“But...what are you suggesting that I—”
“God knows, I’d want to get back at me, too, if I were you,” he said.
“Get back at you? Hold on.” Sophie sucked in a shocked breath. “Oh, my God. You think I’m the one who’s been selling Maddox Hill proprietary IP to China?”
“Oh, so you know about that!” Malcolm’s voice rang out in challenge.
“Of course I know! I found out right after I got here. But I didn’t know who I could trust here, so my plan was to unearth the thief myself and serve you his head on a plate before I even told you we were related. But it turned out to be a slower business than I anticipated.”
Tim shook his head in disbelief. “Can you believe this?” he said. “She’s still playing the innocent. She waltzes in here, gets a job on false pretenses—”
“I never misrepresented myself!” she said sharply. “I gave one hundred percent to my work here!”
Tim snorted. “A little more than a hundred percent, from what I can tell.”
“Shut up, Bryce,” Vann said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Malcolm turned his fulminating glare on Vann. “You shut up. You’ve mishandled this from the start. You took advantage of not just my trust but also hers, which was truly despicable, whether she deserved it or not. It was very badly done, and I’m disgusted. Clear out your desk. Right now. I don’t want to see your face around here any longer.”
With those words, the bottom fell out of Sophie’s whole world.
She turned to stare at Vann, horrified.
“You knew,” she said, her voice hollow. “Even before San Francisco. You knew they thought I was the thief. You were setting a trap the whole time.”
“No!” he said swiftly. “I was defending you! I never for one second believed that you could—”
“Do not hammer away at this false narrative, either one of you,” Malcolm said. “We’re not stupid, Ms. Valente. We have you red-handed. Video footage of you sneaking into my room at Paradise Point, taking photos of documents from my laptop.”
“I was never in your room!” Sophie said curtly. “I was sent to your suite by a woman who claimed to be on the hotel staff. I was standing outside that door, knocking and yelling for you like an idiot, but I never went inside. Why would I?”
“Please.” Malcolm put his hand to his head as if it hurt him. “Please, Sophie. We saw you on the video. Inside my room. Sitting at my computer. Please, just stop this.”
“You may have seen something, Mr. Maddox, but you did not see me, because I was never...freaking...there!” Her voice rose in pitch and volume no matter how hard she tried to control it. “As if I would need to break into your hotel room to steal from you. Hah! I could reach into your system and pull out all your deepest, darkest secrets in no time, from anywhere in the world, without leaving a trail. But I didn’t, because I’m not a thief, or a spy! I have no reason to be one!” She rounded on Malcolm. “You really think this is about money?”
“In my experience, it usually is,” Malcolm said. “And it looks like you got your pound of flesh, so keep it. Just take it, with my apologies. My blessing, even. Consider it your inheritance, your back child support, your payoff, however you want to label it, as long as you never show your face around here again. Do not come anywhere near me and my family. If you do, I will come after you with the full force of the law.”
Sophie had to take a moment to control her expression. Tears welled up in her eyes. Anger, hurt, confusion rampaged through her. There were too many things that were breaking her heart and outraging her pride right now. She was overloaded.
She slung her purse over her shoulder and straightened up. “I’m not your thief,” she said. “But I doubt anyone here has the brains to figure that out. I hope that bastard bleeds you dry. It’s what you deserve.”
“Goodbye, Ms. Valente,” Malcolm said. “We’re done here.”
She turned, tear-blinded, and marched in the general direction of the door. Zack opened it for her. She was grateful not to be forced to fumble and grope for the handle. Once outside, she dug in her purse for tissues.
Sylvia called after her. “Ms. Valente? Are you all right?”
She waved her hand, shaking her head as she hurried away. No point in saying anything to the other woman. Sylvia would know soon enough. Everyone would know.
Her reputation would be trashed in this firm in a matter of minutes. And the news would spread like wildfire. She would never work in her chosen field again.
But that was something to mourn at another moment. One damn thing at a time.
“Sophie.” It was Vann’s voice behind her. He put his hand on her shoulder.
She didn’t think or reason, just spun around and slapped him in the face with all the force in her arm.
He didn’t block her, or even flinch. “Sophie, please listen—”
“You lying scumbag!” she hissed.
He reached out to her. “I swear to God, I never—”
“Do not touch me! You bastard!”
Their audience was growing by the second. All chatter subsided. Heads popped up to peep over cubicles.
“I never believed it was you,” Vann insisted. “Never for a second, and I still don’t. From the very start.”
“You set me up! Deliberately! What kind of monster would do that to somebody? Why, Vann? What have I ever done to you?”
“Sophie, I didn’t do that! I never—”
“You maneuvered me into a firing squad! Knowing that they’d pinned the IP theft on me. You never warned me. Oh, yes, go tell Malcolm, you said. He’ll welcome you with open arms. It’ll be all flowers and rainbows. You set me up to get emotionally destroyed. Deliberately. That’s a special kind of evil.”
“I swear, I never—”
“You thought I was a liar and a thief, but you seduced me, anyway, because you could. So why not just squeeze the situation for everything you could get out of it, right?”
