Keeping Her

by Holly Hart

  I have to be. I’ve come too far to back out now.

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  3. CARSON

  I’m always amazed at how hard some Europeans have to work to have a good time. I mean, three-quarters of the people on the dance floor look like they’re in the middle of a physics exam instead of gyrating to a thumping techno beat.

  You’re in Milan, for crying out loud. Relax.

  I suppose that’s easy for me to say as I tip the third empty bottle of ’88 Dom Perignon into the silver bucket next to our table, signaling our waitress to bring another. I never see the bills that accumulate on my platinum American Express – they go straight to accountants I’ve never met.

  I’ve burned money like it’s firewood ever since I sold my company three years ago and I still haven’t even made a dent in the principal from the sale.

  I did the math once: assuming I live to the age of ninety – so another sixty years – I’ll have to spend upwards of a hundred grand a day to go through all of it. Of course, the money isn’t just sitting in the bank; it’s invested all over the place, bringing in very respectable returns, so you can probably up that number to $250,000. Sure, it’s easy to spend a quarter-million dollars in one day. Anyone could do it.

  But spending that much every single day for the rest of my natural life? That’s a whole other ball game.

  Our server sashays over with two more bottles of champagne and places them on the table in front of Maks and me. The British girls are busy giggling and watching people on the dance floor.

  The server, a black-haired woman with chestnut eyes and a neck like a swan’s, leans in close to my ear, filling my nose with some exotic floral scent. I assume that’s how she spent some of the $5,000 tip I left for her last night. Her lips tickle the skin of my earlobe.

  “Compliments of the house,” she says, raising her voice despite the closeness. It’s the only way to be heard over the driving thump of the music. I smile ruefully. I’ve just been comped about $4,000 worth of booze.

  Even when I try to spend it all, I can’t.

  Maksim pours the contents of his bottle into the ladies’ glasses. “You pour your own, big payer,” he says to me.

  “Big spender,” I correct, shaking my head.

  “What is difference?” he says, consternation on his face. “All it means is same thing.”

  I chuckle.

  Sometimes it irks me that he never picks up a check – it’s not like he can’t afford it, his father is a billionaire – but I never actually get mad at the guy.

  One thing about Maksim Orlov: if he’s around, it’s a party. He attracts people like moths to a flame. He’s always got a grin on that swarthy, stubbly face, and he’s always up for a drink, or a concert, or a swim in the ocean, or jumping out of a plane. He probably could have joined me on my wingsuit escapade this afternoon, but he’s also incredibly lazy.

  He’s also got a knack for finding the most beautiful women on the planet. Case in point, our current companions. Joanna is seated to my right, wearing a stunning black evening dress I bought for her this afternoon. At least I think I did. She accepted my credit card happily enough.

  To my left is Georgia, a petite brunette with huge doe eyes, in a tank top and an ivory miniskirt. Emily, another blonde, is all over Maks.

  Joanna leans across me to talk to Georgia. “Pinch me!” she cries.

  “No, you pinch me!” comes the reply. The two giggle like fiends.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  Joanna lays a hand on my thigh, dangerously close to my crotch. “What do you think, silly? We planned this holiday thinking we’d be staying in hostels and eating at tourist traps! Then we met you two and – well, this happened!”

  Georgia leans in to flank me and claims my other thigh. “It’s like a dream!”

  “Well,” I say, “if we’re all dreaming, why aren’t we in bed?”

  Their eyes light up. “We thought you’d never ask!” says Joanna.

  The two of them grab their purses and stand up. Emily and Maks, who are practically sitting on top of each other, look at us with matching grins.

  “Have fun,” Emily coos. “We’re going to stick around a bit.”

  The girls pull me up from my seat as I wave to our companions. We amble toward the door, their arms around my waist, my arms around their shoulders. My head is a little fuzzy from the champagne, but I’m well aware of where tonight is heading.

  The sultry night air hits me as we emerge from the front door into the streets. The girls continue to giggle as we meander our way toward the hotel where Maks and I – and, I suppose, our three new friends – are staying. People mill past in various stages of drunkenness. All of them are young and impossibly beautiful.

  This is Milan, after all.

  “How did you make your money?” Joanna asks as we walk. Her face suddenly turns beet red. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize how crass that would sound! You don’t have to tell us.”

  “Not at all,” I say. “Elevator pitch: I invented a type of software that some people found very valuable, so they paid me a lot of money for it. The end.”

  “You must be really smart,” says Georgia. I think the champagne affected her tiny body a bit more than the rest of us, judging by the way she’s weaving. “I can barely turn a computer on.”

  I lean in close and whisper, “Well, you’re both doing an excellent job of turning me on.”

  They flash each other a look that promises me I’m in for a night of delight.

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  4. CARSON

  “I am thinking I need to go to England,” Maksim muses as he stirs his Bloody Mary. He takes a long swallow and lays back down on the Gulfstream’s leather sofa.

