Ray slowly looked from me to Karina. I could see him backing out before he even said anything. He was getting ready to leave me hanging with this one.
“I’m going to let you two have the room. Good to see you again, Karina.”
Good to see you again, Karina.I mocked him in my head. Ray gave me one final nod before leaving, not wanting to get in between whatever this was that was about to go down between the two of us.
“Promise me no one else will lose their job.”
Karina came and stood between my legs. She knew this was a vulnerable position for me. Hell, any position she was involved in was a vulnerable one for me. It was always easy to give her exactly what she wanted.
“I promise.”
Chapter
Fifteen
Karina
“So, 300,000 people are now following your company on social media.”
I changed the subject because if Kareem said he wouldn’t fire anyone else, I believe him. I knew the last few days had been stressful enough. I didn’t want to harp on something longer than we needed to.
Besides, Kareem’s platform was skyrocketing, and that needed to be celebrated. Oftentimes, business owners didn’t stop to acknowledge their wins because they were focused on the next. I didn’t want that to be the case here.
“Yeah, I guess so. That’s crazy to think about. That’s a lot of eyes on something that I created in my living room a few years ago.”
“And I am so proud of you, but you know we still have to do something about your personal page. Ray was right about personal branding. That’s the main reason I am here. Yes, Rayla wants to highlight K&K Solutions and the possibility of such alucrative deal, but you are the story, Kareem. I don’t want you to forget that.”
“Oh yeah? If personal branding is so important, why don’t you have social media? Couldn’t you benefit from the same thing you are trying to convince me to do, especially since you want to launch your own magazine? You could be growing before you start.”
I didn’t want to tell Kareem that I had plenty of faceless social media pages. It wasn’t that I wanted to remain faceless, but because I’d used those same pages to keep up with him over the years. What if I accidentally liked something that popped up under his suggestions? My cover would immediately be blown.
“Maybe you’re right,” I mumbled to keep from saying more.
“I know I am. After you graduated from high school and left, I searched for you online and couldn’t find anything. That’s not a good look because everyone has a page these days. Why don’t you? How come there’s no digital footprint on you?”
“I don’t need a digital footprint. I do not run a million-dollar tech company.”
“Well, let me ask you this. When you disappeared all those years ago, was it because you wanted to hide from me? Am I the reason you don’t have a presence online?”
How could I answer Kareem without hurting his feelings, because I was sure he didn’t really want to know the answer? The truth was simple. Kareem was the reason I wanted to disappear. He was, in fact, the reason I didn’t have an online presence. Telling himthattruth would only make him want to know the reason I left, and I wasn’t prepared for that. I spent so many years trying to mold myself into the person I was today. Revisiting my past felt like I would be going in the opposite direction of healing.
“I hope I’m not interrupting, but I need to borrow Karina for a minute.” Ray came in just in time to save me. “Do you mind coming to look over something for me?”
I looked at Ray, then back at Kareem. On one hand, I was happy to be getting out of this conversation. On the other hand, I knew it would come up again.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, Reem.”
“No problem. We can finish this later. I’m taking you out after we leave here. Pick you up around four?”
“Okay.”
It was, in fact, not okay. I knew Kareem would circle back to this conversation at some point because that was the kind of man he was. He didn’t like leaving things unsettled, even when we were younger. However, I assumed we would pick this up after I had time to sit with the question and come up with an answer that I thought would make sense to him. I knew the one I had right now, the one that I had back then when I left, only made sense to me.
I couldn’t change our past. Kareem and I went to prom, had an amazing time, and the next day, I freaked out. I left my hometown as soon as I could and never looked back. Now, Kareem wanted to know why, and that was fair… Fair for him, at least.
I’d spent moretime watchingBridgertonand its spinoff than I cared to admit, but it was something about Queen Charlotte that hooked me as soon as I saw her climbing that wall. She was a girl trying to escape from the unknown. She asked multiple people to tell her what type of man she was set to marry, and no one would give her a straight answer.
Running away was the logical choice if you were to ask me. If something scared you before you truly even knew what it was, running away was the safe choice. Who could blame a girl for being safe?
