Page 28 of Takeover
“So you dated?” Sam’s voice was tight.
“I dated him. He fugitively saw me from time to time to fuck. He told his folks he was dating a woman from school.”
For a moment, Sam looked dumbstruck. “And you put up with that?”
Michael flinched. He really should have dumped Rasheed then. Mistake one. “I couldn’t keep away from him and he couldn’t stay away from me.”
“Who did he tell his parents—shit. Susan?” Sam looked horrified.
Michael would have laughed if the outcome hadn’t been so painful in the end. “Yeah. He said he was dating Susan. It made some twisted kind of sense. We were all close friends and Susan knew we were a couple. Played the part of the girlfriend on the phone because she cared about us both and was willing to keep his secret. After graduation, we all rented a town house together. Got the idea for Four Rivers in the kitchen. Founded the company a couple months later.”
“Did they—was he bi?”
“No, while we dated, he didn’t have sex with anyone else. And I’m pretty sure he wasn’t bi. Early on, he talked about how he wished he could be attracted to women, because it would have been easier, given his family’s expectations.”
“Kids.” Sam’s voice was soft.
“Of course. He was the only son and a second generation Persian. His parents were liberal in many ways, but still very conservative in others. They expected Rasheed to marry. Pass on the family name.”
“I’ve met both men and women like that,” Sam said. “They can’t deny who they’re attracted to, but it pulls them apart from all the expectations their families had—all that had been heaped onto them from a young age.”
Michael folded his hands into his lap. “Your family like that?”
Sam shook his head. “My parents are kind of a cross between hippies and Quakers, so a strong sense of being whatever you are runs in the family. They didn’t blink when I told them. Plus I have a brother and a sister and they both have kids.”
“So it’s just corporate culture that keeps you from being gay?”
Sam opened his mouth, then closed it into a thin line. When the words came, they were sharp and full of edges. “Iamgay. I just don’t go out of my way to announce it.”
“No.” Michael matched his tone. “You go out of your way to keep from showing it.”
Several emotions played across Sam’s face. Anger, fear, lust—and shame. “I thought this conversation was about you?”
Michael huffed a laugh. “Is it?”
Sam took a deep breath and settled into his seat. Irritation laced his voice. “So after grad school, you were dating a closeted guy, living with him and the woman he said he was dating, and you all were founding a company?”
Put that way, it sounded more than a little crazy. It also put the conversation back into Michael’s court—so like the businessman Sam was. Well, Michael would get his answers from Sam later. “Yes, exactly.”
Sam seemed to chew on the idea for a bit, then asked, “How did you end up founding a company and not being a founder?”
Because he’d been too damn trusting. “Since Rasheed and I were a couple, all three of us agreed that splitting the company three ways would be unfair—it left Susan holding only a third and the two of us with the majority.”
“That makes a certain amount of sense from her point of view, though…”
“Not from mine?” Michael leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “This is where I admit, despite all the warning signs the relationship was doomed, I was stupid in love.” He choked on the last word, hot anger following hard on the sharp stab that never—quite—went away when he thought about those years. “So we split it in half. Susan became CEO and took half. The other was in Rasheed’s name, as Chief Technology Officer, with the understanding that if we ever sold the company, I’d get half of Rasheed’s share. Susan and Rasheed signed all the paperwork. I didn’t put my name on any of it.”
This time, when Sam parted his lips, it was in shock. Understanding paled his face. “You—never signed? Anything? Even an agreement with Rasheed?”
An old, familiar ache settled in Michael’s chest. “I told you we were stupid and screwed up. I’ve lived with the consequences of simply trusting someone every day since the board took over.” Michael unclenched his hands. “I should have thought of the repercussions of pressing Rasheed.”
Sam leaned forward again. “You wanted him to come out.” Wariness there, but also a glimmer of something that might have been longing.
Perhaps Sam wasn’t so wed to the closet. Maybe he needed a push and then they could—what? Sam was still the boss. Michael swallowed the bile in his throat. “After five years, I figured it was time. We’d been sharing the same bed for ages. I wanted all that went with that—holding hands in public, not having to worry that anyone seeing us out to dinner would get the ‘wrong idea,’ the constant lies to his family—Susan knew them better than I did. So I threw down an ultimatum.”
Sam’s tented fingers were back at his lips. “He said no.”
“Of course he said no. He loved the sex—but not me. I was a good fuck, but couldn’t give him what he wanted. And he wasn’t ever coming out, because good sons didn’t do that to their parents.” Once, remembering Rasheed’s words would have torn Michael up inside, but there was nothing left to shred, just the hollowness of knowing that he’d blinded himself with hope.
