The Accidental Honeymoon (10 page)

“Well, I’ve been there. I know what all this sudden attention is like.”

“I hope I can become as even-headed as you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself completely even headed. There are still people who can get to me.”

****

Tor Janz sits at the head of the conference room table eating his lunch. The seven members of his editorial staff at Barbarian Media are used to watching their 350-pound boss eat through their daily status meetings. The sight of the pony-tailed, round face, pale blogging King of Silicon Valley doesn’t bother the underpaid writers. The smell is another story. The windowless room reeks of deli meat and mayonnaise. Add to that the body odor, emanating from the overworked staff, and you have what is perhaps the least glamorous sweatshop in town.

Barbarian Media boasts seven tech oriented websites. Covering everything from new gadgets to tech industry news, the blogging network rules over the valley from a rather modest office warehouse in Palo Alto. The offices themselves are rather bare bones, with the exception of Tor’s opulent executive suite clad in leather sofas, vintage toys, a personal bathroom and about $200,000 worth of electronics.

As Tor licks the mayonnaise from his fingers, he stares out over his staff. “For the next six months, all seven websites have one mission - we are going after Ryan Wilde. I want to see this Emperor-IBS merger blow up in his face. That piece of shit thinks he’s too good to come to my conferences and give me advanced looks at his products, then fuck him!” Tor yells as bits of ham and bread fly from his mouth.

“How do we proceed?” one of the editors asks.

“The first thing we need to do is dig up every old scandal we’ve got on Ryan. The stories about the sex parties, the fight he got into at Sun Valley four years ago. That arrest in that San Fran hotel for disorderly conduct. I want the shareholders of IBS to get scared of him.”

All the editors dutifully jot down their boss’ orders, Tor sips on his 64 ounce fountain soda while digging his fingers into the large brown grocery bag containing the blogger’s lunch. He pulls out a second giant deli sandwich and begins to dig into it. “And I want you to look into the execs at IBS. Let them know if they are going to do business with Ryan Wilde, that they are not safe from my scrutiny. I want no less than five stories a day on the Emperor-IBS merger and Ryan Wilde. Is that understood?!”

“Yes,” all the editors respond.

“I want you to delve deep into his private life. Find stuff that we can embarrass him with. Go talk to any of his ex-employees or ex-girlfriends.”

“You heard that Ryan is getting married, right?” one of the editors asks Tor.

“Yeah, who the fuck is this chick?”

“Her name is Karin Davis.”

“Who?! Show me a picture of her!”

The editors frantically try to find a photo. One of them raises his hand. “I’m putting her photo up on the main screen,” the editor responds. Tor looks up at the sixty-inch flat screen on the west wall of the office. A photo of Karin appears. The hefty blogger furrows his brow as he stares at the intern. “She doesn’t look like a model. Is she an actress or something?”

“According to the
New York Post,
she is an intern at Emperor.”

“What the fuck?! Does she come from a rich family?!” the blogger asks.

“Not that we know of,” the editor answers.

“Then why the fuck is Ryan marrying her?!” Tor demands to know.

“Perhaps they’re in love,” one of the editors answers meekly. Tor gives him an ugly stare. The editor slowly sinks in his chair. Tor grabs his giant brown lunch bag.

“I want you to wear this on your head for the rest of the meeting.”

“What?!” the editor asks.

“Put that fucking bag over your head. I don’t want to see your face for the rest of the meeting.”

The humiliated editor looks at the greasy bag. He slowly grabs it and places it over his head. The other editors dare not laugh nor say anything that could bring the wrath of their boss.

Tor stares at the image of the young intern. “Alright. I want to know anything and everything about this Karin chick. Scour the Internet. See if you can find any naked photos of her online. Talk to her ex-boyfriends. I want every piece of dirt on her you can find,” Tor demands. He continues to look at Karin. “Ryan Wilde fucks models and starlets left and right. Now, he is marrying this nobody?! I want to find out why. Get to work, ladies!” Tor growls at the room full of mostly male editors. The red-face boss lifts his obese frame from his chair and stomps out of the conference room.

For a few seconds, no one dares to move or say anything. After a full minute, one of the editors tells their humiliated co-worker, “He’s gone. You can take the bag off of your head now.”

“It’s been one week since Ryan Wilde dropped two huge bombshells. The first being the announced merger of Emperor Technologies and IBS, the hot-shot Silicon Valley Tech giant will combine with the stalwart blue chip tech company to form the four hundred billion dollar behemoth. In addition to that, Ryan also spilled the beans on his pending nuptials. And while the merger is huge news on the business section of the papers, the marriage of the year is eating up ink on all of the social and gossip sites,” the morning anchor at the business channel CNBC breathlessly announces.

