Sarah Morgan - Sleepless In Manhattan

Across from him a young, blonde reporter fidgeted and tried to check the time without him noticing. Jake rarely gave interviews but somehow this woman had managed to maneuver her way past his assistant. Because he had a certain admiration for tenacity and creativity, he hadn’t thrown her out.

It was an impulse he was regretting. He was willing to bet she was, too. So far they’d been interrupted three times and each time she grew a little more frustrated.

Given that her questions so far had bordered on the intrusive, he decided to make her wait a little longer and focused on the call. “You don’t need a content strategist for a lightweight application redesign. What you need is a smart copywriter.”

The reporter bent her head and checked over her notes. Jake wondered how many more interruptions she’d tolerate before she blew.

He swung his legs off the desk and decided to end the call. “I know you’re a busy man so I’m going to stop you there. I understand you want a beautiful design, but a beautiful design isn’t worth shit if your content is bad. And theory is great but what matters is solving real problems for real people. Talking of problems, I’m going to think about yours and get back to you. If I decide we’re the right people for the job, then I’ll talk to the team and we’ll have a face-to-face. Leave it with me.” He broke the connection. “Sorry about that,” he said, turning his attention to the reporter.

Her smile was as false as his apology. “No problem. You’re a difficult man to get hold of. I know that. I’ve been trying to set up this interview for over a year.”

“And now you’ve succeeded. So are we done here?”

“I have a couple more questions.” She paused, as if regrouping. “We’ve talked about your business, your philanthropic goals and your company ideology. I’d like to tell our readers a little about Jake, the man. You were born in the roughest part of Brooklyn and you were adopted when you were six years old.”

Jake kept his expression blank.

The reporter looked at him expectantly. “I didn’t hear your answer—?”

“I didn’t hear a question.”

She flushed. “Do you see your mother?”

“All the time. She runs the best Italian restaurant in New York. You should check it out.”

“You’re talking about your adoptive mother—” she checked the name “—Maria Romano. I was talking about your real mother.”

“Maria is my real mother.” Those who knew him would have recognized the tone and taken cover but the reporter sat oblivious, like a gazelle unaware she was being stalked by an animal right at the top of the food chain. “So you’re not in touch with your birth mother? I wonder how she feels now that you’re running a multimillion-dollar global business.”

“Feel free to ask her.” Jake stood up. “We’re out of time.”

“You don’t like talking about your past?”

“The past is history,” Jake said in a cool tone, “and I was always better at Math. Now if you’ll excuse me I have clients waiting for my attention. Paying clients.”

“Of course.” The woman slid her recording device into her bag. “You’re an example of the American dream, Jake. An inspiration to millions of Americans who had it tough growing up. Despite your past, you’ve created a highly successful company.”

Not despite, Jake thought. Because of.

He’d created a highly successful company because of his past.

He closed the door on the reporter and paced across to the window that wrapped itself around two sides of his corner office. Sun glinted through the floor-to-ceiling glass and he surveyed the high-rises of Downtown Manhattan spread beneath his feet as if he were Midas studying his pile of gold.

His eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep, but he kept them open, drinking in the view, gaining satisfaction from the knowledge that he’d earned every dazzling piece of that view.

Not bad for a boy from the wrong part of Brooklyn who’d been told he’d never make anything of himself.

Had he chosen to, he could have given the reporter a story that would have made the front page and probably won her a Pulitzer.

He’d grown up looking at the shiny promise of Manhattan from the other side of the water. He’d blocked out the incessant barking of dogs, the sounds of shouting in the street, the honking of car horns and had stared enviously at a different life. Looking across the fast-flowing tidal stretch that was the East River, he’d seen buildings reaching up to the sky and wanted to live across the water, where skyscrapers stood tall, where glass reflected light and ambition.

It had seemed as faraway and remote as Alaska. But he’d had plenty of time to stare. He’d never known his father and even as a young child he’d spent most of his time alone while his teenage mother worked three jobs.

I love you, Jake. It’s you and me against the world.

Jake stared blankly at the crisscross of streets far beneath him.

It had been a long time since anyone had mentioned her. And a long time since that night when he’d sat alone on the steps to their apartment, waiting for her to come home.

What would have happened to him if Maria hadn’t taken him in?

Jake knew he had more than a loving home to thank her for.

He shifted his gaze from the view to the computer on his desk.

It was Maria who had given him his first computer, an ancient machine that had belonged to one of her cousins. Jake had been fourteen years old when he’d hacked into his first website, fifteen when he’d realized he had abilities other people didn’t. When he’d turned sixteen he picked a company with the largest glass office, turned up at the door and told them how vulnerable they were to cyber attack. They’d laughed, until he’d shown them how easily he could break through their security defenses. Then they’d stopped laughing and listened.

He’d become a legend in cyber security, the teenager with charisma, confidence and a brain so sharp he’d held conversations with men twice his age who knew half as much.

He’d shown them how little they knew, exposed the weaknesses, then taught them how to fix it. At school he skipped every English class, but never Math. Numbers, he understood.

He’d come from nowhere, but he’d been determined that soon he was going somewhere and he was going there so fast he left everyone behind.

It was exploiting those gifts that had put him through college and, much later, bought his mother—because that was how he thought of Maria even before she’d officially adopted him—a restaurant so that she could share her cooking skills with the good folks of Brooklyn without having them packed into her kitchen as tightly as olives in a jar.

With the help of his closest friend, Matt, he’d set up his own company and developed a piece of encryption software, which was bought by a major defense company for a sum that ensured he would never have money worries again.

Then, bored by the overcrowded cyber security market he’d turned his attention to the growing field of digital marketing.

Now his company offered everything from creative content to user experience design although he still accepted the occasional private request to consult on cyber security issues. It had been one of those requests that had kept him up until the early hours the previous night.

His office door opened again and Dani, one of his junior staff, entered carrying coffee.

“I thought you’d need this. That girl was harder to shake off than a mosquito on a blood bag.” She was wearing striped socks and no shoes, a dress code followed by at least half the people working for him. Jake had no interest in what people wore to work. Nor was he interested in where a person went to college. He cared about two things. Passion and potential.