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CANDICE
Ihave to admit, that meeting left me with a cold, hollow pit in my stomach. Not great.
Eddie and Pablo are hard at work, putting together a showcase of all the best bits of our company. If we can attract even one investor, then that would be brilliant. We need a small win. That’s all. Big wins are easier after a few small ones.
Really, I should be working too, but I’m trapped in an endless stream of cat videos. They’re cheering me up, at least. Five more minutes. I let the cute tabby crash-landing down the stairs loop a few times, smiling at the look on the poor thing’s face.
Then the phone rings.
I’m not expecting anyone, but that means nothing. I get an equal handful of spam, scammers, and genuine enquiries. I don’t think I have the patience for the first two right now.
With a sigh, I put my cellphone down and pick up the work phone. “Mettie Marketplace, this is Candice. How can I help today?”
“Hello, Candice. It’s Aiden. Fletcher.”
An ice-cold bucket of water might as well have been thrown over me. Every inch of my skin freezes over, and if he says something else, the rush of blood pounding between my ears blocks it out. I’m glad no one else is here because my mouth has dropped wide, wide open.
I wish I could say that I haven’t spent a single second thinking about Aiden since that night, eight years ago, but that’s not true at all. I’ve spent way too much of my life cursing him for ruining my heart. I swore off romance because of him. I turned down a different position at Fletcher Tech because of him. I’ve had a ball of rage tucked inside my rib cage all this time because of him.
“Is this a good time? Can we talk?”
I wish I had another door I could slam in his face.
I should hang up. I don’t need or want anything from him. But a spark of curiosity keeps me on the line, silence crackling between us as the years fall away to a memory of that night when I experienced the biggest betrayal I ever have. Surely he knows I hate him, still? What could he possibly want that would make him choose to call me?
“Candice? Are you there?”
“Yes,” I croak. “What do you want?”
He takes an unsteady breath that crackles through the phone. “I have a business proposal for you. Please hear me out.”
It’s almost funny. I can still picture his square jaw, his strong nose, the little dimple on his forehead as he frowns, like he’ll be doing now. “Okay,” I manage.
This conversation could have been worse. He could have tried to catch up. Which is the last thing I want. I’ll talk business, but that’s as far as it goes.
I grip the side of my chair, my knuckles sheet-white from the pressure.
“We’ve been looking at smaller companies lately, with an eye to investing. What I’d be offering you is an acquisition: Fletcher Tech would own Mettie Marketplace, but you would still have total autonomy to run it however you want. We’d handle the accounts and make sure everything was balanced fairly, so really nothing would change except some of the legality.”
“Why?” I choke out. I really have to try more than monosyllables. I shut my eyes tight, and add, “Why us? What benefit would that have for either of us?”
The truth is, I can see the benefit incredibly clearly — forus, anyway. The financial strength of that kind of company behind us? It’s almost dizzying how much stability that would bring. I’d be able to give everyone the pay raise they deserve; we’d be able to put more into advertising, into development, into everything. And that’s not even taking into account the interest external investors would have in us as part of Fletcher Tech.
The disadvantage, though, of course, is we’d have to be part of Fletcher Tech.
Aiden is clearly finding this difficult too. He sighs. “We feel it would be… prudent to expand our horizons a little, given the turbulent nature of the economic climate.”
“And again, without the bullshit?”
“We want to help foster new talent and help growing businesses, like yours.”
I glare at the wall so hard I almost expect a hole to burn into it. “Do you? Do you really?”
He audibly swallows. “I do. I know we have some history, but I’m willing — I’m wanting to put all that behind us, to let it go as water under the bridge. We can forge something great, going forward, if we do it together.”
“You’re so full of shit!” I snap.
In the background, I hear a murmur of other people — he must be in some kind of conference. I hope he has me on speaker. I want everyone in that room to know what a traitor he can be. No amount of smooth talking can fix any of what he did to me.
