Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
“We were in Indonesia. I’d never seen such hunger and poverty, unlike what we call poverty here.” Trevor’s whole expression hardens, so far from the teasing lighthearted man I’ve seen over the last two days, I barely recognize him. “Our global economic system had failed the people there so badly. I’m not one who believes we can take responsibility for everything that goes on everywhere in the world, but dropping food in a place like this was like spitting on a forest fire.”
Trevor pauses, swallows, stands, and shoves his hands in his pockets.
“A little boy died right in my arms that day. Just breathing one minute and not breathing the next because of hunger. Because of malnutrition. Harold and I just…well, we just cried that night.”
A bomb could go off downstairs and I probably wouldn’t move. I’m as silent as the students listening whenever this was recorded, with bated breath waiting for his next words. I’m rapt, and it has nothing to do with how good he looks, or his tight ass, or those broad shoulders. His words are like a fist reaching into my chest and squeezing my heart, massaging the muscle until it beats, maybe for the first time in years.
“And that’s when we started envisioning Deutimus Corp,” Trevor says on the video. “We derived it from the Greek word dunamis, which means an act of power. Natural power and capability. We didn’t just want to drop aid or food or resources onto people in developing nations, but we wanted to restore power to them, to economically and intellectually empower them so they could generate their own resources. Indigenous people generating indigenous solutions. We used our business understanding to establish these profit-bearing ventures in developing nations all over the world, run and managed by the people in those contexts.”
“Everyone’s here,” Stil says from the door.
I fumble to stop the video, but Trevor’s deep voice continues for a few seconds, electrifying the air around us.
“Who’s that?” Stil steps deeper into the office, leaning over my desk to see Trevor on my iPad screen. “Shit, I’d climb that mountain.”
I take the screen dark, irrationally irritated by her comment. I needed a bib for my drool at the dinner table last night when I saw Trevor for the first time, but hearing him discussed that way after what I just heard feels wrong.
“You said they’re here?” I put on my business face. “Bring them in. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
I grab the iPad, stand, and cross over to the glass-and-steel conference room table on the other side of the room, surrounded by chairs just as delicate and tensile as the one at my desk. Soon every seat is filled with the people I’ve handpicked to help me with what Stil and I call my passion venture. It’s hard to think of something that’s this much fun as business.
“So Haven, as you all know,” I say, leaning back and crossing my legs at the head of the table, “is a lifestyle website along the lines of Goop or Preserve, but with an edgier, more fashion-insider angle. Me, of course, being the fashion insider.”
Everyone at the table grins or chuckles. Some of them are interns or come-uppers I plucked from fashion houses, but most of them are what I like to call texperts—the technical experts who will be the engine behind the glamour. One of them, Marlee, interned with the Walsh Foundation last summer. A Columbia graduate, she’ll help build the charitable arm of the website.
“We have all of our artisan partnerships nailed down.” Stil levels a hesitant glance across the table at me. “All except one.”
“Which one?” I tip my coffee cup all the way back, begging gravity to release one more drop, but nada. “Who haven’t we secured?”
“Well, we all love this one jewelry line,” Sera, a girl I snatched from Calvin Klein, says. “So unique.”
“Show me.” I stretch my hand out for the iPad Sera slides across the conference table. I swipe through the pictures, loving each one more than the last. The use of crude stones in classic settings is especially clever. And oddly familiar.
“I’ve seen these.” I squish my brows together. “Where have I seen these?”
“It’s the Riverstone Collection.” Stil clears her throat and brushes nonexistent stray hairs back. “By Kerris Bennett.”
Dammit.
Everyone at this table, everyone in this building, everyone in New York, hell, everybody who is anybody, knows my history with Walsh Bennett. To think I want to work with his wife; the woman who essentially usurped the place I always thought would be mine…
I glance at the iPad again and remember the piece Kerris was wearing last night at the charity dinner. Remember, too, her concern in the bathroom. Whatever I felt for Walsh wasn’t much more than an heirloom my parents passed down to me. The sex was great, but I saw them together last night. What Walsh and I had is on a different planet from his connection, his commitment, to Kerris. They have a family, and I’ve moved on. I have…well, I don’t actually have very much besides my work with the Walsh Foundation and this site I’m starting.