The Founder (Trillionaire Boys' Club Book 7)

by Aubrey Parker

  “I never stabbed you in the back! I didn’t even break my promise! And I for damn sure didn’t pay you for …”

  Her eyebrows raise. “For fucking me in the conference room? For fucking me in LA? Why not, Evan? You can afford it.”

  I grit my teeth. I know what she’s doing, and it’s working. She’s hurt, so she’s lashing out. She’ll probably regret every word tomorrow; for now, it’s her shield.

  “You don’t mean that. You know it’s not true.”

  “Why not? I know what a promise means from you.”

  The way she says “you,” I’m somehow sure she doesn’t just mean me, Evan Cohen. She means men. She means all men in the world, forever.

  I know what a promise means from you.

  “You promised me, too,” I say, my voice even. “You promised that you wouldn’t spill confidential information.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “You did! To Steve!”

  She laughs. “Steve doesn’t have the balls to do anything.”

  “Who else did you tell?”

  “Nobody! I said I wouldn’t, and I meant it!”

  “Oh, come on, Becca. Don’t act like you’re innocent. Do you know how much blood and sweat it took to build this company?”

  “I didn’t tell anyone else anything at all!”

  I’m angrier than I mean to be. I look away. “Please.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “You don’t even know when you do it!”

  “You act like I don’t even know what I’m doing! Like I’m some loudmouth who—!”

  I snap, all at once.

  “YOU ARE A LOUDMOUTH! You don’t think! You just blab to the whole goddamn world about whatever you want, and think everyone should forgive you because you don’t realize what the hell you’re saying!”

  I only realize how loud I was shouting once I finish.

  I close my eyes to reset, and when I open them again I see Becca before me, still trapped in the corner. At first glance, she appears strong, proud, profoundly and rightfully pissed-off at the man who violated her trust and treated her like a victim.

  But then the facade fades, and I see Becca as she truly is. The person who hides behind the anger.

  Broken.

  Hurt.

  Tricked into belief, yet betrayed all over again.

  My anger vanishes. It’s like someone snapped their fingers and the whole spell just vanished.

  I reach for her.

  “Becca, I’m—”

  She slaps me on the cheek. It’s not hard or painful. But still, I’m left speechless.

  Then Becca ducks under my arm and disappears, leaving me unable to follow.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  REBECCA

  THE DOMAIN NAME IS ALREADY in my cart, when I realize that I’m only fooling myself. Not only does EvanIsATotalAsshole.com not have the same ring as SteveHasATinyDick; it’s also derivative and, more importantly, I suspect untrue. He shouldn’t have pried into my business or lied to me. But an asshole?

  I hate that I’m still thinking about him and that even in my private thoughts, I feel compelled to defend him.

  I empty the cart. I close the window. There’s no point to making a hate website about Evan. For one, I don’t hate him like I hated Steve when we broke up, and even more today. My feelings for Evan, even after our fight, are closer to what they were when we were together. None of my usual landmarks are in place. He didn’t cheat, so I can’t be hurt by his infidelity. He wasn’t a lay about, so I can’t hate his lack of motivation. He didn’t glom off me, belittle me, or lie with every breath to get his hand up my skirt like so many others.

  I’m still not sure Even lied when he promised he’d let me snoop through LiveLyfe to my heart’s content. And I was snooping; then I said things I shouldn’t have said.

  I want to hate him. To register that domain and start a new blog all about how Evan is a giant asswipe. It’d be juicy as hell, seeing as Evan is so famous. But where would I start? It happened over time with Steve. I’d been writing to my list about everything I did, and the asshole was part of it. My readers decided he was a worthless cheat before I did, so when I finally kicked him to the curb, they were ready to hate alongside me, and delight in my hilarious retelling of our worst stories.

  But I haven’t been writing to my list since I met Evan.

  I’ve barely kept up with the blog.

  I haven’t mentioned Evan once. Nobody knows that we’re going out. And because Evan always made a point to tell people in restaurants that it was business, maybe word hasn’t even leaked that we were together at all.