“According to sources, Ryan’s marriage to Emperor intern Karin Davis will take place in six weeks in Paris. The couple will begin their honeymoon in Monaco and then head off on an island hopping tour aboard Ryan Wilde’s 450 foot mega yacht
The Octavian.
Over one thousand of the most famous, powerful and influential people will be at the Wilde wedding in Paris. Mr. Wilde himself is chartering several jumbo jets to shuttle his guests to Europe for the big day,” the announcer continues as other members of CNBC’s morning anchor team looks through the papers in front of them.

“One person who will most likely not get an invite to the biggest wedding of the year is Tor Janz of the infamous Barbarian blog. Ever since the merger was first announced, Tor’s network of Silicon Valley based websites have been running numerous stories on Ryan Wilde’s past sexual exploits,” one of the anchors notes.

“This morning, Tor put up photos from Ryan’s infamous vacation in Maui,” one of the other anchors mentions.

“And yesterday, the Barbarian Blog re-ran the story about Ryan’s sex party in Beverly Hills from three years ago.”

“All in all, the barbarian blog is running about 10 hit pieces a day on Ryan Wilde. It really looks like a coordinated attack to take down Ryan ahead of the merger.”

“This should get interesting. From what I understand, Tor has directed his entire editorial staff to dig up any new dirt they can find on Ryan Wilde.”

Ryan stands over a laptop with his general counsel, company president and future wife by his side. They are all staring at the Barbarian Blog. At the very top of the blog are photos of Ryan canoodling with a Russian model on a Malibu beach.
“‘He loves to be spanked!’ confesses former Russian lover of Ryan Wilde,”
screams the headline over the incriminating photo and ensuing blog story.

“This is outright libel. I can sue him into the ground,” Author Stevens tells Ryan. The lawyer begins to write some notes on a pad. “I can call our legal team and have the complaint filed this afternoon.”

“Tor has been sued before by every major company in Silicon Valley. He knows how to turn lawsuits into PR opportunities.”

“This isn’t going to be any other lawsuit. I can have his site shut down. I can sue his webhosting company,” the general counsel tells Ryan.

“The lawsuit will be a distraction for us and free publicity for him. The last thing I want to do is send more traffic to his stupid site.”

“Ryan, listen. I can point a billion-dollar gun to this asshole’s head. I know how to scare people like this.”

“I appreciate your passion but I am not going to play into his hands. That’s my final decision.”

Author nods his head and backs down. Ryan turns to his company President, “Hey Michelle, let’s have our PR announce our latest sales on the Sat-Phone. That should get the tech blogs distracted from Tor’s crap.”

“Good idea,” Michelle answers as she leaves the office.

Ryan and Karin are now alone in the executive suite of the office. The intern looks at the photo of the Russian model. She is gorgeous. That makes Karin a little self-conscious. She has read the Barbarian Blog questioning why Ryan, one of the richest men in the world, would be interested in such an “ordinary” looking girl.

“I’m sorry about the stories about you on Tor’s blog,” Ryan tells his future wife.

“I understand. It goes with the territory.”

“I honestly thought that Tor would not sink that low. If I’d thought he was going to write stories about you, I would have never subjected you to this.”

“What is it with him?” Karin asks. “He seems to have this obsession with you.”

Ryan walks over to his desk and takes a drink of water. “I won’t play his game. Every CEO in Silicon Valley seeks his approval for fear of being ridiculed on his blog. I refuse to kiss anyone’s ring. He can write all the stories he wants, I’m not going to allow myself to controlled by a bully.”

Karin just shakes her head. “Where did this guy come from?”

“Tor came out to Silicon Valley in the late 90s. You see, back then, there were two types of people who came to the valley during the dot com boom. You had the people who loved technology and wanted to change the world. Then you had all the other people who simply came out here looking to make a buck. Tor was part of that second wave. He came up from L.A. after failing as a screenwriter or something like that. He found a town full of nerdy tech geeks and though he could bully them all. He would co-found dot-coms and not pay his staff what he promised. He would screw over vendors and bully his business partners. He was basically the most unethical business guy in town. When the dot com crash happened, his companies went out of business. He had nothing. Well, he had nothing but resentment. He started a blog to basically go after all the people in town who were successful. His blog started getting an audience. Then he posted this infamous story which ranked the attractiveness of Silicon Valley female executives. That made him famous. Since then, his blog has become his own media empire. He is rich in his own right. Probably worth about ten million bucks. But in his mind, he thinks he should be worth ten billion dollars. And Tor will slander and resent everyone more successful than him. He bullies people for profit. I will not allow myself to be bullied by anyone under any circumstances,” Ryan tells Karin.

“Then I’m not allowing this to get to me either. This guy is not going to bully me.”

“Good,” Ryan tells her. “You’re starting to get used to this. Before you know it, you’ll look at these stories and just laugh it off.”

****

“What do you mean you haven’t found anything on her?!” Tor yells at his editorial team.

“She doesn’t have any naked photos online. And the two ex-boyfriends are actually kinda cool.”

“First of all, that’s bullshit. Every chick has naked photos of themselves online. And you going to tell me none of her boyfriends have any dirt on her?!” Tor demands to know.

“No.”

