The Start-Up 3 Beautiful Code Read online

  Patty felt her heart clinch. Did “about the whole thing” mean “about Chad”?

  “No!” Patty exclaimed. “I mean, I feel like it must be totally normal to have doubts right before the big moment, but seriously, Shandi, you shouldn’t. Chad is unbelievable. Totally unbelievable. He’s smart and funny and gorgeous and…you are going to have an amazing life together.”

  “You’re the lucky one, Patty.” Shandi neither agreed nor disagreed with what Patty had just said. “You’ve got your whole life in front of you. Can do whatever you want, nothing to tie you down. And you’ve got the personality and courage to do it, you know? Even if I still had your freedom, I’m not sure I’d have your courage to take advantage of it.”

  “You’re twenty-two!” Patty laughed. “You’re not exactly old! And you’ve got everything in front of you, plus you’ve got a partner to do it all with!”

  Shandi gave her a thanks-but-you-couldn’t-possibly-understand smile. It wasn’t condescending, just…sad.

  The photographer coughed softly from the corner. Both sisters had forgotten she was there.

  “Sorry to interrupt, ladies, but your mother wants to take a few private pictures with the bride.”

  “Of course!” Shandi quickly snapped herself back into wedding mode, her eyes shining brightly in fully confident, self-absorbed, happy-bride fashion.

  “Thanks so much for your help, Patty,” she chirped as she followed the photographer out to meet their mother.

  CHAPTER 16:

  You Can’t Win All The Time

  Adam punched the elevator button furiously. “Come on!” he yelled at the button. Now was the chance to be a hero, and he wasn’t going to miss it. The doors finally opened and he rode the elevator to the lobby, dashing to the front desk.

  “Where’s the Hawkins-Bronson wedding?” he belted.

  “It’s in the Hibiscus Grove, down the street. The next shuttle should be leaving in about five minutes.”

  Adam didn’t have five minutes. He rushed outside and stopped under the porte-cochère desperate for a solution. The doorman was helping a woman out of a red Porsche Carrera while her husband stood with the bags waiting for the valet. Adam rushed to the valet stand and grabbed a blank ticket. He ripped the ticket in half and gave the bottom portion to the man, who looked at Adam’s khaki shorts and flip-flops suspiciously.

  “Our valet had an emergency phone call,” Adam said calmly. “I’m an office intern, and they asked me to stand in until he’s back.”

  Adam glanced nervously over the man’s shoulder, spotting the real valet coming back. But, the man seemed satisfied and handed Adam the key. Adam grabbed it, skipped quickly to the driver’s side, and sped off toward the Hibiscus Grove, his adrenaline pumping with the $160,000 accelerator under his foot.

  He left the car outside the small villa nestled next to the Hibiscus Grove and dashed through the door onto the terrace. Elegantly dressed, beautiful people were milling around, sipping champagne, all smiles for the half-dozen photographers swarming the crowd. Adam’s eyes darted around, looking for T. J. Where was he?

  He ran to one wall of the terrace. If he stood on it, he could get a better view of the crowd. He climbed up and peered out, his heart racing with adrenaline. “T. J., where are you?” he muttered under his breath.

  He scanned the crowd. But his eyes darted back to the corner. Did he just see what he thought he saw? Who was that standing under the palm tree? It couldn’t be…

  Adam’s heart sank. No, it didn’t sink; it collapsed, crashed, plummeted to the center of the earth. All the blood in his head rushed to support it and he felt like he was going to faint. Lisa—his Lisa—was in the gazebo. And she was kissing—it couldn’t be! —the Indian guy from the incubator.

  He shuddered. He didn’t know how to process this. What the hell was going on? He climbed off the wall and sat down. He needed a drink. A waiter passed by with a tray of mimosas and he grabbed one. He had to see it again, to confirm. He walked closer to the gazebo. There was no doubt: Lisa and Sundeep were holding hands. He was smiling and whispering in her ear and she was laughing, tossing her head, her perfectly sculpted golden curls falling down her back. Adam downed the mimosa and grabbed another.

