Unfinished Seductions Read online

  “We’re going to build a competitor to TidBytes.” I say that strong and firm. “Better stories, more addictive content, more viral memes. We’re going to build the one site that Silicon Valley can’t do without, the kind that you laugh over with your coworkers, whisper about with your closest friends. The site you check first thing in the morning and last thing before bed.”

  It sounds so much bigger when I put it like that.

  “But… we don’t do that,” Elliot says.

  I can’t tell if Elliot is talking about building a website or gossiping. Either would fit him.

  “We’re going to do it together. Which is why I need to be in this meeting.”

  Logan puts a hand to the small of my back, a simple gesture that any husband might do. But in front of these guys, it means something more: We’re in this together, she and I.

  I lean into his hand, taking strength from him and letting him know that I appreciate the gesture.

  Something shifts at the table. Their wall against me isn’t gone, but they’ve opened the door. And it’s up to me to walk through.

  First I need to find a seat at the table. I give Elliot a pointed look. He gets up and moves over, leaving the seat next to Logan’s empty.

  I take it, trying not to let my hands shake as I pull out my laptop. I’m not half as confident as I’m pretending to be.

  Logan settles in next to me, solid and big. And his aftershave…

  Nope. I’m not going to let how yummy he smells distract me.

  “All right.” Dev is addressing me. “What’s the plan here?”

  They’re all looking at me, not Logan. Somehow I’ve been put in charge. Which is what I wanted. I think.

  “We, um, hire people. Journalists.”

  There’s no response. That answer wasn’t enough. I lick my lips, try to remember my practiced spiel. I have so much I want to say, and I can’t remember any of it.

  “And then we find a name…”

  I lick my lips again. Nobody is saying anything or offering the slightest bit of encouragement. I’ve walked through the door, but they’re still not welcoming me. I wonder if they give this treatment to whoever comes begging them for money. But I don’t need their money—I need their support. Both for this project and my marriage.

  Logan clears his throat. “We’ll need coders—not anybody too heavy hitting, it’s only a website—and we’ll need writers, designers, and we’ll need the ears of everyone we know in the Valley. Seriously, it won’t be half as hard as it looks.”

  I blink at my laptop screen, resisting the urge to gape at Logan. Here I was, worried he’d let them talk him out of this, but he’s defending the idea even better than I am.

  Paul drums his fingers against the table. “No, I think you’re right. It might just work. TidBytes is almost a hate read at this point. If we have a better alternative, it’s going to get under Fuchs’s skin. I love the idea of that.”

  Mark nods, his expression wolfish.

  “I still like the lawsuit,” Elliot says. He’s still grumpy. Or rather, he’s still grumpier than usual. I’ve always wondered how he and Logan can share DNA since they certainly don’t share personality traits.

  “That’s because you have no imagination,” Logan says with rough affection. They might not share any traits, but they definitely love each other.

  I’ve never known what it’s like to have a sibling, but I do envy Logan and Elliot their bond.

  Mark leans back in his chair. “A lawsuit would be bad PR. Even though TidBytes is trash, you’ll get people screaming about the free press or whatever. Starting a competitor makes us look like we care about the freedom of information, the public’s right to know.”

  “We don’t?” I ask. I’m not used to that amount of cynicism in my work.

  “Of course we do.” Logan rolls his eyes. “Mark’s just doing his asshole impression.”

  “It’s not an impression,” Finn says. “He really is an asshole.”

  Mark happily flips off Finn, who flips him off back.

  I’ve never seen them act like this before. Whenever I would visit the office, they’d be stiff, unwelcoming. And I definitely wouldn’t stay long, just long enough to drag Logan out.

  They came to the house for parties and such, but again, they’d pull Logan aside, cutting me out of their charmed circle.

  Maybe we were both fighting for Logan’s attention back then.

