silently as I used my key to unlock the door.
She grabbed two of my bags and helped me carry them into the living room. I didn’t miss how she peeked inside as she set them on the table behind the couch.
“Tea first or talking?” I asked, unburdening myself of my winter coat.
“Talking. I don’t want tea.”
“Fine.” I shrugged, tossing my coat to the couch and claiming a leather club chair. “What’s on your mind?”
She didn’t sit. I noted she was bursting with restless energy. “Aren’t you even a little bit sorry? A little ashamed?”
“Sorry about what?”
She huffed, like I was being purposefully irritating. “About Martin? About what he’s done for you?”
I studied her, cocking my head to one side. “Here’s the thing, Emma. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She snorted and crossed her arms. “Yeah, I find that hard to believe.”
“I don’t. I haven’t been keeping up with Martin, I haven’t been searching out news stories about him. In fact, I’ve been avoiding them.”
“But you read the news, right? You keep up with current events?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I’ve been spending the last nine months avoiding the world, outside of music and work. I haven’t read a newspaper or a headline in almost a year.”
Something behind her glare loosened as I spoke and she blinked at me several times, like she was seeing me with new eyes. Her arms uncrossed and fell to her sides. Emma slowly sat down on the couch, her gaze growing introspective.
“You don’t know about…anything that’s happened?”
I shook my head.
“And Martin, didn’t you ask him?”
“I haven’t seen him since Wednesday morning, and he didn’t want to talk about it then, so I didn’t push.”
“You haven’t seen him since Wednesday?”
“Nope.”
“But aren’t you two back together?”
“Of course not.”
“Why of course not?”
Now I huffed. “Would you please tell me what’s got your piano out of tune? Because I need to leave for a gig in about a half hour.”
She studied me for a beat, her eyes narrowing, but with thoughtfulness, not suspicion. At last she said, “Do you know about the houses?”
I shifted in my seat; this topic was a bit of a sore spot for me. “You mean the houses Martin was to gain as part of the trust his father set up?”
“He did, he got them. And then he sold them for approximately one hundred twenty million dollars.”
This wasn’t a surprise, given what I’d seen of the house in the Caribbean. “And then his father…? Did something happen?”
She shook her head. “He could do nothing about it. By the time he found out, the houses were sold and the money was offshore. Though he tried to file an injunction, a petition to sue for the proceeds, it was thrown out.”
“How nice.” I gave her a flat smile and she issued me a questioning look; I clarified, “How nice for Martin, that he got his revenge.”
“His revenge? Hardly.” She rolled her eyes, scoffing at me.
“What do you mean? He sold the houses, didn’t he? He launched his fancy satellites?”
“He sold the houses, sure. But, so what? What’s a measly one hundred twenty million to a man worth billions? Nothing. Denver’s injunction was half-assed at best. Honestly, I think Denver had been looking for a reason to cut Martin off. As of right now, Martin is Denver’s only child. He stood to inherit over twenty billion if he’d just been patient and quiet.”
“Twenty…billion?” My mind had trouble comprehending that much money. It might as well have been a googolplex of pirate gold.
“Yeah.” She nodded once, then added with an impressive amount of derision, “The money was invested into the satellite project, but instead of using these first satellites to drive Sandeke Telecom out of business—which was the whole purpose of his involvement and investment—he’s proposed to the board that the satellites focus on delivering Internet to areas with the most need.”
“He what?”
“Nothing about selling the houses has gone according to the original plan,” she said, mostly to herself. “He gave the money away!”
I tried not to show my interest, but I was interested. Martin’s plan and his unwillingness to deviate from it had been—at least in my mind—why we’d broken up.
“Gave the money away? What do you mean?” I picked a piece of lint off the knee of my jeans.
“He donated the sixty million.” She said this like the words tasted sour.
I stared at her for a very, very long time, and she stared back. Her eyes were greenish and she was watching me with avid interest, as though keenly interested in my reaction to this news.
Certain I’d misheard her or misunderstood, I finally asked, “I’m sorry, what? He donated sixty million dollars? To whom?”
“To a non-profit foundation, one which he established early last summer. It provides funding for startups that focus on training rural educators, both domestically and internationally in the use of the latest classroom technology and web interfaces.”
“I don’t understand. He sold the houses for, what? A hundred and twenty million?”
“More or less, yes.”
“And he donated half, and then invested the other half into the satellite project?”
“No. The donation and the investment are the same sixty million. He still has the other half—or thereabouts—in some offshore bank-account.”
