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“Well,” Rahm said, smirking as he sent his father a link through the video conferencing software they used, fresh from a company they owned. “I’d like you to take a look at this new company, TrackSmart. It keeps track of your map requests in order to personalize opt-in advertising specifically to your—”
Impatient, his father waved a hand, royal robes rustling slightly half a world away. Rahm hid a satisfied smile, knowing his father zoned out – and logged off – at the slightest mention of tech talk. “Fine, fine,” he huffed. “So where to next?”
“They’re out of Vegas,” Rahm said, suddenly listless about his plans to uproot from balmy, breezy South Beach for another sandy stretch of desert, no matter how glittery it might look at night. “So I’ll be closing up shop here within the week.”
“Good, good,” his father said, sounding distracted as he reached for his computer mouse. “Keep me updated on your progress and, son?”
“Yes father?” Rahm asked, reaching for his own mouse to log off as well.
“This time make sure to do business with other men,” he said. “You’ll find it less… distracting.”
Rahm chuckled, more at his own humiliation than his father’s empty words. They logged off, as they did each week, without warmth or sincerity. In that moment, Rahm realized his father knew as much about women as he did technology, making him wonder how much he knew about the fairer sex as well.
A knock sounded at the door as he closed his laptop, as interested in researching another new tech company as he was hearing outdated misogyny from his own father. “Yes?” he asked, watching Ahmed walk through the door with a cocky grin.
“I’ll be sending a small team ahead of us to Vegas,” his head bodyguard assured him, looking casual and statuesque in an all white track suit. “I’m just wondering if you have any thoughts on who to include.”
Rahm sighed, peering around him at the half-disassembled office full of packing boxes and shipping tape. “I trust your judgment,” he said, nodding back to the muscular giant taking up half the vacuous room. “Send who you think is best.”
Ahmed nodded dutifully, but lingered uncharacteristically. “Yes?” Rahm asked patiently of the hulking behemoth. “Is there anything else?”
Ahmed shook his head, all while inching deeper into the room. “No, boss, just… are you sure Vegas is the right place for you?”
“What do you mean?”
Ahmed bowed, deferentially, just as Rahm had during the weekly teleconference with his father. “Nothing much, sir, it’s just that… you always used to get excited about closing up shop and heading somewhere new. I mean, usually… you’d have had these boxes full and marked for shipping by now.”
Rahm nodded, smirking at his old friend and longtime employee. “I can’t explain it,” he confessed. “I’m just losing interest in chasing down one company to the next.”
Ahmed had come close enough to lean against Rahm’s modern, stainless steel desk. “But all the cities you wanted to explore?” he reminded Rahm. “All the wine, nightlife and song you wanted to experience? All the women you wanted to plunder? Aren’t those enough to excite you anymore?”
Rahm thought long and hard about the question, though he knew Ahmed had posed it in jest. All the same, he wasn’t sure how to answer. In a way, he supposed, his silence was the only honest reply. “If not,” Ahmed said, tapping a third computer monitor on his desk. “You might want to check your search alerts.”
“Whatever for?” he asked, hand itching to reach for the mouse all the same.
“Seems Carly is at it again, sniffing out a hot new tech tool in town.”
“And I should care… why?” Rahm murmured, already inching closer to his desk.
“No reason, boss,” Ahmed said knowingly, turning toward the door before pausing to smirk over his shoulder. “I just thought it might bring you some ‘closure’ before moving on to Vegas.”
“Closure,” Rahm muttered as the hulking bodyguard shut the door behind him, leaving his boss to click away at the flurry of alerts that must have come flooding in while he’d been on the teleconference with his father all morning. “What good will that do?”
And yet, scoff as he may, Rahm couldn’t ignore the bait, ramping up to speed on TalentScount. Anything, he realized desperately, if it meant the chance to “negotiate” with Carly Stanton one last time.
Seventeen
“Miss Stanton?” came the timid voice of the new doorman downstairs.
“Yes Reggie?” Carly asked via the intercom on her desk, recalling the slightly cute, if perpetually clumsy, college kid in the too big uniform from their brief interactions before and after work each day. “What is it?”
“I know it’s after hours,” Reggie squeaked. “But… there’s a Mr. Farzik here to see you?”
Carly literally sat up in her chair, finger suddenly trembling as it reached for the intercom button. “This late?” she asked, the office bathed in the dim blue glow of her computer monitor after burning the midnight oil once again. Outside her window the dark sky blazed a shimmering black, reminding her that the last time she’d looked up from her work, it had been a glorious sunset.
Unappreciated by Carly, but glorious just the same.
“Yes ma’am,” Reggie said nervously. “I explained our policies and procedures to him, but Mr. Farzik is surprisingly… persistent.”