  “Yeah?” I say from my seat. Unlike Maks, I like something a little more substantial than vodka for breakfast, so I’m tucking into a platter from the jet’s pantry. “Why is that?”

  “They know how to drink like Russians,” he sighs. “Emily drank me over the table last night. Even at hotel.”

  I resist the urge to correct him and focus on my eggs instead. Coincidentally, they’re done in the English style, creamy and loaded with butter, so even reheated they’re delicious. The sausage on the side is greasy and savory and exactly what I need to kill last night’s hangover.

  Matthias will probably kick my ass in the gym when he finds out about it, but it’s worth it. I wash it down with fresh-brewed black coffee and look out the window at the summer sky. We’re flying into the past: New York is six hours behind Milan, so even though the flight is eight hours long, we’ll arrive only two hours after we left.

  Not that time has a lot of meaning for people like Maks and me. It’s one of the many perks of not having to work for a living. It’s also what’s responsible – I think – for the sense of disconnection that’s dogged me over the past several months. The feeling that I’m untethered from the rest of the world.

  Maks gives me a quizzical look. “Something wrong, tovarishch?” he asks, using the Russian word for friend.

  I put down my cutlery on my empty plate and push the tray aside. What could possibly be wrong? I think. I’ve got everything anyone could ever want.

  Don’t I?

  “I’m fine,” I lie. “I just—Maks, don’t you ever get… I don’t know. Bored?”

  He cocks an eyebrow. “Let go of my leg you are pulling on, Carson. Did you not take those two beautiful women to your bed last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do we not right now fly from Milan on your own jet back to New York City, the greatest city on the world?”

  I run a hand through my hair and sigh. What am I talking about? When he puts it that way, how the hell can I believe I’m bored? Millions of men would trade places with me in a second. I can literally do anything I want, whenever I want, and, in a lot of cases, to whomever I want.

  Maks finishes his drink and gets up to make another. I swear, the man has the constit
ution of a horse. He tilts the bottle in my direction and raises his eyebrows. I wave it off.

  “Is it work you are looking for?” he asks. “Maybe you want to be boss again. Yes?”

  “Hell, no,” I say. “I never miss the work. Software development wasn’t a career for me, it was just the means to an end.”

  “What is this means, your end?”

  I smile. Even when he doesn’t try, he’s hilarious.

  “Sorry, I meant that I got into that field for the money. I didn’t enjoy it. After my father died, I realized that I didn’t want to be like him, to have my fate decided by other people.”

  “Your papa was soldier, yes?”

  “Yeah. We moved around all the time when I was a kid, from one base to another, as ordered. I didn’t want that kind of life. I always knew I was smart, and I wasn’t learning anything in college that I didn’t already know, so I dropped out and started Black Sword.”

  “I have told you before, that is the awesomest name, my friend.”

  “I know, I know. I went with a hacking defense system because I knew there was a huge gap in the market for it, not because it was particularly interesting. It took about six years to get it fully functional, but the second it was up and running, buyers were breaking down my door. And I guess three billion and change isn’t bad for a few years work. Plus stock options.”

  “And so why you are bored here?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m searching for a new challenge. Building my company was probably the last time I really used my mind properly, you know. After I got rich, I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish, and none of them had anything to do with my brain. First off was getting that six-pack I always wanted.”

  Maks spreads his arms wide. “Mission is accomplished,” he says. “If I was the gay man, I would be up on you, like Snoopy Dog sings.”

  “Snoop Dogg. And yes, thanks to Matthias and a lot of hard work. Once I had the new physique in place, all I could think of was making up for lost time with the ladies. I guess I’ve gone a little overboard in that department.”

  That’s the understatement of the century.

  When I discovered that women were starting to notice me, I made it my mission to seduce everyone I met who would have ignored me in high school. All the former cheerleaders, all the society types. What amazed me was how easy it all was. It’s like someone handed me the cheat codes to life and women.

  “After awhile,” I continue, “I got so used to women falling for me that I started flirting without even thinking, and they started throwing themselves at me. Last night was a perfect example. They were lovely girls, but it was a foregone conclusion that I was taking at least one of them to bed. And, let’s be blunt, it’s not like I was going to be discussing chaos theory or the Fibonacci integer sequence with them afterwards.”

  There was only one girl I ever really talked with, and I haven’t seen her in twelve years. I try not to think about her.

  I don’t succeed, but I try.

  Maks sits back in the sofa and stares out the window beside my head for several long moments. He seems to be debating something with himself, and I wonder if I’m going crazy. Looking to Maksim Orlov for life advice is like looking to a monk for sex advice.

  He’s totally unequipped to answer.

  “So if I am listening right,” he says, “you want something that will make you use your head and your khuy.” He uses the Russian word for – well, little head. As usual, he has absolutely no subtlety, but he’s hit the nail on the khuy.

  “I guess you could say that,” I chuckle. “Don’t ask me how to put those two things together, because I don’t know.”

  Maksim nods, and his expression is as serious as I’ve ever seen it, which is not at all what I expected.

  “My friend,” he says. “I think I may know of something that might be what you are looking about.”