“No! I never thought you were a—”
“If you’d trusted me, you would have warned me!” she yelled.
“I didn’t know Tim had that video, or that he was going to show it to Malcolm before he saw you. We were supposed to meet about that tomorrow, and I was going to explain that you couldn’t possibly be—”
“Stop!” She backed away from him. “Just stop. I don’t want to hear it. If your master plan was to inflict maximum pain and humiliation on me, then congratulations, it was executed perfectly. Quickly, too. What did that take, ten minutes? You couldn’t have done any more concentrated personal harm unless you’d hired a hit man and had me shot. Next time, maybe. Practice makes perfect, right?”
“Sophie, please,” he begged. “You have to listen to me.”
“No, Vann.” She backed away. “I don’t have to do a damn thing for you.”
“Please,” he said roughly. “I believe in you. I’ll do anything on earth to help untangle this for you. If you would just tell me what in God’s name you were doing in Malcolm’s hotel room at Paradise Point. I’m not saying you’re a thief. I just need to understand why you were there, so I can organize your defense. I’m on your side, I swear. Just please. Make me understand. Spell it out for me. Why were you in there?”
Sophie backed away, wiping her stinging eyes. “I wasn’t,” she whispered. “I was never there.”
His face contracted. “Oh, God. Sophie. Please. Help me out here.”
She shook her head. “Burn in hell,” she whispered as she turned and fled.
Nineteen
Vann stared after Sophie. Her gleaming hair swung as she walked. The no-nonsense click of her heels faded away as she turned the corner and was lost to his sight.
People began to murmur and stir as they realized the show was over. Those nearest him, who had been frozen in fear, began sidling di
screetly away.
He had to get to his office. Tell his personal staff. Make them understand what had happened. Not that he understood it himself.
He couldn’t seem to move. It was as if moving would propel him into this new, awful future where Sophie had lied, cheated, stolen. Connived to cheat his employer. Used him to cover her misdeeds. A future where Sophie had been banished and disgraced, and he’d been part of it. Participating in it.
Moving, taking any kind of step...it would make this awful future real somehow.
So would standing still. Time ground forward with or without his participation.
It wasn’t true. His gut, his instincts, his heart, they all refused this new data utterly.
Vann lurched forward. Left foot, right foot. The truth didn’t care if he accepted it or not. He moved down the corridor toward his office. Belinda was already on her phone, eyes wide and horrified. She’d heard.
She laid her phone down. “Oh, Vann.” Her voice was thin. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too,” he said dully.
“This is just...it’s insane.”
“I’ll tell Zack and Drew to look out for your job,” he said. “They’d be stupid to lose you.”
Belinda sank down into her chair and burst into tears. “I don’t understand it! How can he fire you? You’re the best thing that ever happened to this place. Just because some thieving little slut decided to use you for her—”
“She’s not a thief, or a slut,” he said sharply. “She’s innocent.”
Belinda clapped a tissue to her reddened nose and gave him a look that was hard to misunderstand, even with her eyes overflowing with tears. It was pity.
He turned away without a word and went into his office.
He took in the floor-to-ceiling window, the deluxe furniture, the fancy decorating. This office signaled that he’d moved up the ladder in life. That he’d achieved something.
It was all gone now. The office, the job, his whole life. Up in flames, along with his love for Sophie. Everything was burning in hell, just like she’d invited him to do.
The dissonance paralyzed him, the gap between the Sophie he knew and the conniving creature that Tim had painted her to be. And Tim had somehow painted Vann to be just as bad. A lying user, out for what he could get. Capable of getting a woman’s trust, using her sexually and then stabbing her through the heart.
The videos literally hurt his head, as if someone had wrung out his brain like a wet towel. What was up with that? How could it be?
The thought of watching them again made his stomach heave, but he turned grimly to his computer. Following his dad’s stern training. Run straight toward pain. Like he had at high school football practice. Like when he’d been out on patrol in Fallujah.
Same thing now. He had to run straight toward the pain and the fear. Not away.
He opened his email program. The last highlighted, unopened email in his list, the one from Bryce, had two video attachments. His jaw ached from being clenched so hard.
He played the first one.
It was Sophie on the walkway outside Malcolm’s room, her luxuriant hair tossed back by the wind. He fast-forwarded all the way through the hotly disputed four minute and twenty-five second window when she was in the room, and then watched Sophie come back the other way. Her hair was now tossed forward over her face by the wind. She brushed it back and took off, moving as fast as heels like hers would permit. Definitely Sophie.
Then Vann set the other clip to Play. He watched the dark, shadowy figure come into the room, sit down and wake the computer up.
In this video, she seemed different. It was Sophie’s face, yes, but her expression was out of sync with the video he’d seen of her outside. Outside, she had looked worried, agitated, angry. In this video, she looked calm and unhurried. It was the look of a person in the blissful zone of pure concentration. Not looking at her watch, no shifty eyes or nervous gestures, no lip-biting or shoving her hair from her forehead. No hint of urgency or stress. Or guilt.
Of course she wouldn’t be looking at her watch. There was a clock on the computer screen