Page 88 of One Wealthy Wedding

“Mr. A, what are we going to do with this when we’re done?”

His curly head is bent over the laptop we use for coding, which I keep carefully locked away when he’s not here. Corporate espionage knows no bounds, and the code we’re writing today is worth millions in the right hands.

I toss a stress ball in the air and catch it. “You can use it for school if you want. Or I’ll give you a hundred dollars, and you can see what you make with it.”

He looks up at me skeptically. “I’d rather use a hundred dollars for something else.”

“I know.” I remember the days when a hundred dollars was a big fucking deal, and Kai is still there. He won’t be forever, though. Not with the Harvard application he’s waiting on and the full ride I’m sure he’ll get. And not with the internship he’ll have at Kings Lane once he’s in college.

“A hundred dollars is like…” He pokes his tongue out as he concentrates on the screen. “Five trips to the movies.”

I laugh. “It was more like ten when I was your age.”

“Movie tickets cost only ten dollars?” His eyes are round. “How much did candy cost? What about beer?”

“You’re not supposed to know about beer,” I say mildly. “Your mom would not be happy knowing I’m talking to you about beer.”

Kai’s mom is a strict Puerto Rican woman with definite opinions on what is and isn’t appropriate for her son. His dad isn’t in the picture, but Kai says his family was from Taiwan. I sympathize with the kid. It’s tough going through life feeling like you’re on your own. Kai doesn’t have any siblings, and he spent a lot of time being benched on his school’s basketball team before we started meeting weekly. Now, he’s a computer whiz and he asked for a subscription to the Wall Street Journal for Christmas.

He’s a good kid, as evidenced by the fact that he still cares about candy and movies, when I was thinking about kissing girls in the movie theater at his age.

“Can’t you use the code for work?” he asks.

“Nah.” I toss the ball up in the air again. “We don’t do that. We don’t trade stocks. It’s something I used to do on the side, is all.”

“I still don’t understand how you make money.” He shakes his head.

I smile. “Most people don’t. We invest in existing businesses, and sometimes we start new ones,” I say.

“Like the grocery store chain you bought last year.”

“Yeah. Like that.” I told Kai all about our acquisition of a Canada-based international grocery store chain. We even went to tour one of the stores, and I asked what he thought we could improve—more sodas and chips, according to my teenage adviser.

“So what’s the latest?”

I choke down a laugh. It’s weird hearing this kid who plays Pokémon ask me about business, but he likes it.

“I’m trying to find investors for a joint venture overseas. It’s easier than going in without them. They know the regulators if we need approvals. They already have established connections in the region. We’re close with one Italian investor who has businesses across Europe. A casino in Monaco, luxury apartments in Switzerland, France, and Luxembourg. A budding German brewery. We’re not interested in that last one.”

“Why not?”

“It’s about our brand. A casino is pushing the limits for us. We don’t want to seem like we’re too…fun,” I say, because that’s the most appropriate word for a kid.

“So you’re going to get this investor and then what?” Kai sounds skeptical.

“Well, I guess I’ll be traveling more. Like I was last year. We’ll have to meet remotely again. Or we can convince your mom to let you visit.”

He rolls his eyes. “She’ll never go for that.”

“Better make a million dollars with this code, then. Do that, and you can take yourself.”

Kai’s mom would cut my tongue from my mouth for suggesting her son go on a solo trip to Europe, but I want him to dream. It was something I learned to do only later in life.

A knock sounds. Cat.

“Close the program,” I hiss. Kai scrambles to save and close down our code while I unlock the door.

It is Cat, looking soft and sexy in an oversized sweatshirt that nearly meets the bottom of her tiny shorts. Her hair is twisted up over her head and her lips are glossed with something. It looks like lip balm…maybe lip gloss. Smells like—I inhale—watermelon.

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