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ADAM

S usie bounces into my office, dreadlocks pulled back from her face and bright yellow overalls slouching around her small frame. Susie used to sit on the corner of the main street near our building with her cat, playing her guitar for money. When I talked to her, she told me that Bandit was a talking point because other street performers typically had dogs and he gave her an angle and an ability to charge for photos. I liked the way she thought, so I always found some change for her. Turned out she’d worked as a street artist since she was sixteen, followed by a job in an industrial print studio, but was adamant she didn’t want to work in a company anymore. I wasn’t sure why.

One day, I was flustered and pissed and she asked me what was wrong. We’d had one of our worst months ever, and when I told her about it, she offered to help, and I realized she had a real flare for marketing. So, she ended up taking over not only the visual stuff we do, but everything else as well. I can only pay her peanuts but I’m so grateful she’s here and helping me. We have this conversation a lot: She says she’d still be on the streets if I didn’t put up with her crazy, and I tell her the company would be nowhere without her. She slaps a pile of newspapers down in front of me, and I look up from the printed circuit board I’m fiddling with to glower at her. She grins .

“I’d say you’re a hit.”

“A hit?”

“WHO IS ANNA TALANOVA’S NEW MAN?” the first headline screams at me from the papers strewn across my desk.

Oh fuck!

I shuffle them around as Susie slumps into the seat opposite me and holds up her hand ticking things off on her fingers as she talks. “I’ve had four calls from journalists this morning wanting an interview. Three conference organizers have been in touch to ask you to speak, and, get this, two calls from agents asking whether you’re interested in attending other events. With. Other. Women.” She taps the words out with her finger on the desk.

I stare at her. Shit. I didn’t brief her on this weird-ass thing that famous women do. “Ah yes, I got an invite via Janus from Anna Talanova’s agent. This is apparently something women in the public eye do. They look for men to accompany them to …” I wave my hand. “… things they have to go to.”

“Are you kidding me? It’s like … organized ?” She rolls her lips together. Then she leans forward and whispers, “One of the agents said she’d been told you ‘understood exactly how to behave’ and were—and I quote—‘nonpredatory.’”

I frown at her. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means you weren’t handsy … or anything worse.” She chews her cheek.

I think back to Anna’s slight … what would I call it? Nervousness? I wouldn’t dream of doing something like that to a woman.

“God, is that what happens?”

Anna has so much on her plate, imagine if something upset her game?

“I’ll bet my ass it does.”

She’s a world-class tennis player for Christ’s sake. What kind of man does that? But when I glance down at the papers again, I’m conflicted about the calls and the conferences. We struggle for coverage a lot of the time—who wants to talk to another startup these days? But this interest in me … it could help the business. Is that taking advantage in another way? My stomach churns. Julio’s comment about my penis on prime-time television echoes in my head. What do I know about how this works? It’s clearly a high-wire act, and I don’t wa nt my company to be roasted for some faux pas I didn’t see coming. Maybe Serge’s suggestion of a stylist makes sense: I don’t want to be papped wearing old sweats with bed-hair at the supermarket. You never wear old sweats, Adam. Yeah, Mom had strict rules about that kind of thing.

I groan. My compulsive overthinking is the bane of my life. And am I that vain already? One night out and a few photos and press articles and I’m worrying about my wardrobe? You have no money, you maniac.

“Sounds like we could pick up some coverage. What do you think? Am I setting myself up for a nightmare here?”

She laughs. “To be honest, I don’t care if it is a nightmare. All publicity is good publicity, right? This is a marketing dream. I’ve fixed two of the interviews for tomorrow, but you don’t have to do them.”

“Do you think we need a PR company to handle it?”

“Well, that would be wonderful, but we can’t afford that, can we?”

“No.”

She grins. “I can manage it for now if you’re happy to talk to the journalists.” She waves her rainbow-colored nails at me. “It’ll die down in a few days. The press is terrible. It’s all flavor-of-the-month stuff.”

She’s right. We should take the opportunity while it’s here. “Sign me up for everything.”

She stands to head back to her desk. “By the way, I also set up personal social media accounts for you this morning. You’ve already got thirty thousand followers on Instagram.”

“ What? ” I grab my phone as Susie comes around the desk to show me the account. She’s posted a photo of Anna and me outside the event on the red carpet.

“Shit. I signed an NDA.”

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s one of their pictures.”

I nod my head and start to scroll down, and she sticks her tongue in her cheek.

“What?” I say.

“Don’t read the comments. ”

“What? Why?” I flick down further.

OMG hot!

I’d let him do me on a red carpet.

“Oh, Jesus.”

Susie sniggers. “I was tempted to post a picture of you in your old jeans and your high-magnification glasses you use for fiddling with electronics, but decided I shouldn’t ruin the illusion.”

“Probably best if I don’t look at any more of that.”

She smiles. “You polish up well, boss.”

“Thank you. They certainly did a job on me.”

Her gaze roams over my hair. “Did they … color it?”

Laughing, I say, “They did.” I fill her in on my crazy evening.

“It sounds amazing,” she says eventually. “Did you take any photos?”

“I did. I shouldn’t have, given the NDA.” I turn my phone toward her as she leans over the desk and flicks through some pictures and videos. Serge doing my hair, Pepper with her rabbit, a couple of shots out the window of the car and at the event.

“Adam, these are fab! We could do a behind-the-scenes.”

I study her over my glasses. “You do realize I did them for myself.”

“But social media would love them. That video of Anna’s dog is the cutest.” She chews her lip. “I could talk to Anna’s people about it.”

I love that Susie is always bursting with ideas. I wave my hand. “Knock yourself out. Lord knows I’m not going to be posting on this account myself.”

