The Christmas Gamble

by Sienna Ciles

“Well, it's a huge move for us,” Pete said. “And all thanks to Quickchat, huh?”

  “You did most of the coding on it, Pete,” I said. “Don't forget that.”

  “It was your idea, your brainchild. I just helped bring it to life. And you did plenty of coding for it too, Jax.”

  “It's weird, isn't it?” I mused. “This little app we made to compete with Snapchat, how it just took off. We knew it would be good, and we thought a few people would get into it, but I had no idea that it would blow Snapchat right out of the water the way it has.”

  “How could people not go nuts for it? Twice the resolution of Snapchat's max, you simply have to say the name of a product or talk about an article and it'll come up with clickable links simply from what you say? We made something revolutionary here, Jax, we really did. It's about the best thing I've ever done.”

  “Me too, Pete, me too. And I couldn't have done it without you. I really couldn't have.”

  He smiled at me again with that big, broad, goofy grin.

  “Thanks, man. I appreciate that, I really do. But enough chatter, come on! We're wasting time. You and I both agreed to forty-five minutes every morning and every afternoon. A good workout does wonders for the mind. We'll both be coding like beasts after a good rolling session. So, come on, get your damn Gi on and let's get to the gym and the mats and get rolling!”

  I grinned. “Right on, man, right on. I'll see you down there in three minutes, okay? I just gotta get changed.”

  “Three minutes buddy, and then you're getting your ass kicked all the way back to New York.”

  “Hahaha, you can try man. But I've been working on my armbars and my joint locks. We'll soon see who taps out first!”

  Pete grinned and then turned and jogged down the stairs, heading down to the gym we had built in the basement of our building. I closed the door and then got my blue BJJ Gi out of the closet and started to get changed, looking forward to a nice break and some good old grappling, takedowns, and wrestling.

  * * * * *

  “You look a little sweaty,” remarked Sara. The subtle smile on her full, glossy red lips told me that this was a compliment rather than an observation of distaste. The follow-up question confirmed this suspicion. “Have you been working out?”

  I nodded, sipping on my sparkling water.

  “Pete and I were doing some BJJ in the gym at the office. It was a pretty intense workout; he's a strong guy.”

  She nodded, maintaining intense eye contact with me as she slowly licked her lips.

  “I bet,” she said, with more than a mere hint of seductiveness in her voice. “But I'm sure you're stronger. It excites me, the thought of two powerful men fighting tooth and nail . . . like a pair of gladiators.”

  I chuckled and looked away, purposefully breaking eye contact with her. I knew quite well the type of game she was trying to play with me, and I wasn't going to let her do it.

  “Anyway,” I said, sipping on my water and staring out at the busy street beside our cafe table. “Let's get back to the subject of this meeting.”

  “Of course,” she said, flicking her long, silky black hair over her slim shoulder and running her fingers through it as she did. “So, what do you think? I'm not asking for much, all things considered. And I promise you, I can help you guys get those share prices sky-high when your company goes public—and they'll stay there. You guys will be worth billions, and I'll get my cut, which will just be a few crumbs of the pie compared to what you and Pete will make.”

  I nodded.

  “I do appreciate your offer, and believe me, I know about your success stories. And I do think that you could help us get to the top.”

  She stared intently at me and smiled—a strange smile, half flirting, half accusatory.

  “There's a 'but' coming, isn't there?”

  I laughed softly and nodded.

  “There's a 'but' coming, yes.”

  “Go on then Jax, spit it out.”

  “But I still have a few other options to consider.”

  “Like what? Like who?”

  “Haha. Come on now, Sara, I'm not just going to spell everything out for you, and I'm not going to just give you all the details just like that.”

  She smiled.

  “Fair enough, Jax. But I'm not going to keep my offer open forever. Just tell me, is there something specific in it that you don't like? Maybe something we could discuss in a more . . . intimate setting? Perhaps with a bottle of wine, some soft lighting . . .” She smiled, batting her mascara-darkened eyelashes at me. I simply chuckled and shook my head.

  “No, Sara, I don't think we could resolve anything like that. In fact, I think it'd just cause trouble.”