  “Did you decide to crash the wedding?”

  Adam turned his head toward the voice. The man with the scotch from last night stood next to him, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a glass of champagne.

  “Are you okay?” the man asked, noticing Adam’s distraught expression.

  Adam took a deep breath and tried to refocus on why he had come. “I have to find T. J.,” he stammered. “T. J. Bristol. Do you know him?”

  The man chuckled. “Sure, he’s my son. He’s right over here.”

  Ted turned to motion for T. J., who was standing close by, chatting with an older woman, and so didn’t see the stunned expression on Adam’s face. Holy shit. That’s where he’d seen this guy before; at the party last June, giving the toast for T. J. His brain couldn’t handle all of this.

  Ted turned back before Adam had time to recover his expression. He lifted his eyebrows in a what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-this-kid grimace as T. J. broke away from his conversation and joined them.

  T. J. noticed Adam’s dumbfounded face, too. “I see you two have finally met.”

  “Actually, I don’t think we ever officially have.” Ted stuck out his hand jovially. “I’m Ted Bristol. What’s your name?”

  “Adam,” Adam stammered, taking Ted’s hand.

  T. J. rolled his eyes. “Adam Dory,” he said. “Amelia’s brother.”

  Ted clucked his tongue. “Well! Adam Dory!”

  Adam blinked his eyes closed, half expecting Ted to punch him.

  But instead Ted smiled. “It appears there are two extremely impressive Dorys.”

  Ted’s smile was genuine and warm, not conniving, and Adam blushed. There was always talk about Amelia, but it was the first time Adam could remember anyone ever saying he was impressive. He knew it was wrong, but he felt a weird connection with Ted.

  “So what’s up?” T. J. asked, “Why on earth would you come to this wedding if you didn’t have to?”

  Adam’s mind was racing. If this guy was Ted, that meant Lisa was his daughter, and hadn’t he said last night that he didn’t like her boyfriend? And her boyfriend was Sundeep? Unless she was a total slut and she was kissing all sorts of boys in the gazebo. No, that couldn’t be. Lisa wasn’t a slut. She was perfect—she loved him!

  Focus!

  “It’s Amelia. The panel, I mean. You have to stop the Q&A,” Adam stammered.

  “Too late,” Ted said, showing T. J. and Adam his Android phone, where he was live streaming the conference.

  “What do you mean?” Adam grabbed the phone and stared in horror at its screen. Amelia was standing at the side of the stage, about to make her presentation. Adam glanced at his iPhone. It was 10:55 a.m. and he had three frantic texts from Amelia: “Where are you???”

  Had he been watching Lisa and Sundeep for that long? How many mimosas did he drink?

  “No! We have to stop the Q&A. They’re going to drill her on questions about juvie!” Adam rushed out. T. J. followed.

  “The ceremony starts in one hour,” Ted called. “Your mother’s going to kill you if you miss it.”

  But neither Adam nor T. J. heard as they dashed back to the stolen Porsche.

  CHAPTER 17:

  Or Can You?

  Adam raced to the side of the stage just as Amelia walked out, taking the microphone from the previous presenter. T. J. left to find Mike. Amelia was scheduled for a ten-minute presentation and a fifteen-minute Q&A. If T. J. could get to Mike fast enough, there was still a chance he could derail the Q&A.

  “Found you!” Adam turned at the sound of a familiar voice. Tom Fenway was next to him, one hand on the handle of a rolling suitcase, his face flushed. He’d obviously just come from the airport.

  “This is not going to be good,” Adam moaned. B
ut Tom didn’t hear. He was smiling brightly at Amelia, his gem. He obviously hadn’t heard about yesterday’s disaster, Adam thought.

  Amelia took a deep breath and began to speak into the microphone. The PowerPoint presentation she’d prepared with Tom and T. J. back in Palo Alto was projected on the screen behind her, and her iPhone and all of the devices controllable by Doreye were on a table in front.

  “My very savvy business team helped me prepare a presentation,” she said. Her voice was calm and clear. “It goes through the numbers on our business, the market potential, and lots of other things I’m sure you all are interested in.”

