Crown Jewels (Off-Limits Romance #1)(54)

His mouth turns down. “Not exactly.”

“What do you do?”

“I make apps.”

“Huh?”

“I make and distribute apps, or rather I make them and others distribute them for me. Most of the money goes to charity.”

He pulls up at a huge, blue lake and turns the car’s ignition off.

“Apps? Really? Can I see?”

He gives me a strange look. Then he holds out his phone.

“You make Fireside?” It’s a British dating app. One of the biggest ones. “Don’t the same people make Fairgrub and Autopawn, too?”

He arches one brow, and my mouth falls open. “Holy hell.”





*





Liam





I didn’t plan on telling her. Have only told two people in the world who don’t work for me, lips zipped by my NDA. The company is called S.G. Enterprises—for my mother, Sarah Gael.

When I started it, I was a senior at Lawrenceville and barely passing my lit class. The professor, a short, intense man named Dr. Faar, was insisting I stay after classes twice a week with him to practice writing. He’d signed the NDA like all my other professors, and so of course, he knew the details of my disability.

Unlike most of the others, he thought it was something I could overcome with the right kind of help. I could have gone to the dean in protest, but…I didn’t. I don’t quite know why. I remember I would spend those four hours per week with sweat dripping down my back, my fingertips clamped hard around the pencil so he couldn’t see them tremble. It wasn’t that I couldn’t compose a thought, or a sensible essay.

I just couldn’t—can’t—write it in my own hand. I tried so fucking hard those days, and of course, the effort didn’t add up. It never does, and never will. I would leave there having written maybe a paragraph. An imperfect paragraph. A paragraph Dr. Faar would always read aloud.

And first I’d hit the boxing room at the gym. When it wasn’t enough, I’d run for an hour. When that wasn’t enough, and at times when I didn’t have polo or baseball practice to supplement, I would program. I’d had a class my sophomore year, and I’d been good at it. The difference between code and the English language—how I could do one but not the other?—intrigued me. Coding made me feel more capable.

I look at Lucy now and find I want to tell her. “I had a hard time in high school. I can barely write, but I can program code.” She nods, and I hear myself say, “It made me feel better I guess.”

“That’s seriously amazing. I’m honored that you told me.”

“Declan knows, and Heath.”

“That’s all?”

“Who don’t work for or with me.”

“Wow. How many people work for you?”

“Twenty-two. Most of them don’t know they work for me,” I tell her. “A guy from my Lawrenceville class named Todd does some of the programming with me, and most of the marketing. He runs the day-to-day stuff. I’m just behind the curtain.”

I glance up from my hands, still around the wheel, and find Lucy shaking her head. “That’s really crazy. So you’re like…this businessman and no one even knows.”

I shrug. “No one needs to. I put some money aside, but a lot of it does go to charity. I don’t need it. Everyone on staff is paid well enough, so…that’s that.”

“Your dad has no idea?”

I shake my head.

“You don’t think he would be proud?”

I have to struggle to suppress the urge to snort. “I don’t.”

“Because he wouldn’t want you working?”

“Yeah. Work isn’t for royals.” That’s what his generation thinks. “But also because me doing this might make him think I don’t want a role in government.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly.

“But like…do you have to?”

“That’s what the precedent is.” The precedent might not apply to me, but Lucy doesn’t need to know all that.

“Damn, Liam. You have a lot of interesting secrets.”

I give her a hollow laugh.

“I think I might owe you a few of mine.”

I crack my door open. “I think you definitely do.” I give her a look over my shoulder, then grab our pack and walk around to her side of the car. I was going to get the door for her, but she’s already out, smiling at me.

“What’s that look about?” I ask her.

“Nothing. I just feel like I know you more now.”

I wiggle my eyebrows, because I can’t exactly tell her that she doesn’t. Then I lead her over to a shed between some trees.

I punch a code in to unlock it, take out a canoe, and pull out a couple more bags that were dropped off here for us about an hour ago.

I help Lucy into the canoe and watch her as she looks around the lake. There’s fog along the shore, but the water is glass flat. “It’s gorgeous here, Liam. With all the mountains…” She waves at the peaks surrounding the lake.

I point to the island out ahead of us. “That’s Pirate Island. It’s a quarter of a mile away. Crown property.”