  “And what fun is life without a little trouble now and then, Jax?”

  “I prefer my life free of clutter . . . and free of complications.”

  I was smiling, but the tone of my voice was steely with resolution, and she could see that she wasn't going to get any further with me. The expression on her picture-perfect face hardened. She closed her folder and slipped it back into her briefcase.

  “Well, I suppose that means that we're done here, doesn't it?” she said curtly.

  “I'll get the bill,” I said. “I'll talk to you soon about your offer.”

  She stood up, every inch of her perfect figure revealed by her skin-tight, black designer dress. Despite her physical beauty, though, I wasn't about to let her have any kind of a hold over me. Not even a loose one. Things would have been different if she had talked to Pete. She would have seduced him long ago and gotten him to agree to pretty much anything she proposed, but I wasn't Pete, and I didn't let anyone manipulate me.

  “Like I said, it won't be on the table for too long,” she snapped. “Goodbye, Jax.”

  She stormed off, her heels, ridiculously high, clacking loudly on the tiles. As she disappeared into a cab, my attention was pulled to the street where a long black limousine had pulled up right by me. The rear window rolled down with a quiet, electronic whir, and staring at me through it was the small, familiar face of my great-aunt Cara wearing a stylish hat and perfectly applied makeup on her age-lined face. The smile I wore upon recognizing her was not reflected back at me, however. Instead, I got a cold, judgmental frown.

  “Get in the limo, Ernest,” she said to me, using my given name rather than my nickname. “And hurry up! You're wasting my time!”

  When I didn’t move fast enough, she snapped, “What are you doing?” Then she began muttering, “Wasting time, wasting time, you're always wasting time. Time is money, boy, time is money! Now if you want to learn something from me, that's the first lesson: time is money. So, stop wasting time—and with it, money—and get in the car.”

  I hurried over to the limo. “Nice to see you too, Aunt Cara,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Spare me the empty pleasantries, Ernest. Now, do you want to learn something from me or not?”

  I did, so without another word I climbed into the limo, and we were whisked away.

  CHAPTER 3

  Lanie

  I sat, totally dumbstruck, staring at my Dad. The words that had just come out of his mouth hit me like an out-of-control truck careening into me at a hundred miles an hour. Had he really just said what I thought he did?

  “Uh, hang on Dad, did you just say—”

  He nodded, still smiling, as if this were some wonderful honor he was bestowing on me.

  “Yes, I'm firing you. Letting you go.”

  “But, but, but . . . why?! Why are you firing me?!” I sputtered, utterly shocked. “I haven't done anything wrong! I've been working hard, I've—”

  “Now hold up there a minute, dear,” he said, still wearing that kind smile. “Just hear me out before you up and have a heart attack, all right?”

  I nodded, at a loss for words. It was all I could do.

  “Now, in light of everything I've just been saying, my girl, I think that you've spent enough time in the woodshed, in the basement, as i
t were. You've practiced your chords and your scales, figuratively speaking, since we've been going with the guitar-playing metaphor. And I think that you've reached a point where it's time to stop playing little dive bar gigs, as such, and move onto something more substantial, some place where you can spread your wings more.”

  “Um, all right,” I said, “but you could have told me that you were going to do this so that I could have had time to start looking for another job. I mean, right now, I'm going to have to—”

  He held up a gentle hand, as he so often did, to silence me.

  “Come on now, Lanie, you don't think I'd just push you off into the deep end without makin' sure you were wearing a life preserver, do you? You don't need to look for a job, because I've already got something lined up for you.”

  That got my attention pretty quick.

  “Wait, you already have another job for me? But . . . what? Why? How?”

  I was just blurting out questions now; everything suddenly seemed to be happening so quickly.

  He chuckled warmly, smiling that familiar fatherly smile that never failed to calm me down or allay my fears and worries.

  “Now just a minute there, sunshine, give me some time and I'll explain everything to you.”

  “All right,” I said, loosening up and relaxing a little more in the chair. “Let's hear it then.”

