Wild Open Hearts (Bluewater Billionaires) - Kathryn Nolan Page 0,94
Wild Heart and our core values—Wild Heart represented more than this one mistake. We were an example, an innovator.
On social media, I only posted when I truly wanted to. And when I did, it wasn’t filtered or airbrushed; it wasn’t on-brand or strategic. It was purely me, purely fun.
Beck featured prominently now in all of my pictures—with his permission of course. And for every cute comment we received, there was a negative one: about me, Beck, Beck’s family, Lucky Dog, motorcycle clubs in general, women, and on and on. I was noticing that the trolls were coming back in full force and I still didn’t care. Fans or trolls, friends or strangers, none of it was real.
Just like Sylvia had said.
“Sometimes it’s about the bigger picture, Luna,” Jasmine cut in. “Sometimes it’s about being the leader who thinks long-term and does anything to save the company that she loves.”
I opened my mouth to argue back. The devil on my shoulder shook awake. Peered around. It wasn’t because I was actually thinking about using Beck. But because I was suddenly consumed with the worry that my cheerful optimism was going to sink Wild Heart. I could see our offices behind the wide-open windows—the people who relied on me, the employees whose paychecks covered their mortgages, the impact I truly believed we could make in the industry once we’d gotten past this horrible rough patch.
Was my vision clouded by my feelings for Beck?
And yet I knew it wasn’t. I knew it deep, deep down, in that part of your soul where only the truth shines through, scary as it might be.
I was back on the right path.
And I was going to stay that way.
“No surprises,” I said firmly. “And actually…” I looked at my schedule—there was one clean half-hour without anything tagged to it. “Actually, I changed my mind. I’m going to write the speech.”
“That’s a bad idea.”
“I’m not taking opinions on it,” I said cheerfully.
“I’ll still have cameras there,” Jasmine said, chin lifted.
“Which is great,” I clarified. “Cameras are great. Not on Beck. Are we clear?”
“Sure,” she said.
I passed my thumb over the picture of me in front of my stand. It was time to go make that girl proud.
49
Beck
Luna was going to be here in a few hours. I was fighting off the urge to scowl around the office until she got there. Elián was out interviewing a potential family. Wes was coordinating new volunteers. Jem was working happily with Penelope.
I was supposed to be responding to these community event invitations.
Instead I googled Luna’s name.
I shouldn’t have. In the past week, we’d spent every single night together at her house. I’d never been happier, lighter. More content. I’d never been as obsessed as I was with Luna. Every night our lust for each other only increased. It left me low on sleep and dazed at work. Sex drunk Wes had called it, giving me a standing ovation yesterday in the office.
Sex drunk was right. My thirst for Luna never seemed to end.
I shouldn’t have googled her. I knew the internet had nasty shit to say about her, me, our relationship. But I felt like I needed to see her face, hear her voice for a minute. Luna’s TED Talk was the first thing that came up. She’d mentioned it many times but I’d never seen it.
I clicked on it.
When she walked across the stage in the video, I felt proud of her. I’d never seen her so dressed up and professional. Beneath her name on the screen, it read: Founder and CEO. Self-made Billionaire.
That ugly voice in my head—the one I’d been able to shut out this week—took notice of it all. Luna’s charts and numbers and arguments about why businesses could be profitable without mistreating people, animals, and the environment. She was charming and funny. Smart.
“The cosmetics industry thinks it can hide behind claims that animal testing is a necessary evil,” she was saying. “That working with factories that pay people pennies per hour is efficient. Just business. These industries believe they can use women’s bodies to sell us products and yet their boards and upper management are staffed entirely by men.”
My heart was crashing against my rib cage. It was hard for the high school dropout in me to watch while sitting on shitty, donated office furniture. Luna was a slick, brilliant businesswoman who spoke before hundreds of people. She’d become just a woman to me—a woman I was falling for—but a woman without labels.