Chapter 36 THIRTY-SIX
By the time they left around ten, Lennox felt lighter than she had in months. The investors had loved her. The deal was basically done. And she'd actually enjoyed herself instead of just surviving it.
In the car back, Callum was quiet. She glanced over.
"What?"
"Nothing. You were just..." He shook his head slightly. "You were really great tonight."
"I just talked. That's all I did."
"No. You were brilliant." He looked at her properly. "They're going to call tomorrow to finalize everything. Diane already texted asking for your contact info. She wants you for some women in tech panel she's organizing."
"Wait, really?"
"Really." His expression softened in the dim light of the car. "You're good at this. Better than you know."
That warm thing in her chest got warmer. "Thanks."
Back at the suite, neither of them moved toward the bedroom or the couch. Just stood there in the living area, restless. Still buzzing from dinner maybe, or something else.
"Do you want..." Callum gestured vaguely. "Wine? There's wine."
"Yeah. Yes. Wine sounds good."
He opened a bottle from the minibar, poured two glasses with slightly shaking hands. She noticed but didn't say anything.
Then he walked to the balcony doors, pushed them open. "Come here. The view's... just come here."
The balcony was small. The view was not. The city spread out below them, lights everywhere, like someone had dropped stars all over the ground. Cold air hit her bare arms and she shivered but didn't move to go back inside.
They stood at the railing, not quite touching. Drinking wine. Staring at San Francisco in silence.
"I like it here," Lennox said after a while. "It feels different from New York. Less..."
"Suffocating?"
"Yeah. That. Less consuming, I guess. Like you can actually breathe."
"It's temporary," Callum said. "That probably helps. You can enjoy it because you know you're leaving."
"Maybe." She took a drink. "Or maybe it's just nice to be somewhere nobody knows who we're supposed to be."
He looked at her. "Who are we supposed to be?"
"I don't know anymore." She laughed but it came out shaky. "The perfect billionaire couple? Strangers who happen to live together? Something in between?"
"Something in between," he repeated quietly. "Yeah. That sounds about right."
More silence. But comfortable this time. Easy.
"Tell me something," Lennox said. "Something real. Not about the company or the marriage or any of this." She gestured at nothing. "Just... something true."
Callum was quiet for so long she thought maybe she'd pushed too far. Then he sighed, leaned his elbows on the railing.
"Like what?"
"Your first big deal. The one that proved you weren't just your father's son."
His jaw tightened. She almost took it back but then he started talking.
"I was twenty-four. Fresh out of business school. Cole was off doing his own thing, didn't want anything to do with the company yet. My father was..." He paused. "Skeptical. About whether I had what it took."
"What it took for what?"
"For business. The killer instinct, he called it. The ability to see opportunity and take it even when everyone else thinks you're crazy." Callum's voice got softer. Younger somehow. "There was this startup. Barely six months old. Developing encryption software. Everyone thought they were too risky. Too unproven. My father wanted to pass. The board wanted to pass."
"But you didn't."
"No. I saw something in the founder. This kid, twenty-two years old, brilliant but terrible at presenting himself. He showed up to our office wearing a hoodie and sneakers to pitch to a room full of men in three-thousand-dollar suits." Callum smiled at the memory. Small but real. "My father almost threw him out before he even started talking."
"But you listened."
"I listened. And I realized he wasn't just smart. He was visionary. He understood where security technology was heading before anyone else did. He just... he couldn't explain it well. Kept getting nervous and stuttering. But the ideas were solid."
"What did you do?"
"Went over my father's head. Used my trust fund. Convinced two board members to back me personally. Bought a significant stake in his company for half a million dollars."
Lennox almost choked on her wine. "Half a million? At twenty-four?"
"Yeah. It was insane. If I'd failed..." He shook his head. "If I'd failed, I would've been done. My father would've had all the proof he needed that I wasn't capable. That I was just a spoiled kid playing businessman."
"But you didn't fail."
"Almost did. Twice, actually. The company nearly tanked in the first year. Bad press. Technical setbacks. Everyone told me to cut my losses. But the founder, Marcus, he kept pushing. Kept innovating. Kept believing in what he was building." Callum took a drink. "Three years later, we sold to a bigger tech firm for two hundred million."
"Holy shit."
"My share was forty-eight million. Not huge by Westbrook standards but enough." His expression softened even more. "Enough to prove I knew what I was doing. That I could see value where other people just saw risk."
"What happened to Marcus?"
"He's a VP at Google now. Still sends me Christmas cards every year with pictures of his kids." Callum smiled again. "He named his son after me. Middle name. I didn't find out until like three years later."
Lennox stared at him. Seeing something she hadn't seen before. Not the cold billionaire in perfect suits who always had the right answer. But a kid. A twenty-four-year-old kid who'd bet everything to prove himself. Who'd seen potential in someone nobody else believed in.
"Your father must've been proud."
"He was furious that I'd gone around him." Callum's smile turned complicated. "But yeah. Eventually. Proud. He never said it directly though. Just started asking my opinion in meetings. Letting me lead deals. That was his version of approval, I guess."
"That sounds really lonely."
"It was what it was." He shrugged but there was something tired in the gesture. "He wasn't a bad father. Just... not a warm one. Everything was about the business. About legacy. About being strong."
Lennox wanted to touch him. Put her hand over his. Something. Tell him she understood what it felt like to constantly prove yourself. To never be quite enough no matter what you did.
But she didn't. Just gripped the balcony railing tighter. Knuckles going white with the effort of not reaching for him.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For telling me that."
"You asked." He looked at her and god, in the dim light from the suite behind them, his eyes were soft. Unguarded. Vulnerable in a way that made her chest physically ache.
She wanted to kiss him.
Wanted it so badly her hands were shaking. Wanted to close the two feet between them and taste the wine on his lips and feel his hands in her hair. Wanted to stop pretending this was just business, just a contract, just anything other than what it was actually becoming.
Her fingers tightened on the cold metal railing. The only thing keeping her anchored. Keeping her from doing something they couldn't take back.