  Were we together?

  I’m not sure that we were.

  And that makes me cry. It goes on and on. I try to make myself feel better by remembering the way he shouted at me, but it doesn’t help at all.

  YOU ARE A LOUDMOUTH!

  I tell myself he’s a bastard. That I was right to feel those trepidatious feelings that night on his balcony. Getting close was bad news because he was another mistake.

  But that doesn’t help, either.

  I try to sleep. But I can’t.

  I finally collapse after a day and a half, then I dream about Evan. We’re lying together, saying nothing. It’s the most boring dream I’ve ever had, and yet the coldness I feel when I wake up alone has me crying all over again.

  I’m so fucking pathetic. Only one thing helps. I close my eyes and imagine Evan coming to me. Saying he’s sorry. I say that I’m sorry. We kiss. We make love gently, without speaking. I touch myself as I fantasize, and when I’m done, I’m not sure if I’m weak, sad, or angry.

  Mad at myself, for thinking of the man who left me.

  Or who I left.

  I write to my people. I can’t bring myself, even after all that’s happened, to use Evan’s name. I call him Ray. I write an awesome, hilarious rant about how I met Ray, how he hired me, how we flashed hot like a solar flare before dying in ice. It’s a masterpiece. But when I send it out, the replies get everything wrong. They tell me how sorry they are. Instead of praising my sense of humor, people tell me that it’ll be all right and that my email made them cry, too.

  Fuck me. I can’t even mock properly anymore.

  I sleep. I cry. I eat. I don’t know how much time passes, but even Benji tries to call. It’s okay; I could use his mockery to beat me out of my weird funk. But as we talk, his tone becomes uncharacteristically soft. Sensitive, even. He tells me it’ll be okay, too, just like my readers did. I tell him he’s got it wrong. I got through it with Steve, and I’ll get through it with … Ray.

  Then Benji says something that catches me off guard. “Becca, you never learned how to feel.”

  I don’t know what that means. Two meals later, I still don’t know. He probably means that I don’t know how to feel about the breakup. It’s a little true, but not entirely.

  By the next day, with the same loop in my head, I realize that’s not what Benji meant at all. He meant that I never learned how to feel. Not about Evan, but about things in general.

  I lack some key facets of emotional intelligence. I’m not used to processing, and it’s a very real thing that I don’t know how I feel.

  Am I pissed? I’m usually so mad after break-ups.

  Am I sad? Am I allowed to be, if Evan’s the one who shouted at me? Or does that even matter?

  Am I feeling betrayed? Do I feel like he broke my trust? Pitied me? Pandered, feeling a need to help poor little me out because I can’t take care of myself? That’s the kind of thing Steve and the others used to do.

  Did Evan do that?

  I don’t know.

  I sleep.

  I cry.

  I imagine him kissing me to get through the night. In my mind, we make out for hours. I touch myself again and hate myself for it.

  I finally identify the problem. Evan wouldn’t commit.

  He refused to shit or get off the pot. He wanted his business consultant (legitimately) and to fuck me (le
gitimately). Maybe he even wanted to be with me, if that’s a thing. But he never decided or got off the fence. I was confused the entire time we were together. Was I doing right to succumb to his charms, because we were a couple? Or wrong, because it was supposed to be strictly business?

  It was his privacy, I realized. His strict attention to maintaining his personal space. He — or someone on his team — thought nothing of watching over my shoulder and violating my privacy, but Evan refused to breach his own.

  The more I think about it, the truer it seems. He never posts on LiveLyfe. Or contributes to his company blog. The press tries to exploit LiveLyfe’s handsome young founder, but Evan has given them little to work with. They pry for their stories because he flaunts nothing.

  Maybe that was the problem. Maybe it was all business. Maybe Evan does want to change education. If so, he’ll need to do it without me.

  Because this hurt? The more I look inside, the more I realize that what Benji said is true. I never did learn how to feel things like this, maybe because I’ve never been with a man worth feeling anything about. I don’t like feeling them, but at least they’re genuine. They’re feelings worth having, even if they cause me pain.

