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He nods. “Correct. If you mess up, Todd, you’ll be making a fool out of me, too. I’m not just going to back off from buying HeartMatch; I’ll go out of my way to ruin you for besmirching my name in the process.”
“Wow.”
He laughs. “I know. Welcome to the shark tank, kid. Ethics may be dead in this business, but my money and my reputation still carry weight. And as long as my money and my reputation are still wanted, I get to set some of the rules.”
“Fair enough,” I sigh in a half-joking concession.
“If you agree to all the terms and conditions, we can have our lawyers take one last glance at the contract before we go on to audit your company’s inner working. We’ll move on to the next stage in the meantime,” he replies.
I’m confused. “I thought the audit was the next stage.”
“That’s for the lawyers to handle. I’m talking about you and me, Todd. I believe we’re forging a friendship here, not just engaging in a sale.”
It’s my turn to give Piper a worried look. What the hell kind of game are we playing at, here? He’s supposed to have the contract signed, then his lawyers are supposed to audit my company while my lawyers audit his financial assets and ensure he’s got the full funds for the purchase, and then we sign the frickin’ sale before I haul my hind out of here and straight to Thailand. There are experiences I wish to try therewithoutbeing in a couple.
“What exactly did you have in mind?” I ask John.
“A lunch date with you and the missus. You can bring junior over to our house, too. We’ll have a barbecue, drink some wine, let our kids play… Mine are pretty young too. The youngest is three, so she’d get along fine with yours.”
“Right. Yeah. Not the worst idea,” I reply with a tight smile.
“It’ll be fun, I’m sure of it. My wife cooks a mean paella—she learned a great recipe from this lovely abuela we met in a Spanish village some years ago. You’re gonna love it. Besides, it’ll help pass the time with the audit, too. We’re not just buying and selling here, Todd. We’re building a relationship based on trust and respect.”
I’m inclined to wholeheartedly disagree, but John’s offer is the best I’ve had for HeartMatch, and I can’t afford to let it fall apart.
I’ve worked too hard to get to this point.
“You know what, John? That sounds like a great idea,” I say, prompting Piper to fake-cough in a bid to draw my attention. She wants to wordlessly tell me what a terrible idea this truly is, but I cannot even look her in the eyes right now. “We’ll have to organize a weekend barbecue together, for sure. I’ll need some time, though. How about Memorial Day?”
“I’ll get my secretary to set it up,” John replies with a broad smile, then proceeds to quickly finish his coffee and rise from his chair. “I think my job here is done for now. It’s a pleasure, as always, Todd, and I’m genuinely looking forward not only to the sale but to getting to know you and your family better.”
“Likewise, John,” I say.
We shake hands, and the minute that follows as I watch Piper escort him out of the meeting room is the longest and hardest-to-stomach minute of my entire existence. There is so much riding on this sale. One wrong step, and it will blow up in my face. There’s no turning back now. I have to see this through, one way or another, or I will lose everything. It’s not just my livelihood hanging in the balance. Every single employee here is at risk. I can’t. I just can’t lose this.
“Are you insane?!” Piper hisses after she storms back into the meeting room and carefully shuts the door behind her, making sure no one else can overhear us. “Barbecue with the family?!”
“What other choice did I have? Tell him no?”
“You don’thavea family, Todd! You’re not married! You don’t have a kid!”
“Well, we’re going to have to figure something out, then,” I reply, crossing my arms as I sink back into my chair. “Otherwise we’re all screwed.”
It’s not fair to Piper. It’s not fair to anybody in the company. It certainly isn’t fair to John. But I told the lie years ago, and it has haunted me ever since. It helped back then, and now it’s the one thing that could easily crumble my credibility and my reputation. I run a hand through my hair, surprised to find tiny beads of sweat lingering along the temples. I’m in too deep now.
There’s no turning back anymore.
CHAPTER2
TODD
“You never should have lied in the first place,” Piper says, her hindsight forever stuck on twenty-twenty. We’re in my office now, scrambling to strategize even though I only see one option going forward, and failure isn’t it. “You should’ve pitched HeartMatch differently since day one. Seed investors didn’t need to know you met your wife through the earlier app version. They would’ve put their money into it without that nonsense.”
“You weren’t there that day,” I reply, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I was losing the room. There were fifty other apps competing for millions of dollars, and I could feel my funding slipping through my fingers. I wasn’t credible to these folks.”
“You were quite the hound dog at the time, so that didn’t help.”
I shrug. “I was single and without commitment. Of course I was hitting it left and right without any kind of shame or discrimination—what did you expect? Only… people weren’t quite sure that HeartMatch wasn’t going to be another dating app that would eventually turn into a hookup hub for cheaters and sugar babies… I lied, yeah. I told Rick and the others that I’d met my wife through my own app. And it worked—because the next day… they were all pouring money into HeartMatch. Two weeks later, I hired you, Piper. Remember how happy you were when you came on board?”
