Zander hunched over his keyboard, staring at his monitor, seeing nothing except old ghosts. His obsession with his past currently prevented any action in the present. Sitting near the window of his corner office, he lifted his gaze toward the Seattle skyline to his right and then turned to face Elliott Bay to his left.
The blue-gray water, dotted with white-caps beneath rolling springtime thunderclouds, matched his dark and moody emotions.
He let his gaze fall on the open desk drawer…the one he’d been about to raid for antidepressants. A slew of pill bottles filled the drawer, along with a revolver. Underneath sat pictures of his ex and his own tortured handwritten love poems, written to win her back.
Someone knocked on his door.
He slammed the drawer shut. The key hanging from the keyring he’d fitted into the lock vibrated from the forceful close. He removed it and shoved it into his pocket.
“It’s open,” he bellowed, not bothering to look toward the entrance.
“Mr. King?” came a soft voice from the doorway.
He broke out of his reverie to turn toward his assistant, Mia, a petite, trim brunette with the kindest eyes he’d ever beheld. He’d hired her on the spot for those eyes.
“Mia,” he said, snapping back to professionalism. “What can I do for you?”
She lifted the tablet in her hand. “Can I show you the mock-ups for our next round of online advertising?”
Instinctively, he lifted his right hand to gesture her in. He paused when his bionic hand came into his line of sight.
A fully customized, top-of-the-line hand, made of hard white plastic, titanium joints, and black accents, it allowed him to do most of the things he used to do. Before I had this fucking monstrosity for a hand. It didn’t allow him to be viewed as anything but a disabled person, however. And, it didn’t allow him to get back out and enjoy the adventurous life in the manner he once enjoyed. And that stunk.
Mia paused for a split second, too, staring at the metal technology that served as a limb. Then, she put on her game face, and continued to stride in his direction, ignoring his remark. She wove through the burnt-orange, Italian leather sofa and chairs meant for informal meetings, headed past the long leather bench seat that flanked one wall of windows, and came to a stop by his curved zebrawood and glass desk.
She set the tablet in front of him and tapped the screen. “Here it is. Scan through the images and select the layout you prefer. We can have it launched within the hour.”
He gave her a challenging glare. “I prefer it if you scan.” He wiggled the fingers of his high-tech hand. “Bionic finger-man, here.”
“Sir, I…” She gave him her best disapproving expression.
She knew as well as he did that he could scan through the images on the screen with this techno limb, or, use his other hand. Hell, he could probably do cartwheels with the bio-forearm in place. He’d paid enough for the damn thing. Few could afford such a wondrous piece of technology. Zander was one of the few.
“Never mind,” she said.
He smirked. Mia probably didn’t want to argue with him. No one did. His intelligence and wits gave him the upper hand in an argument each and every time. His status as a twenty-eight-year-old billionaire, and the owner of EXcape, his self-started, billion-dollar business, helped, too. No one in his office dared to contradict the boss. No one except Kent, his best buddy, and CFO.
“Show me what you’ve got, Mia.”
She flipped through layouts of high-end rock-climbing gear, base jumping apparel, cave exploration ropes and carabiners, BMX bikes, windsurfing boards, and other maximum intensity sports equipment.
“We’ll target the extreme sports market with these,” she said, tapping on a few photos of a couple dangling from ropes in the middle of a pristine cave, one hundred feet below the surface. “And, with these, we’ll target ultimate adventurers ages twenty-five to forty. Those looking for a way to defy the odds.” She indicated several images of five people poised hundreds of feet in the air in high-tech hammocks that affixed to the side of rock walls. “Like someone I know.”
Her eyes scanned his face, probing for…what? The old Zander? That guy died. His eyes glazed over, as his mind veered toward a collision with his past. He used to engage in extreme sports. He used to love adventure. Used to, used to, used to. My current life is all about the past. His mood slid further south.
“You decide,” he snapped. “Whatever you think is best.”
“But, Mr. King,” Mia protested. “You’ve always insisted on final say.”
“Great, then you’ll have no problem telling the design team that I’ve given the reins to you and whatever you choose goes. That’s my final say.” He waved the bionic monstrosity in her direction.
“I don’t think I’m qualified, Mr. King,” she said, standing tall.
