Her conversation with Jacob was fresh in her mind, what he’d said about the end of his friendship with Adam. What if things had been different and they had remained friends? “Funny, but he says the same thing about you.”
Adam turned and narrowed his focus, his eyes launching daggers at Anna. “You spoke to him about this?”
“Actually, I met with him. I told him that LangTel is interested in Sunny Side.”
“I can’t believe you would do that.”
“Come on, Adam.” Anna leaned forward, hoping to plead with her eyes. “We would be passing up a huge opportunity. Just take a minute and look past your history with Jacob for the good of LangTel. You’ll see that I’m right.”
Adam stood up from the table. “I can’t listen to this anymore. I’m going to answer emails and take a shower.” He leaned down and kissed the top of Melanie’s head. “Good night.”
“That’s it?” Anna asked, bolting out of her seat, her chair scraping loudly on the hardwood floors. “The almighty Adam passes down his decree and I’m supposed to live with it, even when my idea could make billions for the company he won’t hand over because he’s so concerned with its success?”
“Look, I call the shots. I’m CEO.”
Anna felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “You’ve reminded me of that every day since you took over.”
“Good. Because I don’t want to talk about this ever again. And I don’t want you to speak to Jacob Lin ever again, either.” He started down the hall, but turned and doubled back, raising a finger in the air as if he’d just had the greatest idea. “In fact, I forbid it.”
“Excuse me?” She remained frozen, beyond stunned. “You forbid it?”
“Yes, Anna. I forbid it. You are my employee and I am forbidding you to talk to him. He’s dangerous and I don’t trust him. At all.”
Three
Jacob ended his first conversation with Adam Langford in six years with a growl of disgust, dropping his cell phone onto the weight bench in his home gym. Where exactly did Adam get off calling him? And issuing orders? Stay away from his sister? Keep your little cell phone company to yourself? Jacob had a good mind to get in his car, storm through the lobby of LangTel up to Adam’s office and finally have it out, once and for all. Lock the door. Two guys. Fists. Go time.
Jacob leaped up onto the treadmill, upping his pre-set speed of six miles per hour to seven. Rain streaked the windows. Morning sunlight fought to break through gray September clouds looming over the Manhattan skyline. His long legs carried him across the conveyor belt, his breaths coming quicker, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t painful. He upped his speed again. He craved every bit of release he could get—no sex in two months, a powder keg of a job and an infuriating phone conversation with his biggest adversary made him feel as if he might explode.
It was more than what Adam had said, it was the way he’d said it, so smug and assuming. Adam wasn’t all-powerful. He never had been, although he loved to act as though he was. Adam did not control him. The suggestion, even the slightest hint that he did, made his blood boil. He’d show Adam. He’d do whatever the hell he wanted. He would get as close to Anna as humanly possible, in any way she wanted to be close to him. If she wanted to do business, they would. If she wanted a replay of that kiss, they’d do that, too.
Jacob quickly finished five miles, every stride only steeling his conviction that Adam needed to be humbled, big time. He’d felt that way before Anna had come into the picture, and although she had no idea, she’d set off a chain of events that left him fixated on his goal. Adam needed to know what it felt like when someone destroyed everything you’d worked so hard for.
That was merely the business side. There were other unpaid debts. When Adam had betrayed him, he’d thrown away their friendship as if it meant nothing. That left a familiar void—Jacob found himself without a close friend, exactly as he’d lived out much of his childhood and adolescence, shuttled from one private school in Europe to another, never having enough time to fit in.
He’d been a straight-A student, but hardly had to try at all—that annoyed the hell out of the smart kids. He came from unspeakable wealth, but it was new money. He’d had to learn the hard way that there was a difference. He didn’t have a notable lineage behind his family name. His father was immensely powerful, but that was in the Asian banking world, not the entrenched circles of old-world high society in England and France. Jacob was left in a no-man’s-land, with plenty of money for the highest tuitions, the grades to get into the best schools and nothing to focus on but studies that didn’t challenge him in the slightest.