GABE (Silicon Valley Billionaires 2)

“I just thought we could use the night away for just us, before we deal with…everything else this week. Does that sound okay?”

“That sounds perfect.”

“I’ll meet you there. I can’t wait.”

Before I left, I remembered what Ash had said about my mom. I needed to speak with her anyway, so I hit her number quickly as I headed to my car. “Hey, Mom.”

“Well, the prodigal son finally remembers he has a mother! How are you, honey?”

“I’m fine. Mostly. It’s been sort of…hectic out here.”

“That’s what Ash told me—it’s terrible about Lauren’s sister. I would love to call her, but as I haven’t actually had the privilege of meeting her yet, I thought I should wait. Can I send her a card?”

“A card?” Did people still do that? “Sure.”

“It doesn’t seem too formal to you? I feel like since I haven’t met her, it’s the only appropriate way to reach out, without overwhelming the poor girl…” She sniffed.

I groaned and hoped she didn’t hear me. “I’m bringing her to the wedding.” That is, if she doesn’t defect to China as Li Na Zhao’s prisoner.

“You’d better,” she said.

Time to switch gears. “How’s everything going? How’s Alexander?”

“He’s great!” Distracted, she chatted happily for a few minutes about her fiancé, Alexander Viejo, and his latest semester at MIT. “He said that Lauren was one of the best students he ever had,” she continued.

My mind was somewhere else. “Uh-huh.”

“Gabe, are you even listening to me? Why did you call anyway? You never call.”

“I need to ask you for something.”

There was dead silence on the other end of the line. She probably couldn’t fathom what I wanted—I was a self-made billionaire who never asked for anything.

“Are you okay, honey?” My mother’s first instinct was always to panic.

I groaned. “I’m fine. I just need something.”

She went quiet for a minute. “What?”

We’d only talked about this once, years ago, but I knew she’d figure it out. “You know…that thing we talked about in the kitchen at Christmas a few years back…”

“Oh my God!” she yelped after a moment, realization finally dawning. “Are you serious?”

I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. “I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

“You don’t want something…different? I know you could afford it.”

“Wouldn’t be the same.”

“Aw, honey,” she said, and I could tell she was crying. “You always knew how to make your mother proud.”

Chapter 13

Lauren

It was so sweet of Gabe to remember that Hannah loved The Stanford. She’d been to the hotel bar with a date, the guy she’d gone out with before Wesley, and had raved about it. “It is the hot place,” she’d told me a year ago.

I’d rolled my eyes at the time. “Thank you for sharing that information, because it’s so pertinent to my exciting lifestyle.” That was back before I’d met Gabe, when Hannah used to force me to vicariously live through her Silicon Valley