  “So, like I said, you've cut your teeth here at Carmichael Inc. You've worked hard, you've worked diligently, and you've made some smart decisions. I know that our low-risk, conservative style of investing isn't your thing, and I'm not going to try to change your mind on that. You see, at this stage, I'm getting older, and I'm not looking to make it big. I've done well enough in my life up to this point, and all I really care to do these days is handle safe, secure investments that grow slowly but steadily. A young go-getter like you, with your knack for sniffing out exciting opportunities and start-ups that are just gonna blow up, you shouldn't be working here, at a place like this. But I knew that if I turned you loose too quickly, you were liable to get burned. This world, the world of investing and trading, it's a jungle, a real jungle. And the ancient law of the jungle is just as applicable here as it is in Africa, or the Amazon—kill or be killed. And if you make one wrong move, you can be ruined. And you can lose other people's money and ruin them, too—and that's far worse than simply going bankrupt.”

  I nodded.

  “I know, Dad, and I will say that working here has taught me to value other people's money, not treat it like Monopoly money to play games with.”

  He held up a stern finger.

  “And that, my girl, is precisely one of the lessons I wanted to teach you: to value other people's money as if it were your own. We're a small firm here, and we know most of our clients on a first name basis. It's easy to lose track of the fact that you're dealing with people's lives, their dreams, their hopes for the future, if all you see are figures on a spreadsheet, and you can't put a name and a face to those figures. And that's a lesson I want you to remember. It's a cutthroat business, a dog-eat-dog world out there, but that doesn't mean you have to operate without a conscience to get ahead. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “I do, Dad, and thank you for instilling values like that in me. I really am grateful for that lesson.”

  “I'm glad you are, my girl, I'm glad you are. And with that in mind, I want to tell you about what I've arranged for you.”

  “All right.”

  “You do know, I'm guessing, who Bill Wallace is, right?”

  Who in the investing world didn't know who Jackson 'Bill' Wallace, Jr. was? He was one of the most famous investors and billionaires of the twentieth century, and even now, in his eighties, here in the second decade of the twenty-first century, he was still investing and making money.

  “Well yes, of course, Dad. Everyone knows who Bill Wallace is.”

  “What you might not know, Lanie, is that he was one of my firm's first clients, when we were just starting out. And . . . he still is.”

  That little tidbit of information shocked me.

  “Wait, wh— . . . whaaat? Bill Wallace is a client of this firm?”

  “You know how famous he is for the diversity of his portfolio. He was one of the first investors to tell the public about the importance of diversifying one's investments.”

  “Yeah, I know that, but . . .”

  My dad chuckled.

  “It's not just little old ladies who invest with us, Lanie. Those just happen to be the cases I assigned you. But we do, as you can now see, have more high-profile clients. Anyway, Bill is a friend of mine. Not a close one by any means, but someone I happily have a whiskey with when there's a rare occasion in which we both have time. Anyway, one of these rare occasions happened to occur a few nights ago. We got to talking about family, and I mentioned you, and how well you've been doing here. I said that I thought that—hoped that—you would be ready to start your own investment firm soon. You know, going for all the new, high-risk high-reward stuff you're into, all these Silicon Valley tech start-ups and cryptocurrencies and such. He seemed very interested and mentioned that he'd been looking for a young woman to assist him in various capacities, since he'd just had to let his former assistant go.

  “I asked if he'd consider taking you on. He said that you sounded perfect for the role. I think that you could learn a heck of a lot from him, Lanie. You really could. And with the experience you've gained here, and the savvy you could garner from a giant like him, well, in a year or two, you could do remarkably well for yourself.”

  I breathed in, trying to take all of this in. There was a lot to consider, and I had to admit that I did feel a little annoyed that my Dad had pretty much made this decision for me without even consulting me. But on the other hand, it was a tremendous opportunity, with fantastic potential for growth and learning. After all, this was Bill freakin' Wallace we were talking about!

  My excitement for learning and new experiences quickly overwhelmed my annoyance, and I beamed out a bright, happy smile at my Dad.

  “I never thought I'd say this, Dad, but thank you for firing me!”

  We both laughed.

  “I'm glad that you're happy, my girl. I really think that it'll be a wonderful opportunity for you.”

  “I do too, Dad . . . So, when do I start?”

