“The past is history,” Jake said in a cool tone, “and I was always better at Math. Now if you’ll excuse me I have clients waiting for my attention. Paying clients.”
“Of course.” The woman slid her recording device into her bag. “You’re an example of the American dream, Jake. An inspiration to millions of Americans who had it tough growing up. Despite your past, you’ve created a highly successful company.”
Not despite, Jake thought. Because of.
He’d created a highly successful company because of his past.
He closed the door on the reporter and paced across to the window that wrapped itself around two sides of his corner office. Sun glinted through the floor-to-ceiling glass and he surveyed the high-rises of Downtown Manhattan spread beneath his feet as if he were Midas studying his pile of gold.
His eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep, but he kept them open, drinking in the view, gaining satisfaction from the knowledge that he’d earned every dazzling piece of that view.
Not bad for a boy from the wrong part of Brooklyn who’d been told he’d never make anything of himself.
Had he chosen to, he could have given the reporter a story that would have made the front page and probably won her a Pulitzer.
He’d grown up looking at the shiny promise of Manhattan from the other side of the water. He’d blocked out the incessant barking of dogs, the sounds of shouting in the street, the honking of car horns and had stared enviously at a different life. Looking across the fast-flowing tidal stretch that was the East River, he’d seen buildings reaching up to the sky and wanted to live across the water, where skyscrapers stood tall, where glass reflected light and ambition.
It had seemed as faraway and remote as Alaska. But he’d had plenty of time to stare. He’d never known his father and even as a young child he’d spent most of his time alone while his teenage mother worked three jobs.
I love you, Jake. It’s you and me against the world.
Jake stared blankly at the crisscross of streets far beneath him.
It had been a long time since anyone had mentioned her. And a long time since that night when he’d sat alone on the steps to their apartment, waiting for her to come home.
What would have happened to him if Maria hadn’t taken him in?
Jake knew he had more than a loving home to thank her for.
He shifted his gaze from the view to the computer on his desk.
It was Maria who had given him his first computer, an ancient machine that had belonged to one of her cousins. Jake had been fourteen years old when he’d hacked into his first website, fifteen when he’d realized he had abilities other people didn’t. When he’d turned sixteen he picked a company with the largest glass office, turned up at the door and told them how vulnerable they were to cyber attack. They’d laughed, until he’d shown them how easily he could break through their security defenses. Then they’d stopped laughing and listened.
He’d become a legend in cyber security, the teenager with charisma, confidence and a brain so sharp he’d held conversations with men twice his age who knew half as much.
He’d shown them how little they knew, exposed the weaknesses, then taught them how to fix it. At school he skipped every English class, but never Math. Numbers, he understood.
He’d come from nowhere, but he’d been determined that soon he was going somewhere and he was going there so fast he left everyone behind.
It was exploiting those gifts that had put him through college and, much later, bought his mother—because that was how he thought of Maria even before she’d officially adopted him—a restaurant so that she could share her cooking skills with the good folks of Brooklyn without having them packed into her kitchen as tightly as olives in a jar.
With the help of his closest friend, Matt, he’d set up his own company and developed a piece of encryption software, which was bought by a major defense company for a sum that ensured he would never have money worries again.
Then, bored by the overcrowded cyber security market he’d turned his attention to the growing field of digital marketing.
Now his company offered everything from creative content to user experience design although he still accepted the occasional private request to consult on cyber security issues. It had been one of those requests that had kept him up until the early hours the previous night.
His office door opened again and Dani, one of his junior staff, entered carrying coffee.
“I thought you’d need this. That girl was harder to shake off than a mosquito on a blood bag.” She was wearing striped socks and no shoes, a dress code followed by at least half the people working for him. Jake had no interest in what people wore to work. Nor was he interested in where a person went to college. He cared about two things. Passion and potential.
Dani had both.
She put the coffee on his desk. The aroma rose, strong and pungent, slicing through the clouds in his brain that reminded him he’d been working until three in the morning.
“She asked you questions?”
“A few thousand. Mostly about your personal life. She wanted to know whether the reason you rarely date the same woman twice is because of your messed-up childhood.”
He peeled the cap off the coffee. “Did you tell her to mind her own business?”
“No. I told her that the reason you don’t date the same woman twice is because at last count there were around seventy thousand single women in Manhattan, and if you start seeing them more than once you’re never going to get through them all.” Her expression cheerful, she handed him a stack of messages. “Your friend Matt called four times. The guy sounded stressed.”
“Matt is never stressed.” Jake took a sip of coffee, savoring the aroma and the much-needed pump of caffeine. “He is Mr. Calm.”
“Well, he sounded like Mr. Stressed a moment ago.” Dani picked up the four empty coffee cups from his desk and stacked them together. “You know, I don’t mind feeding your coffee habit but once in a while you could eat a meal or sleep at night. It’s what normal people do, in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t wondering.” What he was wondering was why his friend was calling in the middle of the working day. And why leave four messages with his assistant rather than calling him directly? Picking up his phone he saw six missed calls. Concern tugged at him. “Did Matt say what it was about?”
“No, but he wanted you to call back as soon as possible. That reporter was impressed that you turned down business from Brad Hetherington. Is that true?” She made a grab for a cup that almost toppled off the stack. “He’s one of the richest guys in New York City. I read that piece in Forbes last week.”
“He’s also an egotistical dickhead and I try really hard not to do business with egotistical dickheads. It puts me in a bad mood. Word of advice, Dani—don’t ever be intimidated by money. Follow your gut.”
“So we’re not going to work with him?”
“I’m thinking about it. Thanks for the coffee. You didn’t have to do that.” He’d told her the same thing every day since she’d first started working for his company. She still brought him coffee every day.
“Think of me as the gift that keeps on giving.” He’d given her a chance when others had closed the door in her face. She was never going to forget it. “You worked late last night and started early this morning so I thought you could do with something to wake you up.” The look in her eyes told him she would happily have found other ways to wake him up.
Jake ignored the look.
He happily broke rules made by other people, but never the ones