  “One thing that we don’t need to do is hire a graphic designer,” I say as I flip my laptop around. I might not know how to run a meeting or set up a website, but I do have some skills. “I’ve already started to play with logos and layouts. I want it to feel fun, playful, maybe a little naughty. Like these are all the Silicon Valley stories you’re not supposed to know, but we’re letting you in on the secret.”

  “I like that one.” Finn points to a design with the lower half of a man’s face—he’s got a beard—and leaning close with painted nails is the lower half of a woman’s face, her red lips whispering to him. Finn tugs on his own beard. “It’s sexy.”

  I have to laugh, because Finn’s humor is infectious. “Yeah, that was kind of the point.”

  We share a smile. Why couldn’t Finn have been so welcoming before?

  “That’s one thing we can check off,” Dev says dryly. “What about all the rest?”

  “Callie will work from home,” Logan says. “We can set up the main offices in the space in SoMa.”

  “Not the RWC facility?” Paul asks.

  “Not necessary. We won’t need that much security.”

  I raise my hand, feeling like a school kid interrupting the teachers. “Excuse me, but what facilities and spaces are you talking about?”

  Finn stabs Logan with a look. “You never told her about our buildings?”

  “Buildings? You guys own buildings, like multiple? Beyond this one?”

  Logan takes a deep inhale. “No, I didn’t tell her because why would she want to know?”

  I go very still. He’s right—before I wouldn’t have cared much how many buildings Bastard Capital owned. I’m a graphic designer, and that’s all VC stuff. Logan’s domain.

  But I’m more than a graphic designer now—I’m a founder, and I want to know more about everything they do.

  “Tell me about the buildings,” I say to Logan. “I want to know where our team will be working.”

  “There’s the secure facility in RWC where we had January’s team, but that won’t work for a media company.” Logan taps his pen against the table, his fingers long and graceful. “We need something more welcoming. The space on Second Street should work.”

  He’s named a place right in the very heart of SoMa, where there’s a cluster of tech companies. Real estate there isn’t cheap, even by San Francisco standards.

  “If I’m at home,” I say slowly, realization hitting me, “and the company is in SoMa, where will you be?”

  We’re supposed to be a team on this, right? Me and Logan, doing this together.

  “Here.” He makes it sound like there was never any question of where he’d work, and I suppose there never was. After all, I can’t expect him to set up a desk right next to mine.

  “Good,” I say crisply. “We’ll need a presence in Silicon Valley proper as well, maybe a satellite office there.”

  “I can look into that,” Anjie offers.

  “We can’t forget the actual employees,” Logan says. “Maybe get on Twitter, see if we can bring up any freelance tech writers looking for something more permanent. There’s got to be a ton of guys out there hustling.”

  “Don’t forget the ladies,” I say. They all turn to me. “I know a ton of women who’d be great writers. Women with awesome educations who know the Valley inside and out. Women looking for maybe more to do.”

  I’m thinking specifically of my commenters on The Silicon Wife, although I can’t actually say that. But also my friends from my old life, the designers and artists who have just as much to contribut
e to tech as brogrammers do.

  “Like who?” Paul isn’t aggressive when he asks—more like he can’t imagine who I might be describing.

  I take a deep breath. “Well, to start with… like the wives of everyone you know.”

  Chapter 17

  When I arrive home, I’m feeling pretty smug. It’s only eight o’clock—there’s no way Callie will be upset with me for getting home this early. And I left a shitload of work still to be done, which is making the back of my brain itch. I try to ignore it and focus on how happy Callie will be to see me.

  When I open the front door, I hear a noise that makes me frown. It… it sounds like a party. In my dining room.

  When I walk into the dining room, I stop dead. There are dozens of women in there, all of them talking at once and holding wineglasses.

  “Logan!” Callie crosses the room, grinning from ear to ear. “They all love the idea of the website.”

  This is about her website? “Who are they?” I ask.

