Once And Forever: Virtually Impossible Part 14

This was the worst possible news. If Brecken knew about Inspex, the only ace I had left was the work I'd already done. All that work... How the h.e.l.l had Brecken found out? And who else knew?

d.a.m.n it. "I need to go." I paused, considering my next words. "I have no desire to fight with anyone. I'm only doing what I think is best for Conure. Just like my father would've wanted."

18.

Andi Getting a phone call from a guy shouldn't make a twenty-three-year-old woman feel like she was thirteen. Or even more embarra.s.singly-act like it. Especially when the guy who was calling had no interest in her, no matter how old she was. Not to mention that I'd just set some pretty firm restrictions on what our relations.h.i.+p was and wasn't. Sadly, those restrictions had very little to do with what I wanted and didn't want. Proven by my prep.u.b.escent reaction to seeing his name on my Caller ID.

Oh yeah, and there was still that sentence s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around in my head: 'I'll figure something out.' What the f.u.c.k was wrong with me? So far I'd been able to dodge Rob's calls, but I was tired of getting the same voicemail message asking how it was going. How did he think it was going? It was s.h.i.+t. This whole thing was s.h.i.+t.

So I stopped squealing, sat back down, ran my hands over my smile, and put on a grown-up expression. He was a man...who I worked for...who obviously needed to talk to his very professional a.s.sistant, so maybe I should pick up the d.a.m.n phone already.

"Hi," I squeaked. Oh yeah, that was professional. And lots of points for originality, too. Ugh.

"Who else do you work for?" Hayden's voice was flat, expressionless, and that put me on an uncomfortable edge. He hadn't used that tone of voice with me since our very first phone call, back when he didn't know me at all. So...

"What's wrong, Hayden?"

"Tell me who your other clients are." The order was more growled than spoken.

"Why? Do you need a new b.u.t.t plug?" I snapped. "Because whatever you have up your a.s.s right now seems to be working just fine."

"I'm glad you're amused because I sure as h.e.l.l am not. I want the names of any of my compet.i.tors that you work with."

What the h.e.l.l? I hadn't even figured out how to screw him over without s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g him-physically or professionally-so what was he talking about? "I can't tell you that. And you know I can't tell you that because it was on the contract you signed with the agency." So why was he asking? "We don't share information on our clients."

"Even when someone offers you enough money to do so?"

Whoa. Maybe my paranoia was misdirected. Maybe everyone in business was a crook, and Hayden was no different. "Are you...are you trying to bribe me?"

"I'm not into sloppy seconds. And I don't cheat to get what I want. All I want to know is who you gave it up to and how much it cost him."

"I'm sorry-all I heard was the incredibly offensive parts of that statement. Was there anything else to it? Anything that didn't make you sound like a complete a.s.shole?"

"Tell me who it was, Sara." He hadn't called me that since our very first conversation. And, weirdly, it made everything more real.

"No one bribed me." I was pretty sure I was in an intellectual sort of shock-the type where your brain comes up with a bunch of scenarios but, since none of them make any sense whatsoever, everything just kind of shuts down and plays dead and the only thing left is b.i.t.c.hiness.

I took a deep breath. "What's this about?" I should've just hung up, maybe yelled a couple of curse words before I did. But this was such a huge departure from the Hayden I'd gotten to know, and I really needed something to help my brain sort this s.h.i.+t out.

"It happens sometimes-a compet.i.tor playing the game well, making a lower bid, calling my bluff-and I suck it up."

I had no idea where he was going with this, but it didn't sound like he was going to break into song anytime soon.

"When you play for high stakes, you accept that you'll lose a few. But I can't lose this one. So I made a few calls, spoke to some of the people I've been negotiating with..." He paused. "d.a.m.n it, I can't lose Inspex! I can't. It would ruin everything."

This was about Inspex? "You know what would be great, Bennett? If you told me what the h.e.l.l you're talking about and what it has to do with me."

"I'm going to ask you this once. And your answer had better be the truth." He paused for a moment. "Have you been leaking information about Inspex to my compet.i.tors?"

