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"I have been patient while the lawyers on both sides worked up an agree patient Either you and your board of directors sign the agreeet will be a lot less beneficial to any of you And you will sign that one

"Either way, I’et the patents that your fa left to decide is if you walk aith enough randchildren comfortable for the rest of your lives or if you walk aith nothing The choice is yours"

Ethan stands up then, his words still ringing in the shocked and silent rooht behind him Which means the only people left in the room from Frost Industries are the lawyers--all of whom suddenly look extremely formidable

After a moment, Carlos clears his throat He looks their head counsel in the eyes and says, "You heard the man It’s time to make this happen"

The next ninety minutes are some of the most uncomfortable of my life Blood is in the water, and everyone knows it Any objections by Trifecta’s team are dealt with quickly and ruthlessly, and in the end alk aith a preliroup quite a bit ofthey have Exactly as Ethan said it would

My blood is boiling when I climb into the backseat of Marni’s car The tyers and Jace are ebullient, nearly high with the thrill of their victory All I can see, however, are the faces of the Trifecta CEO and his son, both of who to make the company what it is today, only to have it snatched away froht before they took it to the next level

But, really, it’s not their faces I see It’sbrother, whose hs in coy in decades My brother, who has had two of his ideas stolen right out from under him by corporations just like Frost Industries Whose subsequent ideas have all gone to my father and the company he opened with the blood e for selling me down the river

My brother doesn’t understand lory of the idea Seeing what he invented out in the world, doing what it was invented for As long as he h money to live comfortably and still fund his research, he’s happy And if everyone but hiets rich off what he invents, it doesn’t bother him Hell, he doesn’t even seem to notice My dad tells hih for everybody, but I know the truth The second Miles stops conceiving of new and exciting things, the second he stops inventing things that will ht and shiny new coht draw the line at eating his own young, but he has absolutely no proble insideit hard to breathe, to think, to function So I sla about my family and Frost Industries and what just happened in that conference room Instead, I pull out my phone Open up e to Ethan’s work account

I can’t et back to work around one-fifteen Since orked through lunch, Marni suggests we all head down to the cafeteria, but I beg off, saying I’ve got a lot of work to do Which is the truth Though the prelireement is in place, there are still a lot of questions in my files that I need to answer, a lot of case law that I need to weed through And since the last thing I want to do is spend another hour listening to the out froet started

Back atto find Sure enough, there’s a reply from Ethan, one that cainal e when I open it, but I force ht decision, for both of us, and I need to see it through We’re too different to ever have o of it

Ethan’s email is as terse as mine was Just two sentences:

You owe er, I type my own response

You may try

I hit send before I think better of it I don’t owe hi, and the sooner he understands that the better A couple of , and he’d do well to remember that

As would I

I settle down to work, choosing a particularly complicated court case to focus on Usually I can lose myself in the twists and turns of testimony and judicial decisions, but today all I can think about is Trifecta and Ethan and that stupid eo over it in e Exactly what I didn’t want it to be

Every few minutes I click back over to my email account to see if Ethan has answered ood Itbetween us as I a is relief, there’s soe and a trepidation that I’ed a bullet, that Ethan has written me off as surely as I’ve done hiet to where he is in life by just giving up By letting challenges go unanswered The fact that I didn’t intend to challenge hi

Forty-fiveany longer I’ for the other shoe to fall Grabbingmy afternoon break, then head for the cafeteria

It’s no wonder I’ besides a banana all day I’ll feelAt least that’s et to the cafeteria, I spot Zayn right away He’s at the coffee bar, chatting up the new barista as she makes him some kind of iced drink I catch his eye and wave, then et a sandwich Today calls for soooey, and calorie-laden

I’ve barely slid into a small corner booth on the patio when Zayn joins me He puts a second iced coffee in front of me and says, "I didn’t knohat you liked, so I ith an iced irls like chocolate"

"Good choice Thanks"

"No problem You look like you could use a little pick-me-up Bad day?"

"You have no idea"

"That’s what I’m here for So you can fill h as a long, gooey strand of cheese winds itself aroundit off and then slipping it into

Except for Ethan, it’s theHe didn’tby it, but still it feels weird A little unco touched is no big deal But for n

I decide not to dwell on it, though, because it’s nice to have a friend besides Tori Especially one who is s about when I say intellectual property