Insecure (40 page)

He over-tipped her, felt like she deserved it, though he hoped she wasn't a prophet, and she had someone of her own to hug.

It'd been a long time now since he hugged anyone, since he'd wanted to. He'd be asleep five minutes after he hit the bed.

An hour later, he turned the TV on.

There's a state that comes after sleep deprived and before insomnia that was more like reluctance with a hint of desperation. Fuck Dillon, fuck the cabbie, all he could think about was Cinta. And he hadn't done that outside dreams for six months.

The dreams were bad enough. Nonsense, not even memorable like the fantasies he'd once built about her out of leather and soft, warm flesh. They gave him the equivalent of a hangover the next day. He'd walk around like he was missing something but didn't know what or where to look. He made mistakes when he was like that, woke grumpy and stayed that way for days, made the staff anxious about talking to him. Flipped himself out about turning into a better dressed version of Nolan.

He grabbed a tablet and opened the browser. Then shut it again. The TV was showing footage of tornado damage. If he googled her he'd know what she decided was more important to her than him. Knowing would only make it harder to forget. He'd deliberately not emailed, phoned, texted or looked her up, because the less he knew the easier it would be to move on. He'd had one frank and awkward discussion with Jay in which he'd said they'd split and it was for the best, and in the way the two of them avoided talking about Cinta, it'd never been mentioned again.

He'd moved on. So why was he sitting in the dark with his index fingers poised to type her name in the browser he'd opened again? He shut it and threw the tablet down to the other end of the bed.

He could be sharing this bed with someone and then he might sleep. He was overstressed and undersexed and it was morning and he was wide awake. Flick, flick, flick, he changed the channel till he stopped on footage of police tape, ambulances. Flick, football, flick, a man weeping, flick, car racing. He shut the TV off.

He had to shut it all off or he'd lose his mind.

He could be a tech star, a rich fuck, a Silicon Valley resident. He could breathe the same air as other geeks who'd changed the world, but he didn't have anyone in his life he wanted to hug. He'd soon be able to buy all the fucking hugs he wanted and any other service above and below board on offer, but he couldn't see her face, hear her voice or sleep next to her.

He got up and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. The sun was up. Would she be sleeping now? Could she sleep without him six months on and not be exhausted? Was she alone? Was she as lonely as he was?

He wasn't getting over this. The longer he went without her the more it ate him.

He had to get it together. He'd crash now and go out later, do what he needed to do to bring a woman home for the night, what he needed to do to clear his head and keep his focus. He should've done it months ago.

He'd let the memory of Cinta hold him captive again and there was no point to that.

“You cooked this, from scratch, by yourself.” Jay put his hand to his throat. “I think I'm in shock.”

Jacinta squinted at him. He wasn't dressed yet, but he could clearly dish out sarcasm without pants. “No, your kitchen is such a marvel of engineering and science that BLT in front of you cooked itself.”

He laughed and resettled his dressing gown around his hairy legs. “Mace taught you.”

She nodded and turned to make coffee. Jay looked like he needed it. He got back home earlier this morning, and though he flew first class he was shattered. His schedule had been such a nightmare she could count the times she'd seen him in the last half year on one hand. And he'd always been a lousy correspondent. Warm in person, but brisk and impersonal in writing, so they'd never had much of an online connection. He was only home for a couple of days, so she'd jumped at the chance to see him this morning. She'd missed him and there was a lot to catch up on.

When he was sipping his latte he said, “He did it. Can't say I'm surprised.”

She stalled, cup to mouth. Who was the he in that sentence?

“Canny bastard. Always was.”

Ah, he meant Malcolm, newly appointed Chairman of NTC Industries, one of the boards he'd been on. Aggressive bastards did have a way of coming out on top time and time again.

“Any contact?”

Another ambiguity. She frowned.

“Cin, I mean with Malcolm. I'll talk about Mace if you want me to, but you have to ask.”

