Page 28 of Takeover-
“Yes, I am. Your CEO, in fact.” There was a long pause before Sam spoke again. “Michael, whose office was this?”
The question threw him completely. “You mean before you? Taylor’s.”
Sam’s voice deepened. “And whose before that?”
Every nerve in Michael’s body buzzed. He didn’t want to think about the time before Taylor because it included too much Rasheed. Too much joy and hope and most of his shattered dreams, both personal and for the business that wasn’t his anymore.
Sam had threatened tofirehim.
“Mine. It was my office.” He spoke the words barely above a whisper because to took so much effort to get them out.
“And Taylor took it from you, along with your title and your position.”
Like lemon juice squeezed into a wound. It still hurt way the hell too much. He nodded, unable to speak. It was then he noticed the photo album sitting next to Sam’s keyboard. Heat flared in his chest, unlocking his voice. “What the hell are you doing with that?” He lashed the words out.
Sam must have known exactly what Michael meant. He didn’t shift, didn’t turn to see what Michael stared at. “Research.”
Of Michael and of his past, because that’s all that could be found in those photos. Glimpses of secrets. Hints of the truth. “You could have asked me, you know.”
The noise Sam made was somewhere between a croak and a snort. Dismissive, yes, but full of pain as well. “Really? Today’s been the first day you’ve said more than three words to me since—” He paused. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“Three years ago, or that afternoon in the gym?”
Sam tented his hands, elbows on the desk, his fingertips brushing his lips, and said nothing.
The one was the root of the other, in many ways, and Sam wanted both, it seemed. Michael leaned back and pushed Sam’s door closed. He was pretty sure they were alone in the office, but sound carried in odd ways. And if he had his way—which he usually did—he wouldn’t be the only one answering questions. “Okay. Let’s have this out.”
Sam didn’t move, just keep looking at him over his fingers. For a moment, Michael wished it were his hands close to Sam’s lips. He’d force a digit into that hot mouth and Sam would suck because Sam loved to surrender, loved all the things that Rasheed hadn’t.
“You’ve read the article, I take it.”
“Yes.” Sam spoke against his fingers. “You were one of the founders.”
“In name. In practice. But not legally.”
“How the hell does that happen?” Fire in Sam’s words. Anger. Sam flattened his hands on the desk.
Michael’s stomach lurched—Sam’s ire wasn’t directed at him, but at the unfairness of what had happened. Which was worse, because the last thing he wanted from Sam waspity.
He wasn’t the one hiding in the damn closet.
“It happened because we were all idealistic, hopeful, stupid, and screwed up.” Michael took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes before putting them back on. “I met Susan first, when we were both undergrads. We hit it off as friends and lab partners. After our second cup of coffee to discuss our lab project, I told her I was gay because I saw that look.”
Sam nodded. He shifted and leaned back. “I know what look you mean.”
Hope mixed with apprehension. Sam had worn it well in Curaçao. “She took it well, and with that off the table, we became best friends. We both stayed at Carnegie Mellon for grad school.”
“And you met Rasheed there.”
God, Rasheed. That beautiful, fucked-up, intelligent man. “I actually met him before the semester started, in a bar. He was cruising the gay scene, fresh in from Dearborn and away from his family for the first time. All silk and leather and nerves.”
That unsettled Sam. A flush crept up his neck and he shifted in his chair. “Did you pick him up that night?”
Michael’s turn to nod. Dark hair, neatly trimmed beard, and a wiry build. Rasheed had been just squirmy enough to be irresistible to the younger and less wary version of Michael. Popped Rasheed’s cherry, too, but he wasn’t about to tell Sam that. Not now. “Two days later, I walked into a lecture hall and there was Rasheed. He turned so white, I thought he might faint.”
Sam let out a breath. “I take it he was in the closet?”
“He might as well have been in Narnia. He was so scared that I’d out him. That being in the same room with me would cause a big fat gay label to fall from the sky and hover over his head. That somehow, by standing next to me in Pittsburgh, his folks two hundred fifty miles away would find out he liked men.” Michael paused and watched Sam carefully. “You know how that goes.”