  As I glance around the room, I realize Callie wasn’t joking about hiring the wives of everyone we know. There’s a couple of VC wives, a CTO wife or two, and…

  “Holy shit,” I whisper into Callie’s ear. “That can’t be her.”

  “Who, Brienne?” She tries to spin to look, but I hold her back. “Yeah, she’s here.”

  Brienne is the wife of Jack Collins, the CEO of Pixio, which is one of the biggest tech companies in the world. I know Jack and we’re friends, but having his wife show up here is like having Michelle Obama show up. And Michelle Obama isn’t going to be writing for any start-up media company no matter who’s running it.

  How the hell did Callie get her here? I never thought they were friends.

  “Logan, you’re home.” Brienne is making a beeline for us. “Callie said you’d be late.”

  I’m guessing Jack’s version of late is the same as mine, and eight o’clock isn’t it.

  “Got away early,” I say with a tight smile since I’m really fucking confused here. “What’s going on?”

  “Callie told me all about her idea for a media company, and I love it. I want to write for her.”

  “You do?” All I really know about Brienne’s work experience is that she’s got some charity to put tablets in every school in America. “That’s great.”

  “Oh, it will be. And I didn’t even know…” She puts the tip of her tongue to her front teeth, calculating her next words. “I didn’t even know Callie and I were fans of the same blog.”

  What blog? That’s a weird thing to say. But maybe Brienne’s just weird in general. “Oh? Which one?”

  “The Silicon Wife.” It’s like she’s waiting for me to react. “Do you know it?”

  Next to me, Callie goes very stiff. But Brienne’s not making me uncomfortable—I’ve been through too many awkward business parties to be put off by her.

  “I haven’t. I don’t have much time to read blogs, I’m afraid.”

  Brienne laughs. “That’s right, blogs are dead, as Jack keeps telling me.”

  “He would know,” I say. “Pixio is always on top of what’s next.”

  “Oh.” Brienne’s eyes go wide as someone across the room catches her attention. “I’ve got to go talk to Autumn. If you’ll excuse me.”

  When she’s gone, I raise my eyebrows at Callie. “Brienne Collins writing for the site? That’s going to be interesting.”

  “She has an MBA, you know,” Callie says. I actually didn’t know. “She’s going to write under a pseudonym and not about anything to do with Pixio, but she follows the tech business really closely. I’m thinking a weekly column with her insights would be popular.”

  “Does Jack know?”

  Callie takes a casual sip of her wine. “I think that’s between the two of them, don’t you? She doesn’t have to get his permission.”

  “I never meant to suggest otherwise,” I say with fake mildness. “How did you get in touch with her?”

  “Like she said, we both read the same blog. She’s a big commenter there, and I always like her comments.”

  I suppose stranger connections have been made over the internet before. “So these are all our writers, huh?”

  “No, we’ll have to hire some professional journalists too. And some of them are designers.”

  As I take in the crowd, I realize her friends are here too, the ones from before we married. Only a few of them bother to look back at me, and one raises her glass mockingly to me. Yeah, that’s Gertrude, who when I last saw her, told me I was a gentrifying tech bro asshole.

  Callie’s friends never did like me.

  “You gathered all these people together just today?” I ask.

  A blush stains her cheeks. “I guess I was really excited about the site when I contacted them, and they got excited too.”

  I lean over and kiss her, softly, because the kiss I really want can wait until we’re alone. “You’re amazing.”

  “Wait until the site is actually built before you say that.” But her hazel eyes glow with warmth.

  “Nope.” I kiss her again, deeper this time. “I’m going to say it now. And keep saying it.” I kiss her one more time and keep my face close to hers. “How long until all these people go home?”

  She finds my biceps and squeezes. “We can’t just kick people out.”

  I give her a feral smile. “Watch me.”

  There’s a dare teasing around the edges of her mouth, a dare I’m definitely going to take. I’m glad she and her friends love the idea of her site and are having fun, but I’ve got no reservations about ordering them out of my house and making it clear it’s because I’m going to make love to my wife.