“You’ll be fine.” His gaze traveled down her muscular calves to her shoes. How she could balance on those precarious red stilettos was a mystery to him. He preferred women in footwear that could move. Used to prefer, he reminded himself, glaring at his own ridiculous Italian leather loafers. “I’m sure your decision could top the cripple’s opinion,” he said, referring to himself in the third person.
Mia winced.
He’d spent the last year finding new ways to push everyone away. He took a measure of pride at being so good at it that he had few friends. Gone were the slew of buddies and acquaintances. All I have is work. “Just go. I’ve got something else I need to do.”
Like mope, drink whiskey, and sink into depression. I’ve become a giant douchebag. Nothing but an asshole who verbally assaults his staff.
“Sir, I…”
“And stop calling me sir. I’ve been telling you that for years. Sir is what you’d call my father or my grandfather. I go by Mr. King, Zander, or, preferably, Jackass. Can you manage one of those, Mia?”
“Absolutely, Jackass.” Her eyes turned steely.
A sense of sick satisfaction trickled through him. Mia took the bait. Score one for the asshole.
Mia pivoted and flounced out of his office, her hips rocking from side to side in her form-fitting skirt.
Before he could settle into the silence of depression, Kent Manning barreled through the door.
“The door’s open,” Zander said, in a mocking tone of voice. “Come on in.”
Kent marched toward Zander’s desk, his expression like a lion, mid-roar. “What the hell, you prick? Mia came out of your office crying. You’re going to have to apologize to her.”
Zander waved his bionic hand in the air. “Get her some flowers. A diamond bracelet. I don’t fucking care.”
“You get her some flowers. You fucking apologize to her and mean it.” Kent leaned on the desk, placing his weight on tented fingers. “I’m so sick of you hiding in here. Where’s the fun guy I used to adventure with? We used to base jump in the Alps, rock climb in Bolivia, paraglide in Switzerland. Now you just sulk up here at the top of your chrome, exotic wood, and Italian leather mountain, rather than get out and explore.”
“Have you forgotten?” He wiggled all the fingers of his bionic hand. “Cripple alert.”
“Self-pity alert is more like it.” Kent straightened, assuming his six-foot-five-inch height. He shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “Look, let’s at least go out to lunch. I want to go over our end-of-year earnings. Our profit margin is killer this quarter.”
“I’m sure you’ve got it covered. I don’t need to know,” Zander said.
“Just lunch, then, Zander, with no talk of anything other than the weather,” Kent said.
“It’s gloomy. We’re done with that topic.” Zander slumped over his desk.
“No, you’re gloomy.” Kent cocked his head, then his eyes widened. “You haven’t been thinking about Trisha again, right?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Zander said.
Trisha had dumped him after he got out of the hospital. She couldn’t deal with being with a cripple. It wasn’t good for her image.
That “knee to the nuts” betrayal had left bruises on his manhood for weeks. But the real clincher came reading her social media posts about how “Zander deserves someone who can serve his needs in a manner to which I am unable to do. I left him, so he can find that person. It’s not me. It hurt, but it was the right thing to do.” Two weeks following her post, she was seen dating Bobby “Riptide” Johnson, the top kayak racer in the world. And two weeks after that she and Zander had been seen fighting at a club after they started kissing, both drunk. And a week and a half after that they fucked in a dark alley. And then… He shook his head trying to rid his thoughts of her. After that, it was in the dark. Always in the dark, in secret, after drinking, then, fighting.
He was her go-to guy as long as the lights were off.
And Trisha kept on dating Riptide, not him.
Who the hell wanted to date a cripple?
“Look, man, we all knew Trisha was a royal bitch,” Kent said. “She’s pure poison. You’re better off without her.”
Zander lifted his eyebrows. “Am I?”
“Definitely. Listen. Tonight, the Billionaire Club is hosting another sugar-baby daddy dinner. Come with me, what do you say?”
Zander scoffed. He picked up a report from his desk and crushed it into a wad. “Fuck that, Kent. My answer is a big fat no. I’m not yet a desperate old dude.”
Kent lifted one of his immaculately groomed blond eyebrows. “What does that make me?”
“I don’t know. A desperate young dude.” Zander allowed a grin.
“Both you and I know I’m anything but. I can get any chick I want.”
Zander grew serious. “That’s my next point. Who’s going to want to date a cripple except for someone who, A, only wants my money, or B, feels like she needs a social boost by being seen with a disadvantaged individual?”
He whacked his bionic hand against the zebrawood, making a mark.
