“Hey. Come inside.”
“I…um…I’m in the wrong place. I shouldn’t be here. I must have the wrong address.”
I tried to let go, but then my eyes narrowed on the pin he had on his sweater.
“The key.” I instinctively reached up to touch my own pin. “No.” I shook my head.
“Alexi, please come inside. We have a lot to talk about.”
Words were stuck in my throat, but my mind ran a thousand miles an hour.
Troy was the Elite person? Did he know he was meeting me? Was this all a game to him?
My dad’s words got into my head again.
Communication.
Troy took me inside and led me to a large couch in what looked like a living room. This was someone’s house.
Was this Troy’s apartment? How could he afford to live here?
He knelt in front of me and held my hands. “I can see you’re panicking and probably reaching all the wrong conclusions, so let me start by saying I didn’t know you were the client, okay? I canceled all the meetings because I saw you and didn’t want my two worlds to collide.”
“Two worlds?”
“Remember when I said in my message that I had a secret?”
I nodded.
“Three years ago, I started a company with my then-roommate, Marco. I’d built a piece of software and an algorithm that was good at pulling information from various sources and sorting it into categories. In basic terms, it’s a sophisticated search engine that gives us access to things most people can’t access when they do the same searches. Marco joked that we should start a matchmaking service. The idea evolved into a concierge service where we matched people with what they wanted. His dad lent us the start-up capital, and we ran with it. The company is currently valued at over two billion dollars. Our goal was always to sell it when we graduated because we both had…personal goals we wanted to achieve outside of Elite. Elite was just a way for us to get what we wanted.”
I tried to keep up with all the information, but it was too much. Troy started a secret company? He was a billionaire?
“What did you want?” I asked, thinking about what he said about personal goals.
“The one thing I can’t buy with money. You.”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came.
“Yes, Alexi. I’ve wanted you for a long time. Elite was my ticket to buying my parents’ retirement so they could enjoy their life together. Maybe they could even donate the store to a young couple who’d want to continue the business they started before I was even born. Elite was also my way to gain the freedom to leave everything behind and follow you.”
“What if I didn’t want you?”
He sighed and sat back on his feet. “Then I guess we’d remain friends, and I’d just be stupid rich.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because there’s a threat to the company. Someone has started leaking information about its existence. Our success is based on no one knowing we exist. Every client is referred by another client. That’s how it was in the beginning and how it is now. We never expected the company to grow this much, and now many people depend on us. We employ people all over the world. If we collapse, they lose their jobs.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
He smiled. “I know. We deleted all records of you ever being an Elite client from our system in case things ever get out. Our team is working really hard to find the guy who’s doing this, and it’s better if you’re never associated with Elite.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
