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She can’t know how she’s just sliced my heart into ribbons. I’ve always had Harper on my side. Yes, she’s often the voice of doom when it comes to business because she’s not a risk taker, but she’s still on my side. “The initial investment we’ll have to pay back, but we did not sign a contract with her. Honestly, we have no legal requirement to pay it back, but she knows if we start showing a profit I’ll do it. Once we have a good business plan if she chooses to fund us, we’ll negotiate her part. It would be great if we could fund ourselves because we’re super wealthy or if we could find people who didn’t need to get paid, but this is the reality of our business.”
“I’m not saying you mean to hurt him.”
It feels like she’s saying something far worse. “No, what you’re saying is that it’s my nature to.”
“It’s not your nature. That’s the whole point. CeCe taught you to be this way.”
“To be a businessperson? To be tough? To ask for what I’m worth?” Harper does all of those things, too. I can’t help but think the word hypocrite.
“To not care about anything but money.” She sits back, and her eyes close for a moment. “Ivy, I didn’t mean that.”
It’s my turn to push my chair back. “I think you did. We’re disappointing the hell out of you, aren’t we? Me and Ani.”
Her hands are flat on the table as if she’s ready to pop up if she has to. “I just want you to be happy.”
“Are you happy? You seem to be the supreme ruler on everyone else’s choices and yet I don’t see you dating anyone. I don’t see you doing anything but working like the rest of us. I’m sorry we’re not successful enough for you, but we also didn’t have everything handed to us.”
“CeCe handed you a whole lot,” Harper counters. “I’m so sick of hearing your ‘woe is me, I started from the bottom’ story. You didn’t start from the bottom. You started from CeCe’s mountain of cash, and you started at the top of it. She wanted a daughter because she’s never had one and you’re her freaking heir.”
I’m not her heir. That’s a Jewish charity organization, but I get Harper’s point. I don’t see why being CeCe’s selected daughter is such a bad thing. “I have worked hard for everything I have. I am well aware that CeCe’s backing acts as privilege, but don’t think I didn’t work to build every business I’ve been associated with, and I’ll work my ass off to make Heath as much money as I can. Money is freedom in tech. Money means we get to work on anything we want to work on even when it’s completely off the rails. And if you think I’m such a bad bet, why don’t you talk to Heath and get him to dump me. We haven’t signed anything yet. We’ve got a handshake. You still might be able to save him if you try real hard.”
She’s quiet, and her eyes are firmly on the table.
The betrayal hits me like a slap to the face. I swear I can feel it. “You already did.”
She bites her bottom lip. “I just want him to be careful.”
Somewhere along the way I became the enemy here. I stare at the woman I think of as a sister and realize that even sisters break.
“What’s going on?” Anika is back, and it looks like she’s touched up her eye makeup which means she’s likely been crying.
I turn her way. “Do you think I’m going to screw Heath over?”
She hesitates. “No. I don’t think you mean to.”
But they think I’m the bad guy. They think I’m going to drag him down. I wonder how much further this goes. “Like I dragged Nick down?”
Harper’s head shakes. “That’s a completely different situation. I know what happened with him. He screwed you over and all you’ve talked about since is never letting it happen again. I don’t want Heath to get caught in your crossfire.”
“You do talk about revenge a lot,” Anika agrees.
“On Nick, not the whole male population. And I haven’t even thought about Nick in a week.” Honestly, tonight is the first time he popped into my head, and it’s all because they’re dredging up my old business. This is ridiculous, and we’re gathering an audience.
“You haven’t?” Harper’s gaze sharpens. “Now why is that?”
“Because I’m building a business,” I reply. “Or maybe it’s because I’m having so much fun coming up with ways to fuck Heath over. Apparently in your head it’s what I think about always.”
“I didn’t say that,” Harper insists. “I don’t think you’ll mean to hurt him.”
“No. You think everyone around me gets hurt.” It wasn’t anything I hadn’t thought while I’d been forced to shut down a company that should have been in business for years. I screwed up. I trusted the wrong people.