  Maybe Evan will stay a private man forever, and that was the problem. Maybe he couldn’t admit me to the world without admitting us to himself. Maybe we were destined to be colleagues with benefits, but I’m learning that’s not a relationship I’m comfortable with. I don’t want to be with him in business. I want to be with Evan, period.

  Does that make me weak, wanting him after we’ve broken up?

  Days have passed. Maybe he’s tried to get in touch; I don’t know. I’ve blocked his number. Blocked him from my LiveLyfe.

  Maybe because I don’t want to talk.

  Or maybe because if I did hear his voice, I wouldn’t know how to feel.

  So I wallow.

  And I cry.

  And I wait for the hurting to end.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  EVAN

  “IT’S FOR THE BEST,” HAMPTON says.

  Liar. He’s only telling me that so I’ll stop asking questions, pay attention to the rope, and belay him in a way that’s safe.

  We’re at Ascent, both of us trying to up our game so that Mateo’s climbing skills won’t make us look hideous by comparison. I feel dizzy for Hampton because I’ve been spinning him in circles, conversationally speaking. He asked how it was going and I told him the official version, where things between Becca and LiveLyfe “didn’t work out.” I admitted that it was a big loss and that I kind of missed her. He said it sounded like a crush, then called me a pussy.

  “You don’t believe that,” I say.

  His leg is hooked around this enormous stalactite-shaped jug that serves as this route’s starting hold. It’s not the right way to climb the route. He’s using it as a chair a third of the way up the wall. That’s how long I’ve kept him there.

  “Okay,” Hampton says, shifting in his harness, “it’s not for the best. You wish you were still fucking this girl.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “You weren’t fucking her?”

  Beside us, a woman shoots us both a sharp glance and shuttles her kid toward another part of the wall. Shouldn’t he be in school?

  “I was. But I mean—”

  “Oh. I see. You were in love with her.”

  The rope slips and Hampton totters. It wasn’t entirely accidental.

  “Look,” he says. “Whatever you want to hear, that’s what I agree with. How about you let me climb or let me down?”

  “It’s a simple question,” I say.

  “Maybe one we can discuss on the ground.”

  I take up the slack. Because Hampton had settled again after I let the rope slip, this unseats him again.

  “Just tell me,” I say.

  “Okay. Fine. It’s clearly not for the best, as far as you’re concerned.”

  “Are you just saying that so I’ll let you down?”

  “No. Dude, listen. I have plenty of opinions. But it’s hard to think while you keep tension on the rope and the harness is smashing my balls.”

  “Okay. Then belay off.”

  I move the rope. Hampton jerks like he’s terrified, and this tosses him off the stalactite. I wasn’t planning to let him down, and certainly wasn’t going to drop him outright, but now that he’s dangling, I have to lower him. The wall has a negative pitch, so he’s swinging away. I’d have to put my hand on his back and give his dangling ass a push if he wanted to get back.

  He comes down. He unties as I unthread the rope. I think he’ll yell at me for my shitty belaying and lackluster attention, but Hampton does something unexpected. He puts his hand on my shoulder and looks me in the eye.

  “Look, Evan. The thing is, I can’t give you an opinion. Because you’re not asking for one. This isn’t a discussion. This is you saying things, and I’m supposed to respond. A puppet could—”

  “I—”

  “But for what it’s worth, I liked you better with her.”

  “How so?”

  Hampton looks around the gym as if he doesn’t want anyone to hear. His personal brand is sort of caustic, and I don’t think he likes people knowing that he’s more than an asshole. His hand is still on my shoulder, our heads bent in conspiracy.

  “Truth? You’re too Type-A without some counterbalance.”

  “We’re all Type-A,” I say. “Look at how you run Expendable Chic. It’s an obsession. It has to be, to build a billion-dollar business.”

  “There’s a difference between Type-A and dedicated. I’ve offloaded everything from my plate except for meetings and strategy. I don’t even write my emails. Who writes your emails?”

