“There are going to be reductions,” he said. “But I can’t say any more than that.”
She nodded and she felt a knot of fear in her stomach. It didn’t sound good for Infinity, but she was realistic. From the beginning she had the feeling that she and her sisters had been on the chopping block. She could only hope the new game and revenue stream she’d found would be enough to give them some more time in their jobs.
“Don’t worry about it. I know you are just doing your job.”
“Do you need me to watch DJ while you shower?” he asked.
“Do you have the time?” she asked. “Normally I bring him in with me, but I got him dressed to save time.”
“I’ll watch him,” Dec said.
She started toward the bathroom, but then stopped and looked over at Dec. “I wish we could make the world go away.”
“Me, too. But I think we both knew from the beginning that was never going to happen. Everything between us is going to be influenced by your sisters, my cousins and the feud our grandfathers started.”
“I know. I was just wishing life would be simpler. When the dust settles from the meeting today, we have to talk. I meant to discuss something with you last night, but I got distracted.”
“By me?” he asked, coming over and wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her back against him. “Want to be distracted again?”
“I’d love to, but I think I’m going to need to be on time in order to impress the Playtone board.”
“Yes, you are. Just relax when you get in there and let them see how much you care about the company. And show off your smarts.”
“How do I do that?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at him.
“By being yourself.”
“I’ll try.”
“You’ll do it. I know you will,” he said, giving her a tender kiss before nudging her toward the bathroom.
She had her shower and Dec left when she did. She headed toward the Infinity Games offices and he went home to change. She couldn’t help but feel that even though he’d stayed the night with her, he’d pulled back from her a little bit.
* * *
Dec didn’t head to the Playtone Games office building after he’d been to his yacht and gotten dressed for the day. Instead he detoured out of his way and went to the Beverly Hills mansion he’d grown up in. As he fumbled in the glove box for the remote control to the large gate that surrounded the place, he sat there remembering the first day he’d arrived here.
He’d been four, so his memories were hazy. He only knew that he had a new family, but he hadn’t been told that they were wealthy, so the big house had been a bit of a shock. The wrought-iron gates with the ornate L on them for his mother’s maiden name, Lingle, had opened just as slowly then as they did today. And as he gunned the powerful Maserati engine and shot up the driveway, he realized that no matter what happened today, he wasn’t going to change inside.
He had never felt like a Montrose, partly because of the adoption, but as he got out of his car and walked to the front door of the mansion, he realized the other reason was his mother.
He’d asked her once when he was sixteen and she’d been railing against his dad why she’d married him, and Helene had said that she’d been fooled by love.
He opened the front door of the mansion. It was quiet with just the whir of the air-conditioning, and it smelled of fresh lemons. Though it sat empty, he paid a staff to clean it once a week.
With his mother’s words echoing in his head, he wandered through the big house where he’d grown up and realized that part of his fear was that Cari was playing him. There had been something almost desperate in her tone when she’d asked about the meeting later in the day. They both knew that Infinity Games was history and soon there would be little left from Gregory Chandler’s original company.
But beyond that, was there more to the two of them than a son? What was this emotion that kept making him want to give up sound business logic and do what his gut insisted and save Cari’s job? Was it love? He didn’t know. His mother had been unable or unwilling to describe what love was. All that Dec could remember was that he never wanted to feel the way his mother had felt. She’d lost herself in drink to numb the way she felt when she’d realized his father had married her for her money.
What if everything Cari had done had been to get him to try to betray his cousins and save her and her sisters?
He rubbed the back of his neck and knew there were no answers here in the past. He had to make a decision today. He had to trust Cari and the new life that she seemed to want to build with him.