“Hi,” he says, too perplexed to say much else.
“May I come in?” Without waiting for permission, Meera slips past him into his condo.
“It’s been a while.” Townsend watches as Meera walks a slow circle around his living room. She only ever visited his place once or twice during their ... whatever it was, but still, having her here feels like a violation of some sort, like a glitch in the matrix.
She nods without looking at him. “Two years.”
“Is Talia okay?” Only two ties bind Townsend and Meera together, and he can’t imagine that she’s here about the one that doesn’t involve his girlfriend.
“She’s fine,” Meera says, “other than ... you know.”
“Right.” Even after years with no contact, so much unspoken information exists between them, all thanks to their shared connection. Not for the first time, Townsend wonders if Meera is bitter that he ended up with her friend—a total coincidence, but probably a tough pill toswallow nevertheless. As far as he knows, Meera has never mentioned their prior relationship to Talia, so perhaps she thinks of Townsend as little as he thinks of her. That’s the beauty of summer flings: You fuck, and then you forget (unless, of course, someone makes the mistake of catching feelings).
“I’m not here about Talia.” Meera flops down onto his sectional, making what sounds like a small groan of pain as she does so.
“Okay.” He joins her on the couch, because continuing to stand feels silly.
“I’m here for a job.”
“A job where?”
“A job with your company,” she says, as though this were the most obvious thing in the world. Then she stares him down, daring him to choose his answer carefully.
Townsend wasn’t sure what to expect from this visit when he let Meera into his home, but it certainly wasn’t this. “Don’t you work at Cuff with Talia?”
“Not anymore.”
“What happened?”
“Cuff performed a security audit and accused me of misusing my access to privileged data.” She pauses and then adds, without apology, “I used my credentials to look up your past conversations with Amanda. A few times, actually.”
Talia has already told him as much, but Townsend still takes the opportunity to act indignant. He knows he probably won’t have the upper hand for long—at least, not if this conversation goes the way he suspects it will. “That’s a violation of my privacy.”
“I know. That’s why I was fired. And that’s why I need you to hire me.”
“But ...” Is she really going to make him say it? “Why would you want to work for me, given our history?”
Meera blinks at him, her expression betraying nothing. “I need to have health insurance. I don’t know if you know this, but I havean autoimmune disease. It’s what inspired this idea I had for a holistic autoimmune-care platform. But I never could come up with a name for it.” She waggles her finger at him, like he’s a naughty schoolboy. “AutoInTune. A little gimmicky, but cute.”
After two years of waiting for the other shoe to drop, it’s almost a relief, having this accusation out in the open. Plus, Meera has nothing to back up her claims, save for a few private conversations shared beneath her sheets in the early hours of the morning. She has a flimsy anecdote; he has plausible deniability. “You’re not seriously suggesting what I think you are, are you?”
“You built your start-up off of my idea, Townsend.”
He summons a laugh.Make her feel small,he coaches himself.Make her feel stupid.“Actually, my start-up was inspired by my father’s rheumatoid arthritis, which caused him to develop heart disease and die.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she says, the empty platitude sounding even more hollow than usual coming from her mouth. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you stole your idea from me.”
“Even if what you’re saying were true, you can’t prove anything.”
“It is true, and I can prove you’re a thief.”
Thief.Why did that word feel so familiar? “As much as I’d love to have you join the team, we aren’t hiring right now.”
Meera raises an eyebrow. “You’re not hiring? How big is your team?”
“I’m hiring to scale at the moment.”
“Do you plan to expand your budget for new hires?”
