When it felt finished, I released the keys, pressing down on the sustain pedal with my last chord, allowing the notes to go on and on until they faded and reverberated like the memory of an echo. It really was a magnificent instrument.
When I opened my eyes I realized Martin was sitting in one of the nearby club chairs, his elbow on the arm rest, his thumb brushing back and forth against his bottom lip, and his eyes watching me intently.
I straightened, blinking at him and the room as I came out of my daze. “Sorry…how long was I playing?”
He didn’t respond right away and I noticed he was also lost in a bit of a daydream.
“Martin?”
He shook himself, his gaze focusing sharply on me. “Yes?”
“How long was I playing?”
His eyes flickered to a spot behind me on the wall. I turned and followed his gaze, found a wall clock that told me I’d been at it for over forty-five minutes.
“Gah! Is the casserole ready?” I reached for my coffee, found the tumbler tepid and I pouted. “Cold coffee.”
“Don’t worry, I have more coffee.” His voice was stiff as he plucked the cup from my grip and disappeared into the kitchen. “And breakfast is ready.”
I followed him, loitered at the entrance, and appreciated the sight of a fine man moving around the kitchen like he knew what he was doing.
“How and where did you learn to cook?” I asked, as he opened the oven set to warm and withdrew a casserole dish.
“Mother had a cook. Her name was Esmerelda. She taught me.”
“Hmm…” I grabbed my coffee cup from where he’d left it on the counter and dumped the cold coffee into the sink. “Can we play forty questions while we eat breakfast?”
“Forty questions?”
“Yes.” I rinsed the cup then moved to refill it with fresh coffee. “Emma stopped by yesterday, and—”
“Emma was here yesterday?” His tone told me he wasn’t happy.
“Yes, no big deal.” I sipped the hot beverage, placed it on the small kitchen table, then turned to the cabinets to seek out dishes for breakfast. “We talked. It’s all good. But she deposited a lot of information in my brain and I think it’s going to take at least forty questions for me to gain the answers I seek.”
“What kind of information did she deposit?” In my peripheral vision I saw he was grabbing knives and forks.
“Well now, you can play forty questions too. I ask you a question, you ask me a question. There’s no need to keep tally of how many, it’s just that I’d like to clear up as many unknowns as possible before heading home this evening.”
He was quiet for a beat as we set the table, then said, “That’s right. I forgot you’re leaving today.”
I took stock of our progress, found everything to be satisfactory, and sat next to him as he served the casserole.
“I’ll start—I’ll answer your question about what kind of information Emma shared.”
He nodded, glanced at me warily, then grabbed a muffin and tore it in half. By the time I was finished relating the story of Emma’s visit the day before, he’d eaten three servings of casserole, two danishes, and a muffin. As well, he was on his second cup of coffee and third glass of orange juice.
I stripped the conversation of all my emotions, tried to relate just facts, but he interrupted me a few times and asked for clarifications, making my tale longer. I decided to leave out the part where Emma and I discussed his last girlfriend as I felt like her existence wasn’t really pertinent to the issue at hand.
At last I was able to question him. “So my question is, why did you set up a foundation as the controlling shareholder in the venture capitalist company instead of keeping the profits for yourself?”
He shifted in his seat and I saw he was considering how best to answer this question.
“You can tell me the truth, Martin, whatever that might be.”
“I know.” He drank some more coffee, examining me over the rim of his cup. “There were actually several reasons.”
“Okay, what was the biggest reason?”
“How about I start with the most important business reason?”
“Fine.”
He cleared his throat and set the coffee cup on the table, leaning forward. “After what my father did—with your mother, trying to use us to control her—I realized that if I invested directly into SAT Systems, the venture capitalist company launching the satellites, then there was a small chance—but a chance nevertheless—that he’d be able to take legal action against my investment. So I established the foundation. Its non-profit status cleaned the money, basically, and meant he had no claim to it. I didn’t want to put the project in jeopardy.”
“But you gave up sixty million dollars and subsequently billions of dollars in revenue.”