  She used the monitor control to click quickly through all the slides, so fast no one could read them. “But I’m going to disappoint you, because I don’t want to talk about any of that today.” She clicked one more time, and the monitor went black.

  Adam glanced at Tom. What was she doing? But Tom was still focused on Amelia, beaming like a father proudly watching his son’s first little league game. The audience was silent, and the room was thick with anticipation.

  “Instead,” she said, “I’m going to talk about honesty.”

  She paused, letting that sink in. “When I was fifteen, I did something very dishonest. First I hacked into the College Board website and adjusted the SAT scores of my foster brother. Then I hacked into an insurance company’s database and adjusted the sales figures of my foster father. And then I hacked into a bank and embezzled money into his account.

  “And then one day I woke up and realized that other people were suffering because of what I was doing. That people worthy of recognition for good test scores, worthy of commissions for high sales figures, worthy of the money they worked hard to earn, were being penalized because of what I was doing. And so I confessed, and I stopped, and I accepted my punishment and spent three months in jail.”

  No one in the audience dared even to blink in case they might miss something.

  “And I wouldn’t do it again,” Amelia said. She shook her head and laughed. “Absolutely not. But I will take what lessons I can from it, and that’s what I’d like to talk about today. You see, through that experience, I met honest people and I met dishonest people, and I learned the difference. I made a vow always to be honest, but I’ve unfortunately learned that there are still a lot of dishonest people in the world, and they don’t always get caught.”

  Amelia walked over to the microwave and opened the back panel, pulling out the chip.

  “This little chip here,” she held it up, “is the reason Doreye didn’t work during yesterday’s demo.”

  She set it aside. “It overrides radio frequencies. The person who put it there is a dishonest person. I won’t slander anyone, but given all you were able to dig up about me, I’m sure you can figure this one out, too.”

  Amelia proceeded with a flawless demo, using the iPhone to work all the devices on the table. The audience relaxed, smiling excitedly in anticipation of this stunning new product, working just as well as the hype had promised.

  When she was finished with the demo, Amelia turned back to the press. “I believe that, if we work together, and if we’re honest, we can take computer technology to a level none of us has yet conceived. This is just the start.”

  Thunderous applause erupted. One by one, the audience started to stand, cheering loudly. Amelia closed her eyes and let out a deep exhale. Adam could see her hands shaking.

  Then she added, “I believe there were a few questions you’d prepared. I hope I’ve addressed them adequately.” With that, Amelia walked off the stage, the crowd still applauding.

  Tom Fenway opened his arms and Amelia fell into them. “You were absolutely brilliant,” he whispered, planting a grandfatherly kiss on the top of her head. Cameras snapped all around them, the journalists delighting in the perfectly captured moment of mentor-mentee affection.

  She stood back and smiled at Tom, her eyes bright. “Thank you so much,” she said quietly.

  T. J. ran up to her. “Jesus, Amelia! Where did that come from? You were unbelievable!” He pulled her into a hug, his face radiant with astonishment and adrenaline. “You just catapulted this thing onto a whole new level. Do you have any idea how much you owned that crowd?”

  She laughed modestly. “Thank Tom,” she said. “He gives a hell of a pep talk.”

  Amelia and Tom exchanged a knowing glance. Right after Adam had left this morning, Tom had called her cell phone to check in. After she’d babbled into the phone, he’d calmly told her she needed to wait exactly three hours to have a breakdown. For now, she had to bolster herself. “Act like it’s not you. Pretend like you’re playing the part of someone else, a fierce and intimidating woman who doesn’t take shit from anyone.” Together, they’d written what she would say and he’d instructed her to stand in front of the mirror as she practiced the speech into her phone.

  Amelia finally turned to Adam. Adam didn’t know what to say. He’d failed her, and he knew that she knew it. He’d gotten distracted worrying over Lisa, and somewhere while he was gone, his sister had become…awesome.

  “You were amazing,” he finally offered.

  “Thanks,” she nodded.

