I laughed.
He looked up.
And that was how our relationship began.
Derek was charming in those early months.
He listened when I spoke.
He remembered the smallest details.
He brought me inexpensive flowers and said he preferred meaningful gestures to expensive gifts.
He talked endlessly about his dream of building a successful technology company.
His startup, Vantage Labs, was developing business software, but funding was always a problem.
I admired his ambition.
I admired his willingness to keep working even when things seemed hopeless.
Most of all, I believed he loved me.
When his company began struggling, I offered help.
He refused whenever I suggested that he seek professional financial advice from people I knew.
“I don’t want favors,” he said. “I want to build something on my own.”
So I made a decision I would later regret.
Through a subsidiary investment fund managed by Harrington Equity Partners, I supported a financing proposal for Vantage Labs.