“But that didn’t matter to me as much as following through with SAT Systems. I mean, I’m the head of the foundation. I have the same voting power at SAT Systems that I had before. Only the profit doesn’t come to me, it comes to the foundation.”
“So,” I tried to understand his motivations, “launching the satellites was more important than the money part of your revenge plan? Sorry to use the term, but I thought the main ambition of your revenge against your father was to eventually ruin him and make yourself three times as wealthy in the process.”
He stared at me, gritting his teeth, his jaw ticking for a long moment, as though debating with himself. But then abruptly stated, “When you walked out, the revenge plan, as you call it, didn’t hold much meaning anymore. It took me a while, but I figured that out by June, three weeks before my birthday, before I had access to the trust. You were right. Focusing my energy on fucking over Denver Sandeke was a waste. And you would have known all this if you’d read any of my interviews.”
I sat up straighter, surprised, feeling like I’d been slapped—but not in a violent way, more so in a reprimanding, wake-the-fuck-up kind of way.
Before I could stop myself—riding a rising wave of resentment—I said, “Listen, I would have read the interviews, but when I did a google search all that came up were pictures of you with your girlfriend—or ex-girlfriend.”
Martin frowned at me, his face scrunching in a way that told me he had no idea what I was talking about; in fact, he said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Red hair? Petite? Pretty? Ring any bells? Emma also mentioned that you two were dating.”
His lips parted and he blinked at me as though seeing me in a completely new light.
I couldn’t hold his gaze any longer because I felt an abrupt spike of fear that his eyes would soon be clouded with pity. Instead I stabbed at my casserole and tried to fight the swelling distress that I’d just exposed myself.
I mumbled, “Like I told you last week when you came to the coffee shop, I avoided news about you for a reason.”
He didn’t respond right away, but I felt his eyes on me, considering me. Peripherally I was aware that he’d placed his fork on his plate and was leaning his elbows on the table.
“I’m considering Dr. Patterson as my replacement at the foundation for operations. Rose Patterson, the girl in the pictures, is his daughter.” His voice and words sounded careful.
I took a bite of the delicious casserole that no longer tasted delicious, careful to keep my eyes averted. “Oh?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I was determined not to cry. I would not be that stupid girl who cries when she talks to her ex-boyfriend about his current exploits. Therefore—to ensure that I did not cry—I distanced myself from him, his words, and my feelings.
He was silent for a beat, still watching me. “I told you last week, I’m not dating anyone.”
I shrugged. “It’s really none of my business.”
“Rose was a way to meet Dr. Patterson.”
I nodded, cleared my throat, found that I really, really didn’t want to talk about this. After ensuring that the buttresses around my heart were completely fortified, I lifted my eyes back to his and tried to bring the conversation back to its original focus.
“So, you were saying about the interviews?”
“Kaityln—”
“You decided revenge wasn’t worth it?”
“Damnit, just listen for a second.”
“Fine. I’m listening.” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest, giving him absolutely nothing.
“I wasn’t ever really with Rose. I needed to meet her father. She was…” Martin looked frustrated and seemed to be searching the kitchen table for the right way to explain.
Watching him struggle I suddenly understood the situation, and I supplied for him. “She was a means to an end? You used her because of who her father is?”
For some reason this thought made me feel both better and worse.
Martin gritted his teeth. “Maybe it will make more sense once I explain more about the foundation.”
“Okay, tell me about the foundation.”
I watched his chest expand with a large breath and his eyes settle back on mine; but now they looked as guarded as I felt.
“The actual plan—alternate source of Internet delivery for rural areas—still made sense, even without the ultimate goal of revenge on my father. So rather than focus my energy on Denver Sandeke, I turned my attention to how I could work with the team I’d assembled to make this venture meaningful and profitable. We’re not doing this to drive my father out of business—although that may eventually happen, and at the very least, Sandeke Telecom and the rest of the big monopolies will have to cut their prices drastically—we’re doing this because it makes sense. It’s a unique opportunity, and, yes, it will make a difference.”