"What? No!" I jumped out of my chair. "No, I didn't do anything like that. You send me something, I work on it, and then I send it right back to you. I don't print out anything, I don't talk to anyone else. I swear." This was bad. I couldn't prove a negative. If he accused me publicly, Emilia would have no choice but to fire me. And if he decided to push it, I'd have to come clean to protect Emilia's business. And then I could be brought up on charges. Again. "I swear, Hayden. I didn't share anything with anyone. If someone leaked stuff, it wasn't me."

Not for lack of trying, though. My anger was so incredibly hypocritical. I had intended to give something to Rob's blackmailer. I just hadn't decided what would satisfy a criminal but not ruin two good men. Which meant that I was innocent of whatever Hayden was talking about. Being accused of something I didn't do felt worse than being accused of all the awful things I did.

"I want to believe you, Sira," he said, sounding defeated. "I want to trust you. But this is business. This is beyond my trust issues or even my livelihood. This kind of thing affects everyone involved, all the way down to the person who repairs the copier. If I don't close this deal, my people don't get paid. I can't hide this-it's already gone too far."

"I can find out who did it. Please, give me a chance to find out what happened before you say anything to anyone."

"How do you propose to do that?"

By breaking the law, my plea agreement, and my promise to myself that I would never hack anything ever again. It didn't matter that I would be doing it while trying to help because that was the same excuse I'd given myself last time. Trying to help one person always seemed to hurt someone else. And in this case, I wasn't even sure I was concerned with helping Hayden or Rob. I think I was more concerned with helping myself.

"There's always a trail left behind," I said. "You just have to know how to find it."

"Then find it. Prove I was right to trust you, Sira. Please." It was the hardest 'please' I'd ever heard, as if he'd squeezed it out through a locked jaw. It was also the most desperate. Only Hayden could pull off those two inside one word.

I kept my questions focused-what had been leaked and to whom. His tone was flat as he told me about his conversation with the senator, how Conure's biggest US compet.i.tor had been sniffing around for information he hadn't shared with anyone else. Then Hayden had called the owner of a small parts manufacturer who Hayden had discovered and no one had ever heard of. Whoever leaked the information had obviously known exactly what was in the deal Hayden was about to propose, probably down to the page number it was on.

"I didn't do this," I said when he was done. "But I'll find out who did. Promise."

"I hope so, Sira. I really hope so. I'll be spending the weekend figuring out if there's a way to salvage this, to have something to present to the board so they don't fire me. I'll need to tell them who screwed us over, and I really hope I won't have to use your name."

"Me, too," I whispered too late.

After he'd hung up on me-not that I was doing anything but pretending to be an empty line anyway-I slumped down into my chair. He'd given me a chance to find out, which meant that he hadn't already convicted me, but he didn't sound hopeful either. I knew he'd hated making that call as much as I'd hated getting it. But he'd given me a chance. And despite the fact that it meant breaking the law again, a chance was more than I deserved.

So far, I'd been putting off doing anything about Rob's situation. Now, with this chance-fingers crossed-I would do the right thing for the right reasons and wouldn't ruin anyone's life who didn't deserve it.

It took a while to hack into Conure's mainframe. The firewalls were old-school and easy to get through, but there were a lot of them. Hopped up on caffeine and nervousness, I kept checking over my shoulder as if a S.W.A.T team would barge in any second. Thankfully, besides being paranoid about all the wrong things, I'd somehow gotten in a few of the right things, too.

The second I'd stripped down and reconfigured the new computer Hayden bought me, I set up a complicated routing system for my IP address and a much better security system than Hayden's multimillion-dollar company had. First, the cops would need to know to look, and then they'd need to know where to look. And since this was my first hack since I'd gotten busted-yay me, where's the cake?-I was probably way down on their list of interesting people.

Once inside the mainframe, I could basically go wherever I wanted to. Every email, every doc.u.ment was accessible. Nowadays, even the copiers left a trail of everything that had gone through them. For ease of use and speed of copies, doc.u.ments were scanned onto the hard drive and then printed from the digital version. Convenient for everyone-including people who shouldn't be looking. People who weren't allowed to.

People like me.

19.

Hayden I slammed the door and threw my briefcase on the floor. I wasn't going to get any work done tonight. I wasn't going to do anything but fume. I'd been duped. All I could hope for now was that it hadn't been by Sira. I'd given her far more sensitive information than I should've, allowing a person I barely knew access to secrets that could ruin the biggest contract Conure had ever bid on and make a US senator add me to the list of people not to do business with.

