Moonlighter (The Company, #1)(87)

“Really,” my cousin says. “But then what? After the baby comes, are you two still getting it on?”

“I don’t think they can,” Drake points out. “After my brother’s kid was born, they weren’t allowed to.”

“Ever?” I gasp.

“Not for like six weeks.”

Oh. That doesn’t sound so bad.

“So how pregnant is she?” Anton prods. “Like, a little bump in the middle, pregnant? Or, like, dump truck sized?”

“Not a truck!” I insist. “More like a whale. Her word.”

Anton’s eyes bulge. “And that turns you on?”

“Everything about her turns me on. She’s just so…Alex.” I sigh.

“Holy fuck. I-I can’t believe this,” Drake sputters.

“What?”

“Dude, you’re in love.”

“Nah,” I say, laughing.

“But you are. If you’re hoisting the flag for a super preggo, you’re already a goner. Does she know?”

“She definitely notices when my flag is hoisted. I mean—it’s hard to hide this kickstand when the bike is in gear.”

“No, man.” Anton slaps the table. “Does she know you love her?”

I love her. Jesus. The bar does a slow rotation while I think that over. But God damn. He’s right! “She doesn’t know!” I yelp. “Because I just found out myself.”

“Then you have to tell her,” Anton insists. “It could make all the difference.”

“Okay?”

“Where does she live?”

“Manhattan.”

“Then let’s go!” He leaps off his stool, then grabs the table to steady himself.

“Right now?”

“Yeah, man! You gotta tell your girl. Either that, or we could drink more tequila.”

More tequila sounds like a bad idea, so I follow him out of the bar.





31





Alex





Monday has already lasted about a hundred years. By midnight, I’m pacing my apartment in a nightgown, reviewing the whole disaster, wondering what I could have done differently.

First, Rolf and I worked a twelve-hour day. Then I presided over a business dinner I planned for my chief technology officer and my corporate treasurer.

The conversation needed secrecy, so I booked the tiny private dining room at En on Hudson Street. And there—over exquisite Japanese food—I described the scenario that Max had laid out. Then I presented my plan to double down on motherboards, ordering half from an untested Thai producer and half from a man I suspected would embed them with malicious hardware.

And they balked.

“I don’t understand why we have to play this game,” my CTO said.

“What if we end up with twice as many perfectly good parts?” the CFO wanted to know.

“So Max Bayer is telepathic? Does he have a crystal ball? How could he possibly know?”

And so on and so on. It only got worse when someone asked, “What does counsel think?” Because I’m not telling Whitbread about this crisis until I absolutely have to.

They didn’t like that either.

“Listen, I spent all of yesterday reeling from this news,” I tried to reassure them. “I know it sounds crazy. But this is the hand we’ve been dealt. No good deed goes unpunished. We made a great product, and someone else wants to use it to his advantage. We can’t let that happen.”

I’d estimate that I left them—hours later—eighty percent convinced.

It’s that last twenty percent that’s bothering me now. It occurs to me that I should have asked Max to explain it. He could whip out his top-secret hacker chip and weave the tale. Max is very convincing. He has those flinty gray eyes and the air of craftiness that comes with spending all your time thinking like a thief.

He also has a penis. And in my experience, executives with penises are ninety percent more likely to accept bad news from a person who also has a penis.

Or maybe that’s just the panic talking.

I march over to my new, unhacked phone and dial the person I try never to turn to. But I need him right now. And it’s only nine o’clock in California.

“Darling girl!” my father booms from the line. “What’s got you up so late?”

“There’s a problem with my rollout. It’s confidential. And it’s weird as hell.”

“Let’s hear it,” he says.

“Sit down,” I begin. “It’s not a short story.”

“Motherfucker,” my father says when I’ve explained the whole thing. “Do you really think you can keep this secret?”

“I have to. I can use Max’s people for some of the extra legwork.”

“Can you do the final assembly in this country?”

“Maybe. There’s a recently shuttered cabinet factory in Pennsylvania that might work. Nine hundred employees are jobless.”

“Sawdust, though,” my father grumbles.

“I hired an environmental company to fly down and check it out.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “You’ll have the technical issues handled, Alexandra. You’re an ace at that. But your credibility might take a hit.”