  “I do.”

  “Sucker,” he says. “Control freak.”

  “It’s not about control.”

  Hampton rolls his eyes. “It’s about control. You don’t want someone in your stuff. You don’t want someone to blow it all for you.”

  “Blow what?”

  “Your dick,” Hampton says.

  I wait for his moment of immaturity to pass. It does, but he has to roll his eyes again, this time at my unwillingness to play along. Then he gives me the real answer.

  “Your fragile little bubble, man! The little Evan-world you insist on living in, where you can always have it both ways. You’re head of what might be the world’s most famous company. Every fifteen seconds magazines are writing articles on you. But you’ve always fought it. You want all the advantages of being public and all the benefits of being private.”

  “Don’t you—”

  “You don’t want anyone to recognize you, and at the same time, you’re trying to be the face of LiveLyfe. You shun attention, but then I hear you going on and on, trying to get attention for this new idea of yours — not just from the Syndicate, but from the public. You want people to appreciate and love your brain and all the stuff that it makes, while maintaining your privacy. You can’t have both.”

  “What does any of this have to do with Rebecca?”

  “Well, how forthcoming were you with her about your plans?”

  “I told her everything.”

  “Including the reason you’re looking for a new thing? Including the mastermind group of billionaires ready to back it?”

  I shake my head. “There’s a strict cone of silence over the Syndicate.”

  “Really? Because you could have fooled me.” Fortuitously, there’s a magazine on one of the little tables throughout Ascent in easy reach. Hampton points at Caspian’s face. The headline reads, Inside the Trillionaire Boys’ Club.

  Hampton picks it up, eyes the cover, then drops it back on the table and continues.

  “It’s not just Caspian being Caspian. The idea from the start, with the Boys’ Club as a sub-group inside the Syndicate, was to build this first with the most press-friendly guys among us. Remember how Nathan envisioned our start? You had to be under 50, ideally under 40, sub-30 in a p
erfect world. You had to be a man. And you had to already be in the media spotlight. He wanted to create a group of handsome guys up to strange purposes, and then tease the world. Ask his woman — or Onyx’s, or Caspian’s for that matter — if they heard rumors about the Club even when it was under a strict cone of silence.”

  Hampton shrugs. “You can’t have it both ways. When you told Mateo and me about this girl Rebecca, you were clearly into her. Then we looked her up and knew where this was headed. Evan Cohen is charming and gets what he wants. She was single, if a little nuts regarding her exes. We talked about you while it was going on. Thought it’d be fun to watch you thrash and burn while she unleashed the crazy all over you. But that’s not what happened. You seemed better while you were with her, not worse.”

  “I wasn’t with her.”

  But wasn’t I? We sure spent plenty of time together. And slept in the same bed. Hung out when there wasn’t even business to share.

  Hampton doesn’t contradict me. He knows he doesn’t have to. “You stopped with your crazy schedule. You weren’t constantly on the go like a dickhead all damn day, and you finally relaxed a little.”

  “Right. I dropped a lot of balls. That’s why this is probably for the best.”

  “Uh-huh,” Hampton says. “How many balls got dropped when you stopped micromanaging Every. Little. Detail. By yourself? How many things didn’t happen that should have?”

  I think, feeling a retort close at hand. Nothing comes.

  “Exactly,” Hampton says. “None. Nothing got dropped. You stopped doing all that little shit, and yet the important stuff happened anyway. Because you’ve built a business, dude. Because you’re smart and have a system to pick up the things that you drop. And half the shit that you stopped doing to make time for Rebecca? It was pointless. It didn’t need picking up.”

  This feels wrong, but I can’t say why. My mouth is slightly open, but I have nothing to say.

  “You’re trying to justify a way of living that doesn’t make sense. Is this for the best? Hell, I don’t know, man. She does have a big mouth. She does blab to everyone about everything. But since you had that fight and she stopped coming into LiveLyfe, how much has she written about you?”