  But before I can, Callie looks past me, her skin going pale. “Oh no. He can’t be here.”

  The way she’s says he immediately clues me into who it is. Anger burns hot under my skin. How dare that asshole come into my fucking house. Bad enough that he helped Callie run away, but to come into my house—

  When I turn around, there Julian is, smirking like he’s not expecting me to shove his teeth down his throat.

  “Logan.” Callie’s voice is low and urgent, her hand on my arm holding me back. “He’s my friend. Please don’t.”

  Fuck him. The snarl is on my lips, my rage bleeding through my veins.

  But Callie is there too, begging me with her gaze. Punching Julian, as satisfying as it would be, won’t help Callie and me repair our marriage.

  I shake out my shoulders, force my blood to cool. “I’ll be… fine,” I get out. I can’t say cool or polite or well behaved because I won’t be, but I won’t embarrass her.

  “Julian,” she says, moving away from me. “How are you?”

  Callie’s smile is so warm and genuine my teeth grind.

  Julian himself looks too good, like life is charmed.

  Do not punch that smug look off his face. Remember Callie and don’t do it.

  My fist tightens anyway when Julian pulls Callie into his arms for a hug. I force my fingers open, one by one. Callie was friends with him way before she ever met me, and he’s not here to steal her from me. He does, however, love to bait me.

  I’m going to be the bigger man though. Or at least try.

  Julian pulls away first, sets his hands on Callie’s shoulders to study her. “You look happy.” There’s a hint of an accusation there.

  Fuck it. I’m not going to be too well behaved. I reach for Callie’s elbow, pull her back, and set my arm across her shoulders. “Doesn’t she though?”

  “I’m feeling… better,” Callie says. There’s an edge to her voice.

  I tighten my arm around her.

  “Good.” Julian’s still studying her, having ignored my comment. “I saw the story in TidBytes yesterday, and I was worried. And then you didn’t answer your phone…” His gaze swings to me.

  “In the shop,” I explain. “For repairs.” I don’t mention the replacement phone I got her, because his number definitely wasn’t programmed into
it.

  “Well, thank goodness she managed to get ahold of me today.” Julian’s smile would fit right on a shark’s face. “Otherwise I would have missed this.”

  “That would have been just too bad.” I make my smile as sharp as his.

  Callie reaches over and pinches my stomach. Hard. “I’m right here, and I know what you two are doing.”

  “We’re just talking,” Julian says.

  “You’re not, and it’s upsetting me,” Callie says flatly.

  Shit. As enjoyable as it is to fuck with Julian, even a little bit, I don’t want to upset Callie. “I’ll be nice from now on. I promise.”

  Julian remains pointedly silent.

  Well, screw him. I can be the bigger man here—after all, I’m the one who’s married to Callie. And he’s just a friend.

  Chapter 18

  I’m happy to see Julian—I really am—I only wish he’d come any other time.

  I knew he’d be here once I texted him I was back in the City. Cute move of Logan’s, not to put Julian’s number in the new phone, but I’ve memorized it.

  And now he and Logan are squaring off like they’re about to knock each other out.

  Julian pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I don’t mean to upset you,” he says to me. “But have you seen this? TidBytes just put up a new story, late edition. Callie, leaving your office”—his gaze swings to Logan like a blade—“her hand over face like she’s been crying. And the headline is What Happens When You Leave a Bastard.”

  Oh God. I should have expected something like that. “Let me see.” I haven’t even checked TidBytes today—I was too busy sketching, and then there was the partners’ meeting and arranging this get-together. It didn’t occur to me to look at it.

  Julian hands over his phone, and sure enough, there’s me in my oversized sweater, my hands covering my face like I’m sobbing into them.

  “That’s not from today.” I looked powerful, put together when I went into the office today. But yesterday… “I wasn’t crying. I swear I wasn’t crying.”

  “You don’t have to convince me,” Julian says gently.