Stupid-stupid-stupid. Sira could be working out of a prison for all I knew. Maybe that's why she couldn't meet me in person-visiting hours were only for family or conjugal visits.

This was, without a doubt, the biggest screw-up I'd ever made in my professional life. It could end with me being forced out of my job, losing my stake of the company, even being blackballed in the business world. I'd be exactly who my father always thought I'd be.

d.a.m.n it, I hoped I was wrong and that she hadn't just been stalling when she'd asked for time to investigate. If I hadn't wanted to trust her so badly, I would've hired an outsider to look into it, but she'd seemed so afraid of me telling anyone. I didn't want her to lose her job if she wasn't to blame. And I wanted so badly to not have been wrong to trust her. To care about her.

Stupid. She'd probably be in Bora Bora by tomorrow, and I'd be left to pick up the pieces red-faced and feeling like an idiot. Because I was one.

Too tired to go through our normal bulls.h.i.+t, I pa.s.sed right by Clare and headed for the wet bar. A gla.s.s of bourbon would help. If it didn't, I'd have another. And another. Until all thoughts of Sira and this mess disappeared from my mind. Then I'd flop onto the bed with my shoes still on and be blissfully numb until morning. So at 7:00am, I'd be ready to pick myself up, take a very long, stress-relieving shower, and prepare myself for damage control.

In the time it had taken to set up that brilliant and complicated plan, I'd finished my first drink, the bourbon-flavored ice falling onto my lips. So I poured number two.

"What's wrong?" Clare asked from behind me.

I spun around, the bourbon splas.h.i.+ng onto my hand. I was surprised she'd even noticed. Even looked up from her book to see me. Even though we'd stopped pretending we wanted to be married to each other, my life was the same.

The only thing constant is change. Nope, not in my world. In my world, the only thing constant was everything. Everything plodding forward, and me asleep with my eyes open, wondering when it would end but doing nothing to slow it down or hurry it up.

As I wiped my hand off, I said, "Why would you think anything is wrong?"

"Because you are having two more drinks than you usually do."

"I'm surprised you notice how much I usually drink or don't drink."

"Wow." She stepped back at my tone. "Well, I buy the liquor, and I'm usually the only one who drinks it. Is that an acceptable answer?"

When I looked at her, I saw that her brow was furrowed as if I'd hurt her. s.h.i.+t, I didn't want to hurt anyone. "I'm sorry, Clare. Yes, I had a terrible day. I didn't mean to take it out on you."

"Was it my dad's fault?"

"No. Today, for once, it wasn't his fault. Of course, if I head straight for the bottle when I come home on Monday unemployed, then yes, it will be your father's fault." I put up my hand. "I take that back. If I get fired, it will be entirely my fault." For trusting someone too much.

"I doubt that, Hayden," she said, taking the drink from me and topping it off. "You're pretty great, but my dad is an a.s.s. So whatever happened today was probably his doing. Not that he'd admit it."

We didn't speak about Bart very much, but she was absolutely right about him being an a.s.s. Or worse. He was also my employer, Clare's father, and the reason we'd gotten married. While Clare and I had known of each other years before we met, Bart had set it up perfectly as soon as he could-his beautiful daughter shoved into the arms of his favorite employee, who also happened to be the son of one of the only men he'd ever considered his peer. The years since my father's death had only made Bart more certain he wanted me in his family-what with the shares of the company I still held.

Our relations.h.i.+p had been expected, and both of us had met those expectations, our long courts.h.i.+p a subtle indication that neither of us wanted to get married. I think we were both waiting for the other to back out. Truthfully, it was my lack of courage that had brought us to the altar, not any n.o.ble idea of chivalry or to help her get away from an overbearing and bigoted father. I didn't know Clare's reasons, other than trying to be someone she wasn't. All of that healthy reasoning had been topped off by an enormously ostentatious ceremony and reception neither of us had wanted.

"I wouldn't worry. He knows how lucky he is to have you." Clare made herself a drink and went back into the living room. "I do, too."

I didn't ask what she meant by that-if she was referring to my value to her father or to her. I hoped for both. I'd worked my a.s.s off for years, and I was d.a.m.n good at my job. And even though our relations.h.i.+p held no romantic love, I did love her. Respected her as a friend and as a woman.

