The Boy Who Has No Hope (Soulless #6) - Victoria Quinn Page 0,6
that is rough.”
He shrugged as he chewed. “Perfection is next to godliness…and I’m no god.”
“Well, you look like one.”
His eyes moved to my face.
I didn’t even realize what I’d said until it was too late. “I mean…you’re pretty close.”
Derek didn’t seem to read into what I said and brushed it off. “So, the office?”
“I filed a lot of your paperwork and scanned it into a private server. That way, you can go through everything by month and year. I kept the hard copies, but having digital versions is just easier for you since you’re never at the office.”
“What if someone hacks in to it?”
“I hired a programmer from MIT to make sure that doesn’t happen. He said the firewalls are impenetrable.”
He paused before he took another bite, looking at me like he was impressed by my work.
“I’ll give you the username and password later. You’re the only one with access. But I recommend you establish a second username for Lily or me, with restrictions, so we can pull data if we ever need to do something for you.”
He remained quiet. With that intense look on his face, he was impossible to read because his mind was working furiously.
“There was something else—”
“You did well, Emerson. Thank you.” He forced the words out of his mouth, as if he had to compel himself to show his manners, as if it wasn’t intuitive to him at all.
“You’re welcome, Derek.”
“I’m sorry… What were you saying?”
Since he was so hard and callous, it made his gratitude more meaningful because he wouldn’t express it unless he really felt that way. The bad made the good even better. “I was looking at your website, and you’ve made it pretty much impossible to get in touch with you.”
“Intentionally.”
“But what do you do about publicity requests? I’m sure there’re a lot of people who want to interview you about your work. A TED Talk. Something like that.”
“Not interested.”
“Why?”
“Does it matter?” He finished one half of his sandwich then wiped his fingers with a napkin. He leaned back into the couch, his knees spread apart, his shoulders muscular and broad.
“It does to me.”
His eyes were locked on to mine.
“I would never pressure you into doing something you don’t want to do. I’m simply asking as your friend.”
Another long stretch of silence passed, and it felt like he would hold it forever. Then he leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. He looked at the floor for a while before he composed his answer in his head. “I work as hard as I do for myself, not for the fame or glory. I have no vanity. No ego.”
“Doing interviews wouldn’t make you egotistical.”
“But I don’t like the attention. I don’t want to sit there while someone interrogates me—”
“It’s not an interrogation.”
“And I know the whole rocket thing is going to come up…and I don’t want to talk about it.”
Now we finally got to the truth.
“I don’t like people. I get along with people I work with because our minds are the same. I get along with my family because we’re family. And I get along with you…because you were patient enough to put up with me and get past all my rough edges. But public appearances and talk shows…not for me.” He grabbed the other half of his sandwich and leaned back so he could eat it, holding it in a single hand while his elbow was propped on the armrest.
“I have a counterargument to that…if you’re willing to listen.”
“It’s not going to change my mind, but you’re free to spend your time how you choose, even if that means wasting it.”
He was back to his asshole ways. “Whenever I hear you talk about your work, I can feel your passion and your commitment. I’m not going to head back to school to be an engineer, but it’s inspiring. We live in a world where all people care about is becoming rich, as if that will make them happy. You’re an example of dedicating your life to something, while being indifferent to the monetary gain. It’s incredibly inspiring. You’re an exceptional role model to people everywhere, especially young people, and if you could influence those people to go into science, you’d be impacting the world on a greater scale, which is exactly what you want.”
He continued to wear his steely gaze.
“I think you should consider it, Derek. You have no idea how fascinated people will be with the words that come out of your mouth. All kinds of people.