  He leans close and lowers his voice to a whisper, as if we weren’t the only two people in the jet’s cabin. Antonio and Patrick, the pilots, are behind the cockpit’s soundproof door.

  “You must promise that you will not talk about this to anyone. It is very important that you understand that.”

  What’s this cloak and dagger bullshit?

  “Fine,” I say, making the sign of the cross with a mocking grin. “I’ll take your secret to the grave… now what the hell are you talking about?”

  “What I am talking about,” he says, “is the Chase.”

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  5. CASSANDRA

  I’m not sure exactly how I expected this meeting to go, but it certainly wasn’t like this.

  The rich leather of my chair feels like butter against the luxurious fabric of my best dress. This office is unlike anything I’ve ever seen: rich mahogany paneling on the walls, a filigreed walnut desk, a Turkish rug that must have cost upwards of $20,000.

  And across from me, behind the desk, sits a middle-aged lady in a Stella McCartney pantsuit who had every reason to laugh me out of the room, and yet is nodding in agreement.

  “I think you’re really on to something,” says Miranda Winthrop, vice president of Tate Capital and the daughter of the firm’s founder, the legendary Oscar Tate. “Your business plan is sound, but what really inspires me is your passion for the product.”

  I nod, working hard to keep the excitement out of my face. I’ve been trained to keep my emotions in check, but it’s not easy. Part of me wants to jump up and down and shriek like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert.

  “I appreciate that,” I say, trying to sound professional. “I think our approach would be unique in the frozen treat industry, since Ms. Clarke and I both want to keep the recipes original.”

  “That’s so important,” she says. “A lot of companies have cut corners to maximize profits over the years and it shows. I don’t know if you’ve eaten any store-brand ice cream recently…”

  I roll my eyes. “You don’t have to tell me,” I say. “It’s nothing like we used to eat when I was a kid.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir. Honestly, I’m already a big fan of Patty’s. If you and Tricia can manage mass production and still hold onto what makes that ice cream so special, I have every confidence that this will be a going concern.”

  This is really happening. I’m so close. Now comes the hard part.

  “So,” I say. “Do you have a number in mind?”

  She flips through a stack of papers with a beautifully manicured hand for several moments as my heart rate doubles. I’ve been in plenty of life-or-death situations in the last several years, but this has them all beat.

  “Based on what I see here, the money you’re offering to put up would constitute a thirty percent stake of the total deal.”

  I do the math instantly in my head: three and a half million is thirty percent of eleven million and change. Tate Capital puts up the other seven and a half and we’ll get our factory up and running. And then, after we – naturally – become a wild success, the initial public offering will take the company public and I’ll sell out for easily ten times my investment and retire to a Greek island before I’m thirty-five.

  Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a day for fourteen days. I can’t keep the smile off my face. I’ve had years of training, years of field operations, years of pushing myself to my limits, mentally and physically. If I can’t avoid a group of rich old geezers for two weeks, I better hand in my CIA special operative card.

  Well, I suppose I already did that. But you get what I mean.

  “That sounds eminently doable,” I say, wincing inwardly at the lame buzzwords. But my resume says I’ve been a business consultant for the last six years, so I need to be able to talk the talk. “With your assurances, I’ll move forward with due diligence and I’ll get to gathering my capital.”

  Buzzword. Buzzword. Buzzword.

  “Excellent,” says Miranda, returning my smile. She reaches a hand across the desk and I take it in mine. “Let’s set an
other appointment for three weeks from now and we can expand on the details. I’m looking forward to working together, Sandra.”

  “As am I. And I’m sure Tricia will be over the moon when I let her know.”

  Miranda puts on an expression of mock gravity. “Tell her as a partner, I expect to be added to the sampling team.”

  I return the look. “Of course,” I say. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. After all, this is serious business.”

  We both laugh as she shows me out onto the streets of Manhattan. Well, the elevator bank, anyway. Another handshake and she walks back to her office, leaving me alone with my thoughts. The initial excitement is still there, but something below the surface is threatening to throw cold water on my celebration.

  Don’t focus on that, I scold myself. Focus on the money. Two weeks, that’s all. Maybe I can add in a few days for good measure, build up my own finances as well. An extra four days would mean a million dollars for myself, tax-free in an offshore account. That’s nothing to sneeze at.

  Do as many days as you want, it’s going to end the same way no matter what: you in bed with a stranger.

  I shake my head and raise my hand to hail a cab, trying to get into the right headspace. I was an expert in pragmatism for years, I tell myself. I know the end justifies the means, and the means aren’t always pretty.

  In this case, the end is a one-third stake in a multi-million-dollar company that will eventually go public and leave me financially independent for the rest of my life.

  The means are simple: they call it the Chase.

  Chapter Ninety

  6. CARSON

  “The Chase?” I say. “You mean that British quiz show?”

  Maksim looks at me like I’m an idiot. “What? No, not TV show. I am talking about something very secret.”

  He puts a finger to his lips. Like I don’t what the word means.