  “He wants you there as soon as possible. You can go clean out your desk right now, in fact, and I'll give him a call and tell him that you're pretty much ready to start.”

  “I'll do that,” I said excitedly, springing up from the chair. “I'm ready!”

  He smiled at me, a proud sparkle in his eyes.

  “I knew you would be, Lanie. Go on, get crackin' now!”

  I hurried off to clean out my desk. On the way, I passed Todd, who leered at me with his usual creepy stare—but I was on top of the world, and not even he could get me down. I beamed a smile at him, which caught him off guard, and then rushed over to my office to pack everything up. This was a new beginning, the new beginning I'd been waiting for . . . well, for a long time. And here it was . . . here it was . . .

  * * * * *

  When I pulled up to the address I'd been given, I had to double check to make sure this was the right place. I looked at the house, and yeah, it was nice; it was a large, spacious, well-maintained-looking place in an upper-middle-class neighborhood—but it certainly wasn't the sort of house I imagined a billionaire would live in. I mean, even most millionaires lived in way larger and flashier places than this. The yard was large, pretty, and neat, but by no means exquisite, and there were no statues, fountains, or any other trappings of wealth. In the driveway, a ten-year-old BMW was parked—and it was one of the mid-range models, not even one of the top-of-the-line ones.

  I parked my car and walked up the front path—there was neither a fence nor a gate—to the porch, and stepped gingerly onto it. I had to double-check the address one more time before pressing the doorbell. This really was the place—th
is was Bill Wallace's house.

  As soon as I pressed the bell, a muted voice—that of an elderly man—called out from within.

  “Hello! Is that you, Miss Carmichael?”

  “Uh hi, yes, it's me, Lanie Carmichael.”

  “Come on in, it's not locked.”

  “All right.”

  I turned the door handle and stepped into the house.

  “Through this way,” he said, his voice coming from the left. I walked up to a door on my left, which was open, and headed through it, emerging into a bright study. The walls were lined with packed bookshelves, lit by the warm, golden afternoon sun. On a La-Z-Boy, with a book on his lap and a steaming cup of coffee on a side table next to him, sat Bill Wallace. He was dressed casually, in sweatpants, running shoes, and a loose T-shirt. He was a small, unassuming-looking man with a chubby, red face and a shock of snow-white hair, along with a pair of thick-rimmed glasses perched on his large nose. For some reason, he reminded me of KFC's Colonel Sanders, although he was lacking that man's trademark mustache and goatee.

  As I walked in, he reached for a walking stick that was leaning against his chair and used it to heave himself up to a standing position. He held out a hand, which I shook. As he gripped my hand, I was quite surprised at the strength in his grasp. He seemed possessed of a vitality that belied his years.

  “Pleased to meet you, Miss Carmichael, very pleased to meet you,” he said with a warm smile.

  “You can call me Lanie. It's great to meet you too, Mr. Wallace,” I replied.

  I was waiting for him to say, “You can call me Bill, everyone else does,” but he didn't. Instead he simply smiled, nodded, and sat back down.

  “So, your father wants you to learn from me, does he?”

  I nodded. “I think that's the idea, yes.”

  “Good, good, well I need someone to help me out with various things, so I think this little arrangement will work out well for the both of us. Tell me, are you ready for your first assignment?”

  Now we were talking. Jumping right into it! This was great. “Yes, definitely.”

  “Good, good,” he said again. “Well, see, I'm trying out this new thing. A plant-based diet, you see. Great for one's health, or so I'm told. I eat dinner at precisely five thirty every afternoon, or evening, depending on how you see it. Anyways, I want you to do a little research, and put together a nice wholesome plant-based meal for me. I don't mean you have to cook it, Miss Carmichael, not at all—you can order takeout, or go get bits and pieces from various places. All that I ask is that it's healthy and wholesome, and that it's in front of me, steaming hot and ready to eat, at five thirty. That gives you just over three hours. You can take the BMW in the driveway if you need to drive, the keys are on the table over there, as are two twenty-dollar bills, which will cover the cost of the meal—and from which you will hopefully bring me some change. You can get yourself something to eat too, of course, with that money.”