“I’m confused. You just said that he invested in the satellite proje
ct.”
“No. He didn’t invest in anything. The foundation he established owns what would have been his share of the ‘satellite project’. He forfeited his profits. All the profits go to the foundation and will be used to purchase equipment for schools and students, and will fund initiatives to train teachers.”
I sucked in a slow breath, trying to wrap my mind around this story she was telling me. “So, he…what? He gave away sixty million dollars to a foundation he founded?”
“Yes.”
“So, the satellites will still be launched?”
“Yes.”
“But the foundation owns his share?”
“Yes.”
“And he’ll…receive no profits?”
“He’ll receive no profits. He’s given up billions of dollars and probably his only chance to get revenge on his father.”
I shook my head because I felt muddled. “Why would he do that? Why would he give it away?”
She smirked. I recognized it as her not-nice smirk. “Why do you think?”
I kept shaking my head. “I have no idea. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“For you. He did it for you.”
I stopped shaking my head; instead I made a very unflattering scoffing noise that sounded a bit like a gurgle. “What? No. No…did he say that? Did he tell you he was giving away sixty million dollars because of me?”
Her smirk fell away and she looked suddenly tired, older. “No. But he didn’t have to. We’d been planning this for three years. Then he meets you and everything changes. Of course you’re the reason.”
“No. That doesn’t make sense. We’re not together.”
“He wanted you back. That’s why he did it.”
“Did he say that he—”
“No. We never talk about shit like that. We’re not gal pals, we’re business partners. But I have a working brain and I saw him after you broke his heart. Then suddenly all his plans changed and he’s giving up his future because Joss Parker’s daughter filled his head with bullshit altruistic nonsense? Yeah…he wanted you back, at least he did then.”
I only half heard her tirade because I was lost in my own head. I started speaking, but honestly I’d forgotten she was in the room.
“We haven’t been together since March, and then it was only for a week. He never called me, never tried to contact me. Not until a week and a half ago, and he didn’t say anything about it. He hadn’t said anything to me about this. Nothing. If he did this for me, then he would have called or tried to get in touch.” My attention drifted back to Emma and I appealed to her simply because she was the only other person in the room. “Right? He would have called me and told me, if he wanted to get back together. He wouldn’t have waited for months. That’s not how Martin does things, that makes no sense…”
She shrugged, pursing her lips. “Well, I have no idea what he wants now. I mean, I believe he was seeing that intern from RER, Rural Educational Reform—that do-gooder think tank in Washington—another bleeding heart martyr type. But now I don’t know, since you’re here.”
I involuntarily winced at this news, confirming my suspicions he’d been seeing someone else. I felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room and my heart was being stabbed with a fork. I rubbed my chest, the spot over my heart.
“He’s…he’s seeing someone?” I had trouble not choking on the words.
“Yes. I don’t know how you missed it, they’ve been all over page six since August. They can’t cross the street in each other’s company without getting photographed. The problem is that they’re just so pretty together. Her family is like yours. You know, lots of impressive ancestors with impressively good deeds.” Emma’s eyes moved up then down my form before she added, “You don’t look anything like her, but he definitely has a type.”
“What does she look like?” I asked, my question spewed forth unchecked.
Emma rolled her eyes. “I don’t know, petite, really pretty, red hair, delicate. Who cares?”
It was the girl I’d seen earlier in the week in the pictures, when I’d made the mistake of googling Martin so I could read the interviews he and Sam kept talking about.
“Forgive me if I have no tolerance for gossiping and giving relationship advice to the person who stole my profits.”
“Your profits?” I asked lamely.
“Yes. My profits. I was to receive a percentage of his share. And so now you see it’s all gone. Instead he offers me a position at the goody-two-shoes foundation and a share of his third world broadcast rights.”
“His what what what? Broadcast rights?” I forced myself to re-focus on the conversation, the real issue, not who Martin had been dating…or had recently dated. Honestly, I was only able to re-center myself because Martin had point-blank texted me he didn’t have a girlfriend and I trusted him to tell me the truth.
Of course, that just meant he didn’t have one right now. But it didn’t mean he’d been celibate since we split. This thought made me queasy, more fork stabbing to the heart, so I pushed it from my mind.
Emma released a derisive snort. “Some crazy idea he has, and invested three million of his remaining monies.” She waved her hand through the air like his idea was a gnat and she was trying to swat it. “He purchased broadcast rights for basically all of the third world. He has a virtual monopoly on Internet streaming of syndicated shows for the next fifty years, as well as the big sites, like Netflix, Amazon, etcetera.” Then she added under her breath, “A lot of good it will do him since no one in those areas owns a computer and they can’t get Internet.”
