Page 58 of Seducing the Billionaire

I can’t blame her question. I’m still standing here when I already said I had to go. “No, Dave’s waiting for me.”

I force myself to leave, taking the stairs down the five flights to the conference room to burn off some of this restlessness.

I’ve had all morning to clear the air and decide to finally talk to her right before I have to leave? Tomorrow’s the weekend, though. If I don’t do it today, I’ll miss out on two days with her.

I pause, gripping the railing of the stairwell. When did I get to the point where just the thought of not seeing her for two days makes my chest ache?

I push the notion away, focusing my mind as I find the right room on the fifty-fifth floor.

“Connor, hey,” Dave greets me as I pull open the glass door. He’s been with the company as long as I can remember, back when Dad was first starting out.

He stands and holds a hand out to me, and I gladly shake it, thankful I have his support. I was half worried the chiefs like him who have been here forever would have something to say about me taking over, but so far there’s been no pushback.

“I don’t know if you’ve met Zack here,” he says. “He’s one of our senior software engineers.”

“Good to meet you.” I shake his hand too and sit down, getting right to it. “My assistant said you wanted to discuss an issue with some kind of AI you’re developing?”

“Right,” Dave confirms. “We had estimated about six to eight months to get it up and running, but it’s proving tougher to crack than we expected and two of our junior software developers who were working on it just quit. Looks like it’ll be more like a year now.”

“Okay.” Not that this means anything to me. “What exactly is it that your team is doing?”

“Well, your dad had got word of a new AI Montague Media had developed. It promised more sophisticated data mining to serve better targeted ads to users. And once we had that, we could hike up our pricing for advertisers.”

“That’s why he wanted to buy the company? I thought it had something to do with algorithms.”

“The AI uses algorithms to make the program run,” Zack chimes in.

“But once your dad decided he wasn’t buying Montague Media,” Dave continues, “he tasked us with creating the AI ourselves. We were set to break even in about seven months from the increase in ad revenue minus the cost of the company, so that’s how long he gave us to develop it ourselves.”

“But it’s a shot in the dark trying to figure out what Montague Media had even done without seeing the code,” Zack says. “It’d be a lot easier if we could just buy it from them.”

Dave’s brows knit. “Now that’s not what we came to talk about.” He turns to me. “I just wanted to make you aware we’re behind schedule.”

“But the company’s not really losing anything even if it takes you longer to develop it, right?” I ask. “Since we didn’t have it to begin with.”

Dave shrugs. “Unless you count staff time that could be used on other projects.”

“But your dad already promised advertisers a more advanced system for collecting user data,” Zack insists. “And shareholders increased profits by the end of next fiscal year.”

So they’ll be coming to me asking why that hasn’t happened yet. One more thing he left for me. “Well, I’ll be the one to break the news that they’ll have to wait a little longer.”

“Or we could buy the AI we were originally supposed to,” Zack responds.

Is it really that big a deal? Or does this guy just not want to do the extra work?

I glance over at Dave, his jaw set. Is this subject a sore spot for the two of them? “What other projects do you have going on?” I ask, trying to smooth things over.

He gives me a grateful look and launches into other new technology developments that ThousandWords is looking to implement in the next few years, and while it’s all interesting, the issue about Montague Media is still working in the back of my mind. Would it be better to slog through and develop whatever it is we need to ourselves? Or put money in the pocket of Greg Montague—a man who expected to use our family name and wealth to cover his gambling debts? Serena even went no contact with him last month after everything came to light about him. How would it look to her and Archer if I did business with him?

The problem is still on my mind half an hour later as I step off the elevator, Emma’s gaze flicking up to meet mine from her desk. And that’s one more unresolved issue.

“How’d your meeting go?” she asks, and though the question is innocent, I swear there’s an underlying flirtation in her tone.

“Fine.” Just like all the other meetings. “Can you get me those files on the Montague Media buyout?” Maybe there’s something in there that will give me a better idea of what to do.

She stiffens in her seat, the color draining from her cheeks. “The, um, what?”

“You said you found files in Vivian’s desk, right? This guy kept going on during the meeting about how we should renew the deal.”

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