I excused myself to my office, taking the bottle with me. I closed the door and spent a long time staring at the computer without turning it on, remembering the day Sira had helped me set it up, and I'd pestered her into revealing more about herself than she was comfortable sharing.

I'd never tried coaxing personal information out of someone who I had no right to ask, but I seemed to be good at it. I'd never tried because I'd never really cared to know-if people wanted you to know them, they spoke. If they didn't, they kept their mouths shut. h.e.l.l, I'd watched Clare stay silent for years. But I'd wanted to know more about Sira, and so I pushed. I pushed when I shouldn't have, on a person I shouldn't have. Because I cared about a person I shouldn't.

I hoped I was wrong, that she'd be able to clear up this mess and have a name I could give the board. If she couldn't, my only recourse would be to hire an investigator to look into the leak and her.

After my sixth or seventh drink, I picked up my phone and located her number in my contact list. 'Drunk dialing' I think it's called. Supposedly, it never ended well. I'm not sure how much more bad s.h.i.+t I could handle. In the only smart move I'd made all day, I turned off the phone, tossed it onto my desk, and refilled my gla.s.s.

How many more until I was too incoherent to remember how to use the d.a.m.n phone?

The next morning, I woke up face down on my bed, naked, the pounding in my head comparable to hammering a nail into something. Like my forehead. I didn't remember taking my clothes off. I blinked when I saw my shoes in my closet, and my suit and s.h.i.+rt in the dry cleaning bin. I definitely didn't do that. After brus.h.i.+ng the horrible taste off my teeth and slipping on some briefs, I slowly walked into the kitchen and found Clare.

"Thank you," I said, squinting in the bright overhead lights.

"For what?" She put a piece of cantaloupe into her mouth and slid the tray across the island toward me.

I shook my head, afraid to eat anything because it might not stay down for long. "My clothes. Putting me to bed. I didn't... Did I do anything awful?" The last thing I remembered was tipping the bottle of bourbon over and watching the last few drops fall into my gla.s.s.

Her jaw dropped. "I can't believe you don't remember one of the best nights of my life, Hayden. It was incredible. You were awe-inspiring."

My eyes grew wide until I had no choice but to close them in reaction to the light. From what I remembered, I was an attentive lover, but it had been a while, and I'd been very drunk last night. So I a.s.sumed she was joking. But if we... "Did we...?"

Her laugh was small, almost a giggle. "No, we didn't, but your expression is priceless. I'm sure you would've been awe-inspiring if we had. You know, after you'd finished throwing up and I got you cleaned up in the shower."

I cringed. "That last part actually happened, didn't it?"

"Yep. But don't worry. You were a perfect gentleman almost all night."

"Almost?" I swallowed.

"You got a little grabby-grabby in the shower. I had to beat you off with the loofah." I stood there, speechless while she ate some more cantaloupe. "Not that kind of beating off, Hayden, don't worry. No harm was done and no pleasure was had. I was barely even offended when you called me by someone else's name."

"No. No, I couldn't have. Please tell me you're kidding." I watched her face for signs of internal laughter, hoping beyond hope that they'd appear soon. They didn't appear. "I don't know what to say. I was obviously inebriated and said things I didn't mean."

"I think you meant it. It was really romantic, even if it was meant for someone else's ears."

I didn't ask who. It was better that we pretend it hadn't happened. It could've been anyone really-I might have thought I was a pirate gathering my spoils for all I knew. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Sure," she said, poking her fork into another piece of fruit. "Who's Sira?"

Oh s.h.i.+t. "I think I'm going to be sick."

20.

Andi By 3:00 am that morning, I couldn't keep my eyes open long enough to read anything. So I'd climbed into bed and set my alarm for 5:30. Running on coffee and fear, I'd worked all day, my eyes drawn to the bottom right corner of the computer screen whenever I wasn't looking over my shoulder. Not my proudest moment.

The chat window never popped up, the red dot next to Hayden's name never changed to green, and I missed him. Aside from some weekends or when he was out of town, we chatted at least a few times every day. Knowing that he could, but was unwilling to, stung.

The worst part was that I had no right to be angry. Not only did it make sense to suspect the person he'd shared the information with, but he was also right-I was lying to him. About everything but this.