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“After,” I repeated, not understanding. “After what?”
“After I’m back in Indiana.” He folded his hands primly in his lap and kept his gaze fixed on them. “I mean, if you’re saying someone’s already working on an idea like this… then that’s great. That’s all I really wanted, you know? To have someone care about this and take the time to improve the system. And since there’s no sense in me bringing it to Jus—uh, to anyone else—if Sterling Chase is already taking care of it, then I don’t need to stick around New York anymore.” He shrugged. “It’s not the way I expected things to go, but my parents and Bobby will be thrilled I’ll be home sooner than I planned, and I… I’ll be content.”
“Well, I fucking won’t.” Not with any of it. Not with someone else taking credit for Rowe’s brilliance, and sure as hell not with Rowe being a thousand miles away from me.
His gaze flew to mine. “But—”
“That is not how this ends, Rowe.” I gripped his chin firmly so he couldn’t look away. “Before, you told me that you wanted more time with me—more time to get your project seen—before you turned back into a pumpkin. But you’ve gotten it all wrong from the very beginning. You’re not the fucking pumpkin of this story. You’re thePrince. And you’re not going to fade back into obscurity in Linden and take all your beauty and intelligence and light with you. I won’t let that happen. Do you hear me?”
He shook his head. “Bash, there’s no sense in—”
“There iseverysense. Because you deserve better, Rowe. Not for Daisy. Not for your parents. Foryourself. It’s time that both of us stop worrying about what the world wants and expects from us and start thinking about what we want for ourselves.You only get one life, and if fear holds you back from living it the way you want, you’re wasting it. Isn’t that what Daisy said?”
“Y-yes. And I want to believe that. But Bash… how am I supposed to fight this?” He threw up his hands in frustration. “Proving to you that I’m telling the truth is one thing. Proving it to everyone else in the world? Proving it to people who’ll take one look at my resume and know how unlikely it is that a guy like me could come up with an idea like this? That’s gonna require lawyers, and money, and time… all things I don’t have. I’m just… one person.”
“You aren’t.” I shifted closer, cupping his jaw with both hands. “Not if you don’t want to be. You don’t have to do any of this alone.”
I could see the hesitation in his eyes, and it nearly killed me, but I understood it. It was too much to expect him to have faith in me this quickly. Not when it seemed like he hadn’t had anyone who believed in him for a long while. But I would show him.
“Start with this,” I said, sitting back just a little but setting a hand on his knee because I couldn’t stand to break our connection entirely. “Tell me who else knows about your project.”
Rowe ran a hand over his forehead, disordering his curls again. “I guess… a lot of people knowaboutit. Know the general gist of it. Like I said, I’ve talked to my parents about the research, but they don’t really get it. Same with Joey and his parents. Uh. Bobby’s helped me out a little bit with the app-coding aspect, but we never really discussed the process part. And the medical people I talked to know about the research and maybe some of my ideas about the process, but not about the app, so… I don’t think anyone back home really knows about the whole thing. Definitely not enough to steal the idea.”
I nodded. “That’s what I figured from what you explained so far.” And it was too bad because it would have been convenient if there’d been a plausible explanation for how Austin had gotten the idea that wouldn’t mean someone on my team—a person I’dtrusted—had masterminded the theft of intellectual property. “Who have you shared your research with? I know you said you sent out a lot of meeting requests. Maybe you don’t remember all of them—”
“Oh, no, believe me, I remember each and every one. It’s almost embarrassing to admit this, but I was so new to the process that, at first, I was sending out letters one at a time, like otherwise there might be this mad stampede of people clamoring to get at this project—”
“That’s not impossible. It does occasionally happen. But with Sterling and our competitors, there’s a certain level of professional courtesy, mostly because it’s good business strategy. If one company has already studied the feasibility of a concept with an eye toward getting a patent, it’s rare that another company will pursue the same idea since that would result in a lot of legal wrangling.”
“So I accidentally did the right thing? That’s comforting, I guess.” He rolled his eyes. “So, the first request I sent was to Sterling Chase a while ago, specifically to Austin Purcell since he’s the head of development. I waited about a week, and when I hadn’t heard anything back, I sent a second letter. A whole big packet of information this time, with some background on the project and a heartfelt letter.” Rowe groaned. “If only I’d known at the time that Austin was the kind of entitled asshole who’d threaten to withhold a burrito delivery person’s tip if the delivery guy didn’t give him personally identifying information. Anyway, then—”
“Wait, hold up. Austin did that. Just now?” My voice vibrated with outrage.
“Yeah, downstairs. I think your guy needs some sensitivity training.”
Oh, Austin certainly needed something. I added a large black mark to my mental tally of his offenses.
“Go on,” I all but growled.
“Uh… okay. Well, three days later, I got a form-letter rejection.Dear Mr. Prince,blah blah blah,we do not feel that your ‘Project Daisy Chain’ merits further development by our company at this time.It was disappointing, but I figured—ow!” Rowe winced and pushed at my hand. “Bash, I’m gonna need this knee later.”
I realized too late that I’d been squeezing Rowe’s leg with possibly bruising force. I instantly snatched my hand away. “Christ, I’m so sorry.”
“What’s up with you? You were okay, and then I quoted the rejection letter, and your face just got all…” He blinked. “Oh. Fuck. It’s Austin Purcell, isn’t it? He’s the one who had a similar idea to Daisy Chain? Do you think that’s why he rejected me?”
Rowe was so fucking sweet. Instead of immediately jumping to the conclusion that someone had stolen his idea and passed it off as their own, he was giving Austin the benefit of the doubt.
I was way past that.
Still, though, I tried to speak diplomatically. “I’m concerned that it’s a bit… worse than that.”
“You think he stole it.”
Okay, so maybe I hadn’t spoken as diplomatically as I’d thought.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “That’s exactly what I think. I think he’s passing your idea off as his own.”
“But… why?”
