She Called Me a Loser, Then I Became Her Boss

Cole Parker stood outside Summit Tower with two movie tickets in his hand and a stupid grin on his face. He'd bought them three days ago. Reserved seats, center row. The kind of thing you plan when you think the person you love still gives a damn about you. He should've known better. The revolving glass doors swept open and two people walked out — a man in a tailored charcoal suit, a luxury car key dangling off his belt like a trophy, and a woman so familiar Cole felt his chest seize up the second he saw her. "Amber!" She stopped dead. The color drained right out of her face. "Cole?" Her voice dropped low, sharp. "What are you doing here? I told you never to come to my job. Do you know how embarrassing this is?" Cole forced a smile. He held up the tickets. "It's our anniversary. Two years today. I thought we could catch a movie, grab dinner—" "Who is this?" The man beside Amber — Derek Lawson, Cole would learn — looked Cole up and down the way you'd look at something stuck to the bottom of your shoe. "Derek, I—" Amber started. "You said you were single." Derek's jaw tightened. "I can explain—" But Derek had already turned his full attention to Cole, a slow smirk spreading across his face. "Look at him, Amber. Seriously. You're standing here with me and you've got this waiting for you outside?" He laughed, short and sharp. "What does he drive? The bus?" Cole felt his jaw lock. He reached out and grabbed Amber's wrist — gently, not aggressive, just please, let's go — and said, "Amber. Walk away with me. Right now." She yanked her hand back like he'd burned her. "Don't touch me, Cole." "Amber—" "He's right." Her voice came out cold. Calculated. Like she'd been rehearsing it. "You are a loser. You know that? I've been carrying this for two years. Two years of watching you scrape by while I'm out here actually building a life." She gestured at Derek, at the tower behind her, at everything Cole didn't have. "Have you ever once bought me anything I actually wanted? Even once?" Cole's throat tightened. "I'm in school, Amber. I'm trying. You know I'm trying. Give me time and I swear I'll give you everything—" She laughed. Not the warm laugh he fell in love with in eleventh grade. Something colder. Something borrowed from the version of herself she'd become after she stopped believing in things like patience. "Time?" she said. "Cole, by the time you catch up, I'll be retired." She turned back to Derek and slid her hand into the crook of his arm like she'd been doing it for years. "We're done. Don't call me." Derek shot Cole one last look — triumphant, almost bored — and then steered Amber toward the black BMW idling at the curb. Cole didn't move. He stood on the sidewalk outside Summit Tower holding two movie tickets while the woman he'd loved since high school got into another man's car without looking back. The tickets crumpled in his fist. ❖❖❖❖❖ He walked home to Eastside Flats. Forty minutes. He didn't take the bus. He needed the time to keep himself from doing something he couldn't undo. Amber hadn't always been like this. He knew that. He'd known her before the ambition hollowed her out. Back in high school, she used to bring him coffee before his early classes and leave notes in his locker with terrible drawings of animals in them. She'd been real then. Warm. Then graduation happened. Cole got into NC State. Amber didn't get into the school she wanted and took a receptionist job at Summit Group instead. And somewhere between that first paycheck and Derek Lawson's BMW key, she'd decided that love without money was just poverty with good intentions. He couldn't blame her for wanting more. But God, it destroyed him. You'll regret this, Amber. He thought it but didn't say it out loud. It would've sounded pathetic on the street corner. But he meant it all the way down to his bones. I'll make you regret every single word. ❖❖❖❖❖ He smelled something different before he even opened the front door. His mother's cooking, yes. But underneath it — leather. Money. The particular scent of a suit that cost more than their rent. Cole pushed the door open. His mother, Sandra, stood by the kitchen table with her hands clasped tight in front of her, her face doing something complicated he couldn't read. Sitting on their secondhand couch, completely at ease, was a man in his late sixties — silver-haired, sharp-eyed, wearing a suit that probably had its own zip code. The man stood up when Cole walked in. And then he smiled like he'd been waiting for this moment for twenty years. "Cole," the man said. "My grandson." Cole looked at his mother. "What is this?" Sandra exhaled. "Sit down." "Mom—" "Sit down, Cole. Please." He sat. She told him everything. She'd run. Eloped with Cole's father against her family's wishes, cut off contact, built a wall around herself and her son and refused every attempt at reconciliation. Cole's father died when Cole was four. She'd raised him alone, in Eastside Flats, on a waitress salary and pure stubbornness. What she hadn't told him — what she'd never told him — was who her father was. "Cole." Sandra's voice broke slightly. "His name is Walter Greer." The room went quiet. Cole knew that name. Everyone in Raleigh knew that name. Walter Greer was the founder of Summit Group — the same Summit Group whose tower Cole had been standing outside of forty minutes ago with two useless movie tickets. The man was worth somewhere north of three billion dollars. He was on magazine covers. He was in business school case studies. And he was sitting on Cole's couch. Cole stood up. "How could you do that to her?" His voice came out harder than he expected. "She raised me alone. Alone. We grew up with nothing. You were out there building an empire and she was pulling double shifts at Denny's—" "I tried," Walter said, and he didn't flinch. "I sent money every year. She sent it back. I called — she blocked my number. I hired someone to find you both after your father passed. She moved." He paused. "I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm just asking you to hear me out." Cole turned to Sandra. "Is that true?" She nodded, slowly. "It's true. I was stubborn. And proud. And—" Her voice caught. "I'm not going to let that ruin your life, Cole. Not anymore." Walter stepped forward and held out both hands, then pulled Cole into an embrace that caught Cole completely off guard. Cole stood there, rigid, arms at his sides — and then, slowly, something in him gave. Walter stepped back and reached inside his jacket. He pulled out a matte black bank card and held it out between two fingers. "There's one million dollars in that account," he said. "Consider it pocket money while you get settled." Cole stared at the card. "Pocket money." "A starting point." Walter smiled. "I'm also transferring operational oversight of my Raleigh holdings to you. Effectively immediately, you'll carry the title of Chairman." "I'm a college student," Cole said. "I don't know how to run a company." "You don't have to. You have a team. You set direction, you review numbers, you show up." Walter's eyes were steady. "The rest you learn." Cole's fingers closed around the card. And that's when it hit him. Summit Group. The company his grandfather was handing him. The company where Amber Reed — the woman who'd just called him a loser on a public sidewalk — worked as a receptionist. The slow, disbelieving smile that crossed Cole's face was the best feeling he'd had all year.