“No contact. I suspect we're both happier that way.”

Jay harrumphed. And he could mean anything by that too. She should've headed him off by being more specific. “With either of them.”

“Tom?”

“Doing well.” She smiled. Turns out Tom was good at taking advice, the kind she was keen to deliver, and was much more deserving of the top job than she'd imagined. Turns out she was right about the type of consulting services Wentworth needed as well, not that Aaron was getting the benefit of her insight. Seems in a roundabout way he'd given her a lead on a job anyway. She really did owe him lunch.

“Now explain the name to me. Third Way. I was worried you'd gotten religion when you first mentioned it.”

She laughed. “Oh, it's religion all right.” That's exactly what the name of her new consulting practice was to her, sacred. “I could've had a corporate job, the big salary, the corner office, my old career. But I felt like it was a phase I'd worked through. The thought of doing that again.” She shuddered. The sacrifice, the half life, no amount of salary packaging made that desirable. In the wake of Mace leaving, faced with a new employment contract, it'd been a shock to realise how much she'd changed, how different the things she wanted were. “Or I could've sold up every share, every remaining asset I had and gambled the lot on being an artist. I wanted both, and this was the only way I could see I was going to get it. Be my own boss. I have my client portfolio and my art portfolio. I have two wardrobes of clothing and two sources of income. The third way is my way.”

“Very Frank Sinatra.”

“So you approve.” The old Jacinta would've prized Jay's approval. The BLT cook didn't give a squirt of mayonnaise for it and that was a much healthier position.

“Since I can hire you from time to time to work with start-ups, yes, I approve. But what about you?”

“I'm happy.” She'd done the right thing, not stepping back into her old way of living. It felt good.

He gave her the once-over. “You look well.” He apparently found that puzzling, but then he'd seen her doing so badly in those first days after Mace. “Tell me more.”

“I don't feel blue anymore.” Her despair had hardened like eggshell around the liquid mush of her heart and she could go about acting normally now. “I'm challenged. I name my own price, my own hours. I can work from anywhere I want, and I don't have to meet anyone's expectations but my own.”

“It's what you want?”

In the absence of what she couldn't have, who she couldn't have. “What I need. What I can make a good life from. One of the best decisions I've made.”

Jay waved a crust of toast at her. “And no regrets?”

She sighed. “You want me to ask about him.” She fisted hands to hips. “Has he asked about me?”

“After that one excruciating conversation where I thought he might punch me—me, the man who has financed his dream, rather than tell me anything, no, your name has not once been mentioned. Thank Christ. I'm too old to feel fear like that.”

She stifled a laugh. “Then I don't need to know about him.” Because knowing about him was throwing the window open and letting the sights and smells of summer in when she was still wrapped in winter and needed insulation from wondering what if.

“Truly.”

Jay could be snippy; he only need say a single word to cut. She folded her arms. She needed to get him to change the subject. “Why are you being mean to me?”

“It's BLT shock.” He was utterly straight-faced. “I can't accept you don't want to know.”

“You never wanted to talk about us when Mace and I were together, why would you want to now?”

“It was a conflict of interest then.” He shrugged.

And it wasn't now. It was Jay looking out for her like he'd always done. “It's been over a long time.” But not long enough to move past it. To forgive herself for calling it over.

“Time is a flexible concept.”

“Time is a limited commodity.” She'd relearned that the hard way.

“Yes, well, if you've got time, I'll have another one of these.” He waved a hand over his empty plate. “I'm starving. And while you're making it I'll tell you about Dillon, because he's a mutual acquaintance and you might want to know how he's doing.”

“I haven't heard from Dillon either.” Not that she'd expected to, he was Mace's wingman through and through. The kind of friend she'd never been lucky enough to have. It would only have been horribly awkward if he'd tried to stay in touch.

Jay pouted. “Do you want to know about the most exciting investment I've made in my whole career or not?”

