"No, I"m not!" Chad shouted, panicking. She"d never seen him so fl.u.s.tered. He was freaking out.
"What are you talking about?"
"She"s gone, Patty! She"s gone!"
Patty looked at him like he was an idiot. "What is wrong with you? She"s taking photos. I was with her an hour ago."
"No, she"s not!" Chad was pacing back and forth in the room, pressing his hand to his temple, trying to think. "The photographer came in here forty minutes ago looking for her. She said Shandi had asked if she could leave her alone for a few minutes, and when she came back ten minutes later, Shandi was gone. The photographer thought we were having some romantic pre-wedding tryst. I"ve called Shandi a dozen times. I ran around the entire grounds. She"s nowhere."
Patty looked at the clock. It was 11:42 a.m. The processional started at noon.
"Nothing"s wrong, Chad," she said calmly. "She"s upstairs in the bridal suite. I just walked past her to come up here," she lied, wondering whether Shandi actually had been in the bridal suite. "You need to go to the altar and get in place, okay? You"ll see her in, like, twenty minutes, and then you"ll be married and you"ll laugh about this."
Chad grabbed a bottle of water off the minibar and took a long swig. "You"re right. She probably just got distracted with all the getting ready."
"Exactly."
Chad put down the water bottle and gave Patty a hug. "You"re the best," he said, and ran out the door.
Patty waited thirty seconds, and then ran as fast as she could upstairs to figure out what was going on.
CHAPTER 19:.
Compet.i.tive Advantage.
"I wanted to thank you for today." Amelia was washing her hands in the bathroom when she heard a thick British accent perfectly articulate each word.
The bathroom was otherwise empty. The blond woman looked Amelia in the eyes and smirked tightly. A moment pa.s.sed before she took a lipstick tube out of her purse and leaned toward the gold-rimmed mirror to apply it.
Amelia looked at the woman"s reflection in the mirror, her hands still under the running water. "What for?" she asked cautiously.
"For putting us on the map," the woman said, her eyes focused on her mouth in the mirror, carefully drawing the deep red to the edge of her top lip. She puckered a few times to settle the lipstick, and then she turned to face Amelia and stuck out her hand. "I"m Violet."
Amelia studied the woman. She couldn"t tell how old she was. She could have been twenty or thirty-five. Her wardrobe was too sophisticated for college, but her skin had the flawless glow of a teenager. Amelia shook her hand but didn"t introduce herself. Violet obviously knew who she was.
"What do you mean?" she asked instead.
"I mean, before this, no one knew a thing about RemoteX. We weren"t even invited to the conference. We snuck inside the day before, pretending to be hotel staff, and added our booth to the expo floor. Now, though, when people leave, all they"re going to be talking about is RemoteX. Doreye and RemoteX. Money can"t buy the kind of publicity you just got us."
"But they think you"re dishonest. My brother figured out how you cheated. We exposed you."
Violet smiled. "They think RemoteX is dishonest for now. But give me a week, maybe two, and the story will change. Besides, any press is good press."
Amelia was looking at her suspiciously.
"I knew you"d never figure it out in time," Violet said. "Your brother, however, I underestimated. He"s not as naive as you. There"s real potential in Adam Dory." She smiled at Amelia, but Amelia didn"t seem to register.
"You see, your problem is that you a.s.sume people are good. Despite all that you"ve been through, in your happy world people are incapable of acting selfishly or maliciously. You never even thought to consider that I might have done something to mess up your presentation. Instead, you worried that you"d messed up something."
Amelia stared at Violet in silence, studying her warily. Violet shrugged it off with a laugh.
"Look at me like that all you want." She turned back to the mirror and touched her hair to pull it into place, dropped her lipstick into her purse and snapped it shut. "Not all of us are cute little orphans with Tom Fenway in our back pocket. Some of us have to make things happen."
"See you around, Amelia." She waved as she walked out the door. Amelia watched her leave through the reflection in the mirror.