Susie eyes me balefully. “Are you saying this stuff you do”—she waves at the board I’m designing on the screen—“isn’t riveting?”

“Put some of your art on there. That’d be way more interesting.”

“If I post as you, I’m going to have to sound like you.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I understand how this works. Just make me sound like I’m a fascinating person.”

What am I agreeing to? And a personal account? But yeah, Susie is right. I’ll be a one-week wonder, and then everyone will move on to the next story. Most companies have armies of people spending their time trying to create a buzz about what they’re doing. No way is the interest in me going to carry on. The guy who once went to a red-carpet do with Anna Talanova . Big fucking deal. This is my fifteen minutes of fame.

Susie bustles off with my phone to talk to whoever she needs to, and I swing my chair around to look out at my brick wall. It’s less like a dead end and more like a protective fort this morning. I thought this event thing was a bit of fun, but capitalizing on it could be very useful. Invitations to speak … wow. That’s never happened to me before. I need to thank Anna.

I do a quick search for flowers, and in a few clicks, I’ve set up a same-day delivery to the apartment I went to last night. In the message box, I type:

I had a wonderful evening. Thanks, Adam.

Christ, could I sound any more boring? I type in a few more equally terrible attempts, go back to what I wrote in the first place, and then click through all the payment stuff.

I did have a nice time. She did talk a lot about tennis, but it was interesting and for once I stopped trying to design boards in my head, which is my usual go-to for keeping myself entertained.

I pick up the papers on my desk and a picture catches my eye. The text underneath it describes me as dashing . Heat warms my cheeks as I shake my head, lips turning up in a grin. As I read down, I find several references to the business. No wonder people called Susie. My gaze snags on a line: “Adam Miller runs a fast-growing electronics company and has experienced meteoric success.”

I let out a howl of laughter. I’ve only just stopped laughing when my phone buzzes in my pocket. When I pull it out, there’s a text:

Handsome, dashing, charming.

Followed by some GIF of a man in a tuxedo throwing champagne over himself. Fuck. Fabian .

Three dots appear:

Anna Talanova, man. She is HOT.

I scowl at the screen. No wonder she’s nervous. Fabian’s a solid guy, but how many men make comments about her all the time? Ignoring the fact she’s worked her ass off to reach the top of her sport, and reducing her to hot .

But Fabian hasn’t finished:

Liked the plum shirt, good call.

Not my decision. I had an hour and a half of hair and makeup.

My phone rings in my hand.

“Are you shitting me?” Fabian rumbles in my ear.

So, I fill him in on the whole thing: the call from Janus, the people, the primping. “They’d have a field day with your long hair and tattoos,” I say. In fact, why didn’t Janus call Fabian ? The press would have gone wild over his bad-boy vibe.

He laughs. “A low profile is kind of essential for hacking. But never mind that. Her agent called Janus?”

“It’s insane. But get this, my marketing manager, Susie, has had two more calls this morning from women who’d like plus ones. Apparently I’ve been described as nonpredatory .”

“As in you didn’t hit on her? That’s the deal? That’s what they’re all trying to avoid? Beautiful, successful women and guys just …”

“Seems like it.”

“Who are these assholes? Find out from Anna who’s screwed her over and I’ll hack into some systems for her and give her enough dirt on them to last her a lifetime.”

I start to laugh. I know he’s done the odd bit of work for celebrities in the past. “I could suggest you as another nonpredatory companion … Looking like you do, I’m sure you’d get a lot of takers. ”

“Yeah. I’m sure Kate would love that.” He chuckles. “Imagine the headline: ‘Famous hacker Fabian Adramovich wanted by the Russians and several other Eastern European states …’”

Fuck . “Wanted by the Russians?”

He clicks his tongue. “Not seriously.”

What the hell does that mean? There are serious and nonserious levels of being on someone’s watchlist? Actually, that doesn’t sound so unlikely. But still …

“Chill. They don’t know who or where I am.”

I’m never going to relax about Fabian and the crazy stuff he does.

“How are you doing?” My constant worry with Fabian is his lifestyle, the drug experimentation, the dangerous sports, the hacking. Safe to say he lives a very different life from mine.

I glance out the glass partition in the office at Susie waving her hands as she talks on the phone. Perhaps mine’s about to become crazy in a different way. Not sure I can deal with that.

“I’m good,” Fabian says in my ear. “Kate’s keeping an eye on me.”

“You eating enough?”

Why did I ask that? Am I his mom? And he just survived an attempt on his life. I should be asking him about that. “You all healed from that stabbing now?”

He chuckles. “I’m good. Cool your heels. Coming back to the food question, you offering to take me out and feed me?”

Is he changing the subject? Yes. Gah, I can check him out if we meet up. “I will, if you’ll let me pay.”

“You’re on.”

Shit. It’ll have to be somewhere super cheap.

Four hours later, Susie sticks her head around the door.

“These pictures and the video you took are terrific, boss.”

I raise my head from the board I’m designing. “Yeah? ”

She brings my phone in and clicks on the reel she’s put together, and my jaw drops. It starts with a picture of Serge fixing my hair, followed by Pepper bringing me her rabbit, then a red swish of a dress and shoes in front of me moving across the sidewalk, a pan across the inside of the venue, and finally a selfie I took of Anna and me smiling at the end.

“Her team has cleared it. I’m going to post that with something like ‘I had a great night’ and tag Anna.”

I watch the video again. It feels so foreign to put stuff out on social media about a night out when I’m running a serious electronics company.

Susie pats my arm. “It can’t hurt to be better known, Adam.”

So, I give her a thumbs-up.