She made a show of reluctance then said, “Fine,” much like a sixteen year old would, complete with eyes raised to the ceiling.

He told her. He talked at length, through his second BLT, about premises and banking covenants, markets and legal and trading issues. Ipseity employed over a hundred people, and had a strong pipeline of projected revenue, and a final capital raising he had to fly back to manage. He thought they should be able to list, if the economy favoured it, in two to five years with one of those mind-boggling capitalisations. Meanwhile, there was plenty of money being made.

“I underestimated Dillon. Knew he'd be a good salesman, he's more, a lot more. He's a leader. Incisive, a quick study. Works damn hard. People like him, trust him and want to work with him and that's half the battle.”

And only half the story. But she wouldn't ask. To ask was to bring on the ache.

Jay's big hand folded over hers. “Cin, how are you really?”

“I'm doing well, I promise.”

“You'd let me know if you weren't?”

She nodded. He'd helped put her back together twice now, after Brent when she'd been so angry and doubted her own judgement, and after Mace when she struggled to make sense of the world and come to terms with her decisions.

“I. Ah.” It had to be okay to hear news of him. She had to be strong enough by now. “God, you're leaving me hanging out here like a dirty dishcloth.”

Jay went to the fridge, took out a carton of guava juice and poured them both a glass. He made a production out of it, taking his time. She didn't want the damn juice; she wanted to hear about Mace, to know he was doing well, living his dream, like she was hers. To know what she'd done by calling them over had been right for him.

“Oh for goodness sake, Jay. Spit it out.”

He fussed around putting the juice back in the fridge and it occurred to her maybe this was a bad idea. Six months. Mace could be married and have a kid on the way. He could be a drug addled Silicon Valley reject. He might've collapsed under the stress or stood on a desk, flamed out and quit. He had form there. She felt queasy and hot like she might vomit up breakfast.

“He can be a miserable so and so. Rude, aggressive, no time for fools and not hesitant to tell them so. He makes enemies. He doesn't care what people think of him. He's been known to shout and to hide in his office for days, rarely speaking to anyone. Never seen a man so focused. He's almost impossible to distract or intimidate.”

Jay went back to his stool and sat. She swilled juice in her glass and felt sick. Mace sounded out of control, a liability. She couldn't stand to think about him coming so close and losing it.

“But his staff worship him because he's smarter and quicker than every Stanford grad they've hired, and he works harder. He's also not afraid to apologise. And that goes a long way to earning him forgiveness. Man's an exact fit with the tech entrepreneur role, like all the groundbreakers before him. He's going to make me and all of the investors very happy. There are men and women like Dillon out there, not many, but they're around, but people like Mace,” Jay shook his head, “rare and special.”

She drank the juice, guava and relief a potent combination, but no aid to hiding her feelings and Jay was an expert at reading them.

“Oh, don't get upset. You knew most of this about him before I did.”

She picked up a tea towel and twisted it into a rope. “Is he?” It was fine to know he was doing so well, but it didn't answer her other questions. “Has he?”

“Shouldn't matter to you.” Jay took the tea towel out of her hands and smoothed it out. “You only wanted him to be successful, right? Happy, personally fulfilled wasn't part of the deal you struck.”

“You're still angry with me.”

When he heard what she'd done, how she'd chosen to send Mace away, Jay had been tight-lipped and grim. But he'd never once questioned her decisions or interfered in her life. He stood beside her and offered her friendship.

“Not angry. Frustrated. Look at the two of you; professionally stunning, but personally useless. Stuttering around in uncertainty, insecure when you should be standing taller than most with the gifts you both have. I am somewhat offended by the waste of precious resources.”

She laughed. It was enough of an answer. And it was an apt description of where she'd been; hooked by uncertainty, second-guessing by habit. But confident people could doubt and falter, brave people could waver and be afraid. Absolute certainty didn't have a postcode, age range, gender or profession. It was human to hesitate, make mistakes and need to start over.