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The look on his face is stone cold, and I suddenly get why his reputation precedes him. Gus is fucking scary when he’s mad.
He doesn’t rattle me though; nobody does.
“People don’t want advice from someone they know nothing about,” I continue. “Do you ever go to a doctor without reading up on their specialties?” I shake my head. “People don’t want guidance from someone they don’t know.”
“And you think you know what people want?” he inquires with obvious skepticism.
A challenge? Game on. I open an app on my phone and pass it to him.
His eyes run over the screen. “Holy shit,” he blurts out. “You have fourteen thousand notifications. When was the last time you checked?”
“Nine minutes ago.”
Gus stares dumfounded at the picture I just posted—pure algorithmic candy. “Incredible. You posted one photo?”
“Like I said, I know what people want.”
“Like a marketer,” he replies, glancing up briefly.
“More like Sherlock Holmes. I can figure out what makes people tick.”
“So, more like Hannibal Lecter, you mean.”
“I’ll take it,” I reply with a smile. No man has ever likened me to a fictional serial killer before, but from Gus it’s oddly flattering.
Gus chuckles outright this time, not bothering to hide his admiration for once. “God, Julia, I like being around you.”
I can sense the shift in the conversation. An opening. Carefully, I place my hand on his arm once more. “So, we covered why you sold FundRight. But why did you start the company in the first place? You were twenty-two. You had just graduated from MIT. How did you get to London?”
“A whim.”
“A whim? You don’t seem like the type.”
“I’m not,” he admits, shaking his head. “Whims typically go hand-in-hand with surrendering control—and I don’t do that.”
“Explain how you ended up immigrating on a whim then.”
He inhales and exhales slowly, and even those small motions tell me I’m toeing a line. He’s so delicate when it comes to sharing parts of himself. I can’t let this go though. He promised me. He promised.
“I can’t…” he trails off.
Steadily, a lump forms in my throat. “You can’t what?”
He won’t even look at me; his eyes remain on his own hands. “I can’t tell you. It’s one of the worst…” Gus presses his hand to his forehead and draws it down his face. “Julia, it’s a mess.”
“I don’t understand. Did you, like, murder someone and assume their identity? What happened?”
“Nothing,” he replies, shaking his head unconvincingly. “And it’s not even a well-guarded secret. Ask around enough, and people can tell you why I moved to London and why I founded the company.”
“Well why can’t you tell me?” I question, frustration taking over. “I don’t want to hear it from someone else. I want to hear it from you.”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“Because it kills me,” he snaps, finally looking at me. When his eyes meet mine, I can see the pain behind them. His pain tears at me and I wish I didn’t have to see him hurting, but a gnawing sense of betrayal also strikes me.
“You promised me,” I murmur.
