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Rees tilted his head to one side. “You’re not on good terms with the mother?”
“Ah, you know how it goes,” Byron said, waving a hand. “You shoot the gun one time around the baby and she’s all, you’re insane, you can’t shoot a gun around a baby, which isn’t true. Babies can’t even move, can’t get in the damn way, and I wasn’t shooting in her direction. I’d never be unsafe around my little girl.”
I sipped my drink to stifle my own suddenly coughing fit. That was the most insane thing I’d ever heard in my life. I knew rich people could be detached from reality, but Byron was on a whole different level.
“Must be hard,” Rees said. “Not seeing your kid.”
“Yeah, well, never thought I’d care much, but turns out I got a heart after all.” Byron leaned back in his chair, studying Reed. “You got kids? Or you ever think about having them?”
Reed looked at me again, but this time held his gaze. I didn’t know what that stare meant, or why he turned in my direction when the conversation turned to babies, but it sent an odd chill down my spine.
“No kids,” he said, shaking his head. “And never thought about having them before. The idea of wiping ass doesn’t appeal to me.’
Byron barked a laugh. “You’re rich enough that you won’t be wiping any god damn baby ass,” he said, grinning. “Well, maybe a little, but not much. No boy, you trust me, having a little girl’s gonna change your life. Make you a cleaner man. More wholesome. You got something else to live for.”
“I can see that,” Rees said, his face carefully composed, and I wondered if he meant that.
“What about you, assistant girl?” Byron asked, looking at me.
I squinted through the smoke. “No kids,” I said. “I always figured I’d have them one day though.”
“Yeah? Bet you do, pretty girl like you. See Rees, this is the kind of woman you should be fucking, not some married Italian pop star.” Byron laughed at himself and took another drink.
“I didn’t sleep with Giana,” he said, gazing at me again, “but I see your point.”
“Unfortunately for you, I’d never give birth to your spawn, not for all the money in the world,” I said, giving him a sharp look.
Byron loved it. He cracked up, howling, legs kicked up in the air. His boot came down on the rim of the fire pit, and a second later, he yelped and pulled his heel back like it’d burned.
Rees watched me with sharp eyes, and didn’t smile. I wondered what that look meant—I was joking around, and clearly my humor landed with Byron, but there was something more in Rees’s body language than I was ready to see. He didn’t like me joking about not wanting to have his kids, and I had to wonder why.
“I like this girl,” Byron said, nodding at me, and saluted me with his drink. “You keep talking shit like that to your boss, and I just might try and hire you myself.”
“Oh, I’m much too expensive for you,” I said, smiling sweetly.
He howled again, slapping his knee. Rees’s jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed, but a little smirk slipped onto his lips.
“If you’re done flirting with my assistant,” Rees said as Byron gathered himself. “I did come all the way out here for a reason.”
“I know you did,” Byron said. “You got that fancy SPAC thing or whatever the hell it’s called.”
“Did Kevin explain it to you?” Rees asked.
“He tried,” Byron said, waving a hand in the air. “I’m an old cow hand, you know. I don’t know shit about finances. I got all my money tied up in real, tangible things.”
“Assets are good,” Rees said, “but sometimes, securities are better. I’m going to make my investors very rich, Byron. I’m going to make myself even richer.”
“I like the sound of that, but, to be frank, I don’t know shit about you, and my ass is feeling a bit smoky right now, you know what I mean? I don’t need you blowing any more up there.” He grinned, sheepish, playing the dumb cowboy—but I saw through him in that moment. He wanted us to thin he was a dumb, gun-toting hick moron. He wanted to be underestimated.
But he was shrewd. All at once, I realized he wanted to invest, but he wanted to get the best terms possible. He’d play dumb this whole time, pretend he didn’t understand what he was doing, then insist on some low buy-in price, or negotiate some aspect of the contract that’ll end up in his favor—and Rees might go for it, just to get this over with.
I knew I had to warn him, but later, when Byron wasn’t staring at us intently. Instead, I said, “Rees isn’t kidding with you. I’ve seen his business plan and read over the prospectus documents. He’s the real thing.”