The hefty blogger stands up from his chair. He looks at the photo of Karin on display on the 60-inch screen in the conference room. Tor digs his baseball glove shaped hand into one of the mixed nut bowls and stuffs his mouth while powder residue sprinkles on his black T-shirt.

“How about her previous employer?!”

“She left on good terms,” one of the editor replies.

“Where did she work again?!” Tor asks.

“She worked at The North Face on Stevens Creek Boulevard.”

“How the hell does she go from being a sales girl at The North Face to getting an internship at Emperor. That company turns down Harvard undergrads.”

All of the editors just look at each other.

“That’s kinda strange. Don’t you think?!” The editors continue to stare at each other with blank stares. “Don’t any of you idiots think that’s something worth looking into?!” Tor yells. “Look! Find out how she got her internship at Emperor. There has to be a story or a scandal there. Come on. I shouldn’t be doing all the fucking work around here!” Tor yells as his editors scramble to leave the conference room.

****

Ryan and Karin leave the office at a little after seven p.m. The couple reserves a table at one of Palo Alto’s most exclusive restaurants. While the establishment doesn’t scream wealth, the eatery is known as a hub for Silicon Valley’s super-wealthy. The couple enjoys a prime booth with careful attention to their every need. Ryan and Karin are more comfortable with each other more than ever now. The couple playfully teases each other on their choice of food and they occasionally flirt. Though Ryan and Karin are apprehensive about taking things any further than that. After all, they both know that their marriage is an arrangement of convenience.

****

Michelle is used to holding down the fort. About four times a year, Ryan takes off on one of his infamous “vacations” which is usually followed by embarrassing stories and photographic evidence on his exploits. As the second-in-command, Michelle does her best to pre-organize her priorities as she takes helm of Emperor in Ryan’s absence.

“Ryan will be leaving this week to get married. And he will be spending the next two weeks on his honeymoon. While he will be staying in touch with me, I am expecting him to be preoccupied with his ‘other activities’ in that time,” Michelle tells her staff. “I want to prioritize my schedule so I can stay in contact with each of the department heads. I’m going to e-mail my schedule. Coordinate with each department head so we can meet at least one day each week.”

Michelle continues to lay out her plans for the next few weeks. After the meeting, she walks over to Ryan’s office where the CEO is staring at a giant map of the world.

“What are you doing?” Michelle asks.

“I’m figuring out which islands Karin and I are going to visit.”

“You’re not going to try and hide from me during your honeymoon.”

“I’m going to find islands that are not even on this map. You’ll never find me!”

“Well, too bad our satellite phones have 100% coverage of the planet.”

“Drat!”

“What’s with the island hopping?”

“Karin loves to surf, so I figure I’d take her to some of the best surfing spots on the planet.”

“You must really like her.”

“I do,” Ryan tells Michelle. “I mean. I like her. But, you know, the marriage is going to be unique.”

“Yeah,” Michelle responds with a slight smile.

Ryan looks over at her.

“What’s that smile about?”

“You realize this is the longest relationship you’ve ever been in.”

“Well, it’s not a real relationship.”

“Is it? She’s staying at your house. You get along with her unlike any other girl I’ve ever seen you with. You’re getting married. I mean, it’s more of a relationship than what most people experience.”

Ryan thinks about that for a long moment. “Maybe you’re right.”

Long after Michelle has left his office, Ryan continues to think about his relationship with Karin. It occurs to him that he has never felt quite like this about any woman in his life. He wouldn’t go as far to say that he is in love but he feels a kinship to Karin. It’s as though they are sharing the same unique experience.

“Ryan?” Karin calls out softly as she stands just outside of the office. The CEO turns around. He appears jolted out of thought. “Is now a good time to talk to you?”

“Sure. Come on in.”

“I just wanted to show you the photos of the flower arrangements for the wedding.”

Ryan looks over the spread of proposed arrangements. As someone who considers aesthetics and design a huge part of his tech products, Ryan takes a keen interest in the presentation of everything. The CEO looks as the proposed bouquet of orchids, roses and tulips. He is rather stunned by the arrangements which more like a work of art than a simple collection of flowers.

“This is amazing.”

“I think I may have gone overboard,” Karin confesses.

“Think of it this way. These flowers are not just for us. There will be over a thousand people who will look at these arrangements. Besides, the bigger the splash we make the better.”

“Speaking of splash. Are we really going island hopping on your boat?”

“Eight islands in fourteen days.”

“You are spoiling me!”

“I’m spoiling myself as well. Life is too short to skimp.”

****

Karin stares at the clouds. Right now, she doesn’t realize that she is sitting inside of a private jet, 35,000 feet over the Atlantic. She doesn’t feel the soft leather high back chair. Nor does she hear the hum of the Gulfstream’s engines. Right now, she feels as though she is flying through the air. She is flying to France to get married. The fact that the marriage is supposed to be dissolved in one year does not matter to her. She just feels weightless and free. Happy and unrestrained.