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“It’s true, I did answer. Well? Should I send the jet to Chicago to collect you?”
I looked out the window at the landscape passing by the gridlocked traffic, and I thought about Ava taking a pregnancy test. I hoped she’d wait for me. “No,” I said. “Don’t send the jet.”
“Dane,” he said, sighing. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m serious. Don’t send the jet. But I never said we couldn’t work together.”
There was a brief pause. “I’m listening,” Kaito said. “Mostly because it’s the middle of the night and I’m too tired to hang up, but I’m listening.”
“I’ll contribute to your cancer project on two conditions,” I said as the bridge fell away behind the hired car and Manhattan started to recede.
“What are they?”
“First, that I work only as a consultant. And second, that you don’t pay me.”
“Okay, you’ve actually managed to surprise me. You don’t want any pay?”
“What I want is freedom,” I said. “I want to work on whatever projects I want, whenever I want. I’ll travel to Japan twice a year and contribute everything I can to the cancer project. The rest of my time is my own.”
“And what about Tower VC?”
I looked out the window again. “I’m no longer part of Tower VC. I’m resigning. I’m going to be independent, at least for a while, so I can start a family.”
Kaito cleared his throat. “Dane, you’re not married. I was just in Chicago a few days ago and your girlfriend had left you. Remember?”
“I remember. I’m going to get her back, and we’re going to have a baby.”
“You seem awfully confident about that.”
“I am.” I leaned back in my seat. “I’m sorry, Kaito. You gave me a good offer, and I know I confused the hell out of you. Aside from the fact that you’re a genius, I actually like you. I don’t mean to jerk you around. But that’s the only offer I have on the table.”
“She must be very special. You’re sure about this?”
“She is, and yes, I am.”
“All right. I’ll take your offer of free labor, just to get access to the contents of your brain. I have my own wife and children, so I can’t complain too much. I’ll have my lawyers draft an agreement at a sane hour of the morning. And I want you in Tokyo next month.”
I agreed and hung up. It was a big deal. I was going to work with Kaito Okada on the biggest, most secret project he’d ever done. I was leaving Tower VC, which I’d helped found. I was on the outs with my best friend with no plan as to how to make him forgive me. And I was technically unemployed by my own choice.
I didn’t think of any of that. I put the phone in my lap and forgot about Kaito, about Aidan, about cancer or AI or anything. They were all gone from my mind. Because I was going to see Ava, and that was all that mattered.
Twenty-Five
Ava
* * *
Dane had cut his hair.
He was standing in the doorway of the beach house, wearing jeans and a T-shirt beneath a zip-up sweater I knew was Tom Ford because I’d bought it. His beard was trimmed, and he had an overnight bag on his shoulder. And his dark brown hair was cut short, showing off his perfect jaw and his dreamy cheekbones. He’d looked sexy with long, tousled hair. He looked even sexier now. So sexy that for a second I stood gaping at him like a girl who’d never seen him before, too starstruck to even let him through the door.
He looked me up and down as the rain misted down behind him. “Your hair,” he said.
“Your hair,” I said.
He grinned. Holy hell. Grumpy Dane was hot, and one of my favorite people. I didn’t have the strength to withstand Cocky Grinning Dane. My watery knees couldn’t take it.
“I was always going to get the haircut,” he said. “I was just trying to piss you off.”