“Come on, Zander. Take a chance. You never lost your good looks.”
Ire bubbled in Zander’s belly. “I said, fuck no. It’s insulting to think the only way I can get a girl to date me is by buying her time.”
He rose to stand and crossed to his bar.
Kent threw his arms up. “What’s insulting is the time you spend up here in your icy tower feeling sorry for yourself. All you do is work. You’ve lost touch with every one of your friends outside of EXcape. When was the last time we partied with Dante Vega? When did you last see your climbing buddies or your kayak friends?”
“I’ve moved on.” More like I ignored their messages until they stopped calling. “And you and all the rest of my employees still have lucrative jobs, thanks to my work ethic.”
His bionic fingers successfully curled around a crystal glass resting on the bar and set it down with a too-hard thwack on the zebrawood counter. Shit. I still need more practice with that move. He used his left hand to pour a finger of whiskey into the glass, not wanting to take any chances spilling his precious coping agent. Then, he used the same hand to lift it toward his lips.
“Come on. EXcape is so well-organized it could run itself. And thanks to my clever maneuvering, we managed to keep your scandal out of social media. You know how several board members insist that the reputation of EXcape employees is above reproach, squeaky clean and all that.” Kent’s red face conveyed his anger. His fair complexion could never mask his hot-blooded emotion. He knocked his knuckles on the desk. “You need to get your confidence back up. Get back in the game. Maybe actually seeing a woman for the first time in forever will knock some sense back into you. Get you over the Trish bitch once and for all.”
“You can see yourself out,” Zander said, leaning against the bar. He sipped his whiskey and eyed the door. “We’re done here.”
“Stop being a fucking prick, Zander!” Kent dragged his hand through his thick hair. “I’m sick of this. I want my old friend back. You’re making it seem like the old Zander died along with his forearm.”
Zander stifled the wince threatening to indicate Kent’s words affected him. I know I’m an asshole. He kept his jaw stony and his gaze pure ice, trained directly on Kent’s eyes.
Kent blew out a lungful of breath. His voice emerged a bit gentler. “Look, you stubborn ass. Just do me a solid and come to tonight’s event. If you don’t like it—even within thirty seconds—we bounce.”
“You’re just going to waste gas on me,” Zander said, his resolve starting to cave. Maybe I can find a willing woman to at least screw…in the dark…with a blindfold over her eyes.
“What’s a tank of gas between billionaires?” Kent grinned.
“Nothing worth counting,” Zander said. “My ego can’t take another hit. You owe me if this goes south.”
“Do I?” Kent arched an eyebrow. “Will I really be the one who owes you?”
Zander’s veins iced. “How long do I have to be your bitch, Manning? I became a sick fuck when Trisha left me.”
“Which of the thousands of times are you referring to? When she left you in the bedroom, when she left you at the club two weeks, later, when she left you at that holiday party…?” Kent tapped each finger as he listed the many times Zander and Trisha called it quits. “Or, was it that other time?” Kent’s icy gaze ripped through Zander.
Zander pictured one of his worst moments when he stooped to the lowest of the lows.
Kent had walked in on that moment. And, good thing, or Zander might be dead.
They’d never talked about it, but it hung like a dagger over Zander’s head. If Kent ever spills my secrets I’ll lose everything…my business, my self-respect…
“I can’t live the rest of my life with you holding my mistakes over my head.” Zander tossed the rest of the whiskey into the back of his throat, relishing the burn as it went down his gullet.
“Then get out there and give me something else to think about. Find someone new. Someone I won’t have to bail you out over or save you from. Billionaire club. Tonight.” Kent extended his hand for a shake.
Zander hesitated.
Kent’s lips set in a firm line. Then, he said, “Just shake my damn hand, for Christ’s sake.”
Zander stood, gripped his friend’s hand with his bionic one, and shook.
“I’ll pick you up at seven, sharp. We can head out and pregame,” Kent said.
Zander’s eyebrows rose. “You mean we can head out early so you can monitor my alcohol intake.”
“Zander, so help me God,” Kent said, clearly gearing up for a fight. “Stop being a prick.”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. See you at seven.” He sighed, already prepping for a humiliating night.
What could possibly be worse than paying someone to date a cripple? He already knew the answer: dating someone who only got over his ex with intense therapy, a gazillion prescriptions and a gun in his desk drawer.