Trade Me (Cyclone #1)(15)

“A billion point four, depending on how you count stock options that haven’t completely vested,” he mutters. “It’s not that much, not compared to my father.”

That number is so vast, it takes me a minute to get my mind around it. He’s worth ten figures. I’m worth…well, after I pay for this meal? One.

The balance of my checking account is less than a millionth of his rounding errors. We’re not even in the same solar system. I feel like this conversation is careening off a cliff into a universe where gravity and ordinary income tax do not apply.

“That’s good.” I feel almost light-headed. “As long as you’re only a billion-point-four-aire, this isn’t awkward at all. How much does a billion-point-four-aire spend anyway?”

“Probably not as much as you’re imagining. Fifteen thousand.”

“A semester?”

“A month.” He shrugs. “I told you. I’m not a huge spender.”

My mind goes totally blank, trying to imagine how someone who thinks he’s not a huge spender manages to spend fifteen thousand dollars a month. What does he do with all of that? Put gold nuggets on his cereal? Fund a small army? Oh, no, I imagine him saying. I’m not a huge spender. We only go through a kilo or two of weapons-grade plutonium every year—scarcely enough to destroy the city of San Francisco. You should see what the other megalomaniacal billionaires can do when they’re feeling tetchy!

“You could buy four thousand pounds of oatmeal every month,” I say instead. “Probably more if you buy in bulk.”

He gives me a puzzled look. “Why would I do that?”

“I’m just saying. That’s a lot of oatmeal.”

The waiter brings steaming bowls of pho and plates of greens and sprouts. I take the opportunity to strip basil leaves methodically into my soup. I can’t imagine what a billion dollars looks like. It’s too big a number. It’s like showing someone a teaspoon of sand and asking her to envision the Sahara.

But fifteen thousand? That is within my capacity to understand. Fifteen thousand times three months left in the semester means I could quit my job. For good. I wouldn’t have to work at all through graduation. It would mean being able to pay my way if friends invited me out. I can stop deleting those emails advertising prestigious but unpaid summer internships.

Forty-five thousand dollars means no more bitterness when my mom asks for money. I can just give it to her and feel good about it. I could pay off Dad’s medical debt instead of watching it bleed my parents dry, month after month. Hope flutters inside me on breathless anticipation.

I squash it dead.

Because forty-five thousand dollars is just too much money.

“I have a question,” I say. “Just a little one.”

He desultorily throws a bean sprout in his broth. “Go for it.”

“Most people don’t need to pay forty-five thousand dollars in order to work at a crappy job. Or to live in a crappy apartment. Most people do it for free.”

He stops in the midst of fishing out his sprout and puts down his chopsticks. “Yes,” he says, a little more quietly. “I could do that. But I don’t want to explain what I’m doing to my dad. That means I need to keep up with my duties at Cyclone. And that means I need someone smart enough to handle them. Someone who can think independently. Someone I can work with. That’s you.”

I know I’m smart. But Blake? We’ve exchanged a tiny handful of sentences. Out of all the people in the world, he picks me? I don’t believe that.

I consider him. “That fifteen thousand a month is post-tax for you,” I say. “I have to pay taxes on it. I want it adjusted up accordingly.”

He doesn’t blink. “Fair enough.”

“And you’ll earn stock options on the work I do, right? I should get them.”

This has him wrinkling his nose in contemplation. “That’s…a little harder to do as a straight transfer, but I can sign over an equivalent number of shares that I already own outright. But that isn’t all that much right now, though, not with me on partial hiatus. It’s worth maybe another ten or fifteen grand.”

Yep. That just about proves my point. I stand up, take out my wallet, and carefully, painfully, count out nine dollars. I set this next to my bowl.

“This is too much,” I say. “You’re too eager to agree. There’s something else going on here. It’s like those emails where some government official offers an obscene amount of money in exchange for transferring funds from their accounts in Burkina Faso to the United States. I don’t know what your scam is or how you’re running it, but when something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I’m out.”

I set the money down and start toward the stairs.

“Tina.” I hear his chair scrape the floor behind me. “Wait. Tina.”

He takes hold of my wrist as I’m leaving, turning me to him.

I snatch my hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He looks at me; I look at him. For a second, the casual, smiling façade he usually wears is wiped away. There’s something wild about him, something that scares me more than the offer he just made. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and this time, I feel like he’s apologizing for something else entirely.