  Adam turned to Tom. “Answering their questions before they asked them was a pretty bold strategy.”

  Tom smiled. “Well I ain’t often right, but I’ve never been wrong.

  Amelia laughed. “Can we please go get lunch now? I’m starving.”

  As they walked toward the dining room, Adam dug his hands into his pockets. His fingers landed on something: the flower from Lisa’s hair. He held it up and contemplated it for a moment before tossing it into the garbage can in disgust.

  CHAPTER 18:

  Here She Comes

  Patty was standing in the upstairs sitting room of the Villa next to the Hibiscus Grove, looking out at the wedding guests below. Shandi was taking pictures somewhere and the other bridesmaids were happily drinking champagne and putting the finishing touches on their makeup.

  From here, she could see all the guests milling around on the terrace outside. She admired Lisa Bristol’s silky, gold, one-shoulder dress and the little Judith Leiber clutch she carried effortlessly. She looked like a little goddess. What was she doing with that boring Indian guy? Nevertheless, Patty was jealous of Lisa. Not in a malicious way (how could you not like someone so sweet?), but in a wish-I-was-her kind of way.

  She took a sip of champagne and scanned the crowd for T. J., but she couldn’t find him. He was probably off with some newly found hot girl, she thought. She heard her phone signal a text message.

  From: CHAD

  I need to see you immediately. Can you come to my suite downstairs? And come alone!

  Patty almost coughed up her drink. Was he serious? In less than an hour he would be married to her sister. What kind of horrible person was he? She felt any lingering attraction melt. This guy was bad news.

  She was in the middle of typing an angry response when another text came through.

  From: CHAD

  URGENT!! PLEASE!!

  She sighed. Fine. One more meeting, but if he thought she was going to sleep with him he had another thing coming. She erased what she had started to type and tapped, On my way.

  She crept out the side door and back through the lobby to the east wing groom’s quarters, prepping what she was going to say. She wouldn’t even enter the room, just stand outside and tell Chad, defiantly, that it was over and he needed to leave her alone.

  Before she could knock on the door, however, it swung open and Chad pulled her by the wrist into the room.

  “Chad, I cannot do this anymore,” she said, just as she’d rehearsed on the walk. “You are marrying my sister and—”

  “No, I’m not!” Chad shouted, panicking. She’d never seen him so flustered. He was freaking out.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s gone, Patty! She’s gone!”

  Patty looked at him like he was an idiot. “What is wr
ong with you? She’s taking photos. I was with her an hour ago.”

  “No, she’s not!” Chad was pacing back and forth in the room, pressing his hand to his temple, trying to think. “The photographer came in here forty minutes ago looking for her. She said Shandi had asked if she could leave her alone for a few minutes, and when she came back ten minutes later, Shandi was gone. The photographer thought we were having some romantic pre-wedding tryst. I’ve called Shandi a dozen times. I ran around the entire grounds. She’s nowhere.”

  Patty looked at the clock. It was 11:42 a.m. The processional started at noon.

  “Nothing’s wrong, Chad,” she said calmly. “She’s upstairs in the bridal suite. I just walked past her to come up here,” she lied, wondering whether Shandi actually had been in the bridal suite. “You need to go to the altar and get in place, okay? You’ll see her in, like, twenty minutes, and then you’ll be married and you’ll laugh about this.”

  Chad grabbed a bottle of water off the minibar and took a long swig. “You’re right. She probably just got distracted with all the getting ready.”

  “Exactly.”

  Chad put down the water bottle and gave Patty a hug. “You’re the best,” he said, and ran out the door.

  Patty waited thirty seconds, and then ran as fast as she could upstairs to figure out what was going on.

  CHAPTER 19:

  Competitive Advantage

  “I wanted to thank you for today.” Amelia was washing her hands in the bathroom when she heard a thick British accent perfectly articulate each word.

  The bathroom was otherwise empty. The blond woman looked Amelia in the eyes and smirked tightly. A moment passed before she took a lipstick tube out of her purse and leaned toward the gold-rimmed mirror to apply it.