“Remind me again why you’re planning this social if you hate it so much?” Scarlett asks, blowing on her coffee.
“Because I want it done right.”
She opens her mouth to protest, her luscious pink lips forming a perfect O, but I press on. “And also because you were right.”
She snaps her jaw shut, and to her credit, she doesn’t gloat.
“This is a good PR opportunity, which is something Triada could use right now. We can’t afford bad press heading into the Epos launch, especially the kind that comes from unhappy, dissatisfied employees.”
Scarlett worries her lower lip between her teeth, then asks, “How do you know people are unhappy? It’s not like we’ve done an employee survey.”
“I don’t need a survey to know what’s going on in my own company.” I shrug and take a sip of my coffee, careful not to burn my tongue on the strong brew. “I hear things.”
“That’s very scientific.” She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her breasts, not bothering to mask her incredulity. “Do you make all of your business decisions based on hearsay and intuition?”
“No, sometimes I use my Magic 8 ball.”
Her eyes go round. “Really?”
“No, not really.” I chuckle, shaking my head. “But last week I overheard someone in the second-floor kitchen refer to me as a stone-cold bastard.”
She huffs an exasperated sigh and reaches for her mug, wrapping her fingers around it as she lifts it to her mouth. “Then don’t be such a stone-cold bastard.”
If only it were that simple.
“It’s a bit more complicated than that.” I scrub a hand over my face. It’s not like I woke up one day and decided to be the world’s biggest asshole. “I’ve had some trouble with the media.”
Scarlett lifts a brow but remains silent, sipping her coffee as she waits for me to elaborate. For the first time, I wonder if it’s possible she’s one of the few people in Austin who hasn’t heard this story.
“There are only so many times people can hear a rags-to-riches story before it becomes tiresome and they start thirsting for more salacious gossip.” I offer her a wry grin. “The kind the tabloids are too happy to provide.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she says, quietly confirming my suspicions. “I don’t have the time or the inclination to read that trash.”
The admission is a relief, but it also makes this story harder to tell, because who wants to admit they were a damn fool?
“I’ve never been particularly interested in the spotlight, but Triada’s always been a media darling. From the moment we issued our first press release, the tech blogs covered our progress. And why not? Three adopted brothers building something from nothing is the American dream, after all.”
A dream built from the ashes of three destroyed lives, but those are the stories that will never be written because we’ll never share them. Some things are too personal.
“When we made the Forbes Thirty Under Thirty a few years ago, Triada’s coverage went mainstream. All the big news outlets and major networks featured our story. Miles loved it. The interviews, the reporters, the social media attention. It all came naturally to him.”
“But not to you,” she says, nodding in understanding as she sets her mug on the table.
“Not even a little,” I admit, the words chafing even after all this time. “But my fiancée, Ashley, thrived on it. She could charm even the most jaded reporter. The media loved her almost as much as I did, so when we attended fundraisers and galas, I let her take the lead.” I pause and sip my coffee. It’s still near scalding, but the heat provides a welcome distraction. “She’d work the room, networking, and it spared me from making awkward small talk. It was the ideal scenario.”
“Until it wasn’t?” she guesses, perceptive as always.
“Until I caught her cheating.” The old hurt slices through me at the memory of finding Ashley in bed—inourbed—with another man. “I called off the engagement.” It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Despite her infidelity, I’d loved her, and I’d wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. “Afterward, the tabloids were happy to run with Ashley’s claims that I was cold and controlling, always keeping her at arm’s length and putting my work before her.”
Hell, that last part might have been true. God knows it took me long enough to realize she was sleeping with one of my own damn employees, a sales executive she met at a business dinner. I’d been gutted by her betrayal—at the realization that I was the only one committed to our future together—but what came after made it so much worse.
Ashley played the victim card for all it was worth, sobbing for the cameras and crafting a narrative that painted me as an unfeeling bastard.
“That’s awful,” Scarlett says, voice thick with sympathy.
It was pretty fucking awful, and I probably shouldn’t be telling her any of this, but she’s easy to talk to. Maybe it’s the fact that, like me, she’s a straight shooter. She doesn’t pull punches or pussyfoot around the truth. Doesn’t apologize or offer meaningless platitudes. Not with me, anyway.
Still, the last thing I want is her sympathy.
