Jack Cato was waiting with Grace at the bottom of the spiral staircase. Maya could guess why she hadn’t invited him inside the house. The smell of smoke from the couch fire still hung over the ground floor. Without the replacement, which was due to be delivered the following day, the living space looked sparse. Or as Candace preferred, “minimalist.”
“Morning,” Jack said, beaming. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
Maya grinned. “It is on the outside. Inside, it’s kind of smoky.”
He looked puzzled. “Did something happen?”
“A fire,” Grace commented. “RIP sofa. So, you’re taking Maya to a business brunch?”
“It’s more of an entrepreneurs’ breakfast,” Jack said with a chuckle that brought an instant smile to Maya’s lips. “But broadly speaking, yes.”
“Jack was a finalist in some big-deal entrepreneur competition for schoolkids in England,” Maya told Grace. “And he got to meet lots of famous people and investors who started successful companies. He found out how all that stuff works, so he’s taking me along to this thing at Caltech.”
“We’re just having a go at rustling up some interest,” Jack said with self-effacing modesty. Maya doubted that he could be more adorable if he tried.
Three hours later, Maya was collapsing against the wall at the conference center at Caltech. On the other side of the wall was a room full of rich geeks, some barely out of college, who’d just witnessed her first-ever tech presentation. Her heart was still pounding loudly and steady in her own ears as it had throughout the longest five minutes of her life.
“That was bloody brilliant!” Jack said, breathless. She felt his hand, tentatively reaching for her shoulder and then pulling back at the last moment.
Maya couldn’t stop a radiant smile.
“I can’t believe it!” she said. He was gazing at her so intently that she wanted to look away but she couldn’t seem to do it. “Two of them! Two of those guys want to invest in my app! Actual backers. This is unreal.”
“You did it, champ,” he said, straining to sound humorous. He gave her a playful punch on the shoulder. Their eyes caught for a second and she sensed an undercurrent of tension. This was either more adorable British reticence or he really, really wanted to touch her and didn’t know how.
The whole event had been pretty casual, like an open-mike type thing. Jack had put Maya forward to do a five-minute “bit” about her new Promisr app, and Maya had stood there pitching her social-bartering app in front of everyone, her voice shaking a little bit. It was like some terrifying kind of entrepreneur comedy club.
Halfway through, she’d decided the best thing was simply to demonstrate her app. A cluster of potential investors had gathered the instant she’d finished; all of them young men, none older than thirty.
“I’ve never seen investors jump like that,” Jack marveled, running one hand through his unruly fair hair as he struggled to absorb what had just happened. “You don’t get it! Mostly they’re kind of bored, actually. You really made those nerds light up!”
“I did, didn’t I?” Maya said, equally dazed. “It’s incredible to think that some people can just drop that kind of money after a five-minute presentation.”
“Well, they did get to grill you for a good hour or so afterward. They can drop a lot more, too. They will drop a lot more. You’ll see. A hundred K is nothing to these guys. It’s not just the tech, it’s you. Maya, you wowed them.”
“But why?” she asked, bemused.
“Because you’re young, brilliant, gorgeous, and, as a girl, you stand out! These guys are dreaming of the day that your photo is on the cover of Wired magazine. Or even Time!”
Maya beamed, and then shoved him lightly in the chest. “Oh, please. Now you’re exaggerating.”
Jack caught both her hands in his. She could feel her knees buckling slightly, unable to concentrate on anything but the sensation of his fingers intertwining with hers.
“Are you okay?” he said as she closed her eyes, suddenly leaning against him for support.
Maya was experiencing an exhilarating jumble of emotions. Relief and excitement, but also fear. “Jack, what if I screw this up? I can write code, but what do I know about running a business of any kind?”
“Oh, you shouldn’t worry about that. They’re counting on you to write the code. You’re the brains, the creativity. The business side of things, that’s their end.”
Her eyes fluttered open. Now she really did feel scared. “You think—you think there’s any chance I could get ripped off? It happens.”
He raised a finger to her cheek and stroked her skin lightly. “Hey,” he said very softly. “I’m the one who got you into this. You think I’d stand by and watch you get ripped off?”
She felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude toward him. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be fixing bugs in Cheetr, just watching downloads mount up. This is a whole other league. It’s major.”
“What nonsense,” he murmured, his fingers still caressing her cheek. “You’d already started work on Promisr when you first talked to me.”
They were standing very close now, enough that she could feel the whisper of his breath, which smelled sweet, of orange juice. She shivered in anticipation of more but instead he pulled away a little, before letting his hand fall to his side. Maya realized with a start that she’d been willing him to kiss her. She released a held breath when he turned away.
“Um, so we’d better get back in time for the next round of presentations. It’d look rude to miss them,” he said with obvious effort.
Why won’t he kiss me?
Maya thought Jack was cute the first time she saw him but now it was as though some kind of filter had lifted away and she could finally see him. The longer she stared, the sexier he became.
“Jack,” she said quietly, not moving from where he’d left her, by the wall. Jack stalled on his way to the door and turned. Frustration clouded his expression.
In that moment, Jack stopped being her tutor, a chemistry genius, a business coach. All Maya could think about was a cute guy with the sexiest accent ever, and everything he’d done for her. At that moment, all she wanted to do was kiss him.
Maya strode across to Jack and grabbed him by the arms.
She drew him closer, until he was no more than a slight lean of her head away. She sensed that he was still waiting for her to make the first move. A feeling of euphoria went through her and her skin buzzed all over. Then Maya leaned in, no tentativeness now, pushing herself against him, challenging him to resist. The softness of his lips surprised her, something that she’d think about many hours later when the shock of the initial contact had passed.
This time, he didn’t hold still. Their mouths seemed to melt together and she reached her arms around his neck, clinging on to him while they kissed.
“Good Lord,” he murmured faintly, pulling away.
Maya released her fingers from his hair and stepped away. “Your first kiss?” she said, trying to sound innocent. Who was she kidding? She’d never kissed a boy like that.
“Might as well be,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Look, Maya, I . . .”
“Is it because you’re my tutor?”
“No! I mean, yeah, a bit, but that wouldn’t stop me. I mean if that were an issue I’d ask them to find you another . . . it’s just that . . .” His lips twisted in a grimace. “Clarissa,” he concluded bitterly.
“Your ex-girlfriend?” Maya could barely contain her disappointment. “You told me it was over. I thought she’d gone back to England.”
“And it is, but she’s going to be here a bit longer, as it turns out,” he said, more than a little guiltily. “She’s found some wretched course she wants to do at UCLA. Now she’s waiting to see if her uni will let her onto an exchange program.”
“Okay but—what’s that to you?”
“Maya, I’m the only person she knows in LA. I can’t just abandon her. Clarissa is from a tiny village in Suffolk. LA is bloody terrifying to a girl like her.”
Maya couldn’t speak. A hundred arguments and insults lined up in her mind.
“Hey,” she said, drawing herself up with effort. “It was only a thank-you kiss. If you want to keep this strictly business, then just say so.”
“I didn’t say that, Maya,” Jack said unhappily. But she’d already turned to leave.