I stared at a spot over her head as a picture arranged itself in my brain; unthinkingly, I spoke my stream of consciousness out loud. “Broadcast rights for the third world will never yield a profit…unless underserved areas can get cheap access to Internet. Or free access.”
“And are given computers,” she added unnecessarily.
My gaze flickered to hers, held it, and my mouth dropped open because Martin was a genius.
“You mean, if they are given computers by a goody-two-shoes foundation? And trained to use them, by the same foundation? A goody-two-shoes foundation that receives funds from the profits of satellites delivering cheap or free Internet to underserved areas?”
Her frown turned thoughtful, then startled, then amazed. “Oh my God.”
I nodded, grinning at his cleverness. “Hasn’t he discussed this with you? Don’t the two of you talk about anything?”
“No. I wouldn’t…I was so angry, I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“And you didn’t figure it out?”
“No.” She laughed a little, shook her head disbelievingly. “Martin always said you were smart, and he was right. I mean now that you point it out, everything is so obvious. I guess I was just so angry that he didn’t follow through with the original plan, plus that stupid foundation… Oh my God. We’re not going to make anything close to what we would have made if he’d directly invested in the satellite venture, and he’ll never be anywhere near as rich as his father, but wow. We might break a billion. Maybe two.”
“It might take a bit, but yeah. In about ten years, once the foundation does its thing and the satellites are buzzing around up there, giving people in rural Africa and the rainforests of Brazil high-speed Internet service, he’ll be the only one making money off streaming video in what used to be the third world.”
She looked at me and smiled. It was the first time I’d seen her smile since meeting her. Her eyes were bright with excitement and every bit of bitterness had melted away. It was almost a nice moment.
But then she had to ruin it by sighing happily and saying, “God, I love that man.”
***
Emma did stay for tea, and she was chatty. She also had a habit of tossing her long, perfect, wheat-colored hair over her shoulder in excess. It wouldn’t have irritated me so much if she weren’t so suddenly effusive about how much she admired Martin.
Really, he was all she talked
about: how smart he was, how intelligent, how he was going to change the world. How he was Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, except being born into wealth, and therefore able to make a substantial difference earlier in his life, not having to wait for pesky things like investors.
“You know Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook when he was nineteen? And Steve Jobs founded Apple at twenty-one?”
“Hmm.” I did know this. I think everyone in my generation knew this information—or at least every person with any geek persuasions. Except I also knew that Steve Jobs was just a smart enough and pushy guy who exploited his friend (Steve Wozniak), pilfered his ideas, and passed them off as his own.
“There’s no one like Martin, though. No one who thinks about strategy like he does, who sees the whole picture. He’s completely brilliant.” Her eyes scanned me, up and down, like she was expecting me to do a cheer for Martin, maybe suggest that we dedicate a fan site to him, and was irritated I didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm.
I couldn’t decide whether I liked Emma or not. Furthermore, I couldn’t decide if it mattered. Perhaps it was the naïve do-gooder in me, but I was disappointed she saw no merit in Martin’s foundation until after I pointed out his plan and the foundation would ultimately bring her millions. I also didn’t like that her loyalty seemed to hinge on how much money she could make off him.
Plus, I couldn’t stop thinking about the very pretty redhead he’d allegedly dated and with whom he’d been photographed countless times. I reasserted the prudence of my decision to never search for any news story or interview related to Martin until I was completely over him. Just thinking about him with someone else made me want to throw a month-long drama parade.
“Did you know I used to work for Martin’s dad?” Emma asked apropos of nothing.
I shook my head, surprised. “No. I didn’t know that. What happened?”
“Have you met Denver Sandeke?”
“Yes…unfortunately.”
“Exactly. He’s a complete ass. He’s brilliant, but he’s an ass and that means he’s arrogant. And he’s known for sexually harassing his female staff. Once you get used to it, it’s…bearable. Mostly I just ignored that part of my job. But my work with Denver is how I met Martin. He was a junior in high school and I was arranging a corporate event at Denver’s house in Santa Monica. Martin definitely didn’t look like a seventeen-year-old. I knew who he was so I tried to be nice. He started asking me all these questions about what I did for his father, and I thought to myself, This kid is brighter than his dad. He’s going places! It also helped that he was completely disinterested in me other than my knowledge. Unlike his father, he seemed more interested in what I had to say than my cup size.”