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“Nothing. I just remembered that I have a lot to do today.”
    Amelia watched in confusion as Sundeep carried his mug over to the sink. “Sundeep, I’m sorry if I—”
    “There’s no apology necessary,” Sundeep said. He offered up an awkward smile. “Congratulations again on your wonderful article.”

Chapter X
PowerPoint and Shoot
    T . J. arrived at his father’s office thirty minutes early, dressed in a suit and tie. He knew it wasn’t necessary, but he wanted to demonstrate that he was serious—and should be taken seriously.
    He had been up until four o’clock in the morning working on the pitch deck, checking the numbers and making sure that all of the diagrams were properly aligned and up-to-date. He had put a lot of time into it, but the hours had flown by. Whenever he was working in Excel or PowerPoint, he felt like a machine, and he loved it. He knew so many keyboard shortcuts, and he loved how with five little keystrokes he could launch a major data analysis or create a perfectly aligned org chart.
    It was nerdy, he admitted, but there was something gratifying about seeing your ideas communicated in a neat, efficient form that could be presented to investors.
    One of his father’s assistants, Marie, directed him to the bench outside his father’s office, and he flipped through his pitch deck, reviewing his notes.

    T. J. especially liked the last slide. He thought his name above “ CEO & President” just felt … right. He knew his father would ask how he intended to fill in all the “TBD” slots, and he was prepared: there were several promising candidates for the COO and CFO roles in his fraternity alumni pool. And he felt confident that, via Amelia’s network in the computer science department, they could recruit talented engineers, especially after the nod from TechCrunch.
    T. J. heard Marie’s voice on speakerphone in Ted’s office. “Jay Resnick on line one for you. Can you take it?”
    “Sure thing, patch him through,” Ted said. “Jay! How are you, buddy?” T. J. couldn’t help but listen in.
    “Yeah, it’s been a tough couple of months, but we’ll recover. Lloyd’s hasn’t said no officially, they just want to wait until the press dies down and the investigation is settled. I have confidence we’ll be back at the deal by quarter two of next year … Of course I know who found the problem.
    No, if we charged her for hacking they’d discover everything. As it is, they only know about the database … Of course I’m going to take her down; I can’t let this go. Listen, can you keep your mouth shut? Okay, good.
    She’s got a new company, thinks she’s going to be a hotshot Silicon Valley Zuckerberg type. Frankly, she probably could; she’s smart as hell. But I’m going to buy the company and destroy it. Won’t ruin my rep, I’m doing it through a shell company. No, I’m putting T. J. in as CEO . Who cares? It’ll give him something to do and me a channel to work through. You want in? Guarantee you’ll lose your money … Haha, yeah, okay. Gotta run. See you on the course Saturday? Great.”
    T. J.’s jaw dropped. Had his father really just said what he thought he’d said? He was looking at Doreye just to bring it down? And he was putting T. J. in as CEO because he thought he’d be a perfect puppet for its destruction? Didn’t he care that T. J.’s reputation would be ruined if he was at the helm when Doreye went down? Didn’t he care that Doreye was a good product that could make a lot of money and help a lot of people?
    But T.J. didn’t have time to dwell on it. His father was calling him into the office.
    “Morning, son. You’re looking sharp. I can’t wait to see what you’ve got for me.”
    T. J. forced a smile and began walking Ted through the presentation.
    He covered the basics on the slides but didn’t go into any of the details as he had planned. What was the point? At the end of the presentation, Ted patted him on the shoulder.
    “T. J., this