CHAPTER 20:.
Speech!
Chad"s hands were clammy and his cheeks were a deep crimson. He"d been standing at the altar for fifteen minutes. The string quartet had repeated Bach"s "Air on the G String" three times, waiting for the cue to switch to the processional music so the wedding could begin.
Chad felt everyone staring at him, looking for his expression. People were discreetly checking their watches and iPhones. The wedding was supposed to have started already. Why wasn"t anyone making an announcement?
Chad tried to push away his worry and focus on how beautiful everything was. The guests were a.s.sembled on the lawn at the Hibiscus Grove, under a white canopy tent. The gra.s.s had been trimmed to the length of a putting green so as not to catch on women"s heels. The curved, dark redwood altar was covered in white lilies-Shandi"s favorite-and looked out onto the ocean where the high sun was gleaming over the water. Quiet bamboo fans whirred over the three hundred guests, all seated in cushioned white folding chairs. The aisle between his family"s side and hers was sprinkled with white rose petals. His eyes followed the aisle down to the French doors of the hotel"s side terrace, through which, he was sure, the ushers would soon be guiding his mother to the front row so that the ceremony could start and he could marry Shandi.
His eyes strained to see past the doors. Where was Patty? Where was anyone? Craig, his best man, leaned over to him. "Don"t worry, man," he said, "The longer you have to wait, the better the s.e.x will be tonight." Chad forced a smile, appreciating Craig"s clumsy effort to cheer him up.
The crowd turned at the sound of the doors pushing open. Finally! Chad jumped, looking anxious.
But it wasn"t Patty, or Shandi, or the ushers. It was...T. J. Bristol.
Chad hadn"t known T. J. that long, but in all their encounters he"d never seen him at all un-composed. Yet here was T. J., his clothes a mess, his hair disheveled, with a distraught look on his face. From his spot at the altar, he saw T. J."s chest rising and falling in deep breaths, like he"d just finished a sprint.
T. J. ran midway down the aisle and stopped, looking up at Chad with eyes full of concern and opened his mouth to speak.
EPILOGUE.
From: Ted Bristol, [email protected]
To: Adam Dory, [email protected]
Subject: Great Meeting You.
Hi Adam, I hope you enjoyed crashing the wedding! Did you stick around long enough for all the drama? Poor Ron Hawkins had about five heart attacks.
Am leaving Maui tomorrow, but would love to grab another scotch with you when we"re back in the Bay Area. Don"t worry-it"s on me. I"m impressed with what you"re doing with Doreye and can tell you"re very driven. I"m an excellent judge of character.
Shoot me an email. I"m looking forward to it.
Ted "Sir, I don"t want to tell you again. Turn off all electronic devices." The stewardess" aggravated tone startled Adam, who was glued to his iPhone. He glanced up, gave a slight smile and apologized.
"Adam, it"s a real threat," Amelia sighed, "The signals that the 3G network gives off can interfere with communication and flight control devices in the c.o.c.kpit. Your phone could endanger everyone on this flight!"
She brushed her hair away from her gla.s.ses as she glared at Adam. It had been a rough couple of days and she was exhausted, ready to head back to Palo Alto.
"What"s the email, anyway? Good news? You"re smiling."
With a swipe, Adam saved the email message before shutting down his phone.
"It was n.o.body, Amelia. Just spam."
Author"s Biography Sadie Hayes holds several degrees from Stanford University. She has spent years working in the tech industry, both as an entrepreneur and as an investor. The Anti-Social Network is the second episode in her new series: The Start-Up. If you work in Silicon Valley, you might not know Sadie Hayes. But she knows you.
Follow Sadie: www.twitter.com/DigitalSadie www.Doreye.com Want more of The Start-Up?
Episode 4: Reverse Engineering Coming Soon!
Stay in touch with Sadie and The Start-Up series at: www.Doreye.com.
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