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The waitress came up with another stemmed glass and two more bottles. “More champagne, Mr. March? I saw you had more guests, but didn’t want to assume.”
“Perfect timing,” he replied. “I was about to flag you down.”
“We will need many more bottles before the night is done,” Furio said.
The waitress smiled. “I’ll make sure you don’t run out.”
“Wonderful!” Furio beamed at her. “Your service is exquisite. You truly are a cunt-waffle.”
Everyone gasped, and the waitress’s face went white. Then everyone spoke at once, apologizing to the poor girl and quickly explaining that English was his second language, and we all laughed as Furio looked around, confused by what he had said.
68
Amber
After the sale vote failed, the company grew faster than anyone expected. Many of the employees were disappointed by the result of the vote, but soon everyone saw it for what it was: a sign that Advanced Crypto Solutions had immense potential. Thus encouraged, they redoubled their efforts every day.
We opened our second location—in New York, not Boston, to Jude’s displeasure. Melinda was able to find an office space that was available and met our needs, and we hastily filled it with all the office equipment and employees that we needed.
Jude and Owen bounced back and forth between San Francisco and the new location. They never went at the same time, which made it easy for them to share me. When Jude was in New York, I spent more time with Owen, and vice versa.
Around Christmas, I went along with Owen. New York was cold and beautiful in the winter, and the two of us went ice skating in Rockefeller Plaza.
“See?” Owen said while we skated, hand in hand. “Without John D. Rockefeller, we wouldn’t have this. Billionaires aren’t so bad.”
“My opinion on them has changed in the last year,” I admitted.
Jude and I spent New Year’s Eve together in San Francisco. We fought the crowds down by the wharf, bar hopping from place to place until the countdown began. Fireworks exploded over the bay, over the Golden Gate Bridge and all over the peninsula, and we kissed until we were breathless and red-faced.
“I think I love you,” Jude said.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Youthinkyou do?”
He stood up a little straighter and adjusted his glasses. “No. IknowI do. I love you, Amber Moltisanti. And if you don’t love me back, that’s okay, because—”
“Of course I love you!” I replied, giving him a playful shove. “I’ve known for months.”
“Really? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I wantedyouto say it first!” I said. “I wanted to know you meant it, instead of just saying it back to me.”
He grinned, and took me in his arms. The glow of the fireworks reflected off his glasses, red and green and purple. “I love you. I like the sound of that. I love you.”
“And I love you.”
I kissed him again while the fireworks boomed above.
After the new year, I started working longer hours in the San Francisco office. I wasn’t the only one, either. We all had a new collective goal: not just success, but the desire to know we had made the right decision by voting against the Google acquisition. If we went public and the share price was higher than what Google had offered, then we would know that it was all worth it. That motivation made me leap out of bed every morning, and stay in the office until the late hours of the night.
I’m glad I’m still working here, I thought while banging away at my keyboard.It’s good for me to throw myself into a career.
In February, my relationship with Owen went public. We were at a Warriors game together, and once again Jocelyn showed up in a tight-fitting outfit and with her hair looking way too perfect. After one too many flirty remarks from her, I grabbed Owen’s face and gave him a very long,verysensual kiss. That finally shut Jocelyn up.
But some photographers saw it, too, and the two of us were on the front page of TMZ the next day.
It reflected poorly for a CEO like Owen to be dating his subordinate, so we came up with a solution that minimized the damage. We created a new role calledChief Strategic Officer. It was pretty much the same as Chief Technology Officer, but with more focus on long-term strategy. Jude moved into that role, which freed up the CTO position for me.
It didn’t feel much different. The org chart hardly changed. We kept the same offices. But now the three of us were on the same level in the company, equals in position if not in company ownership. Which meant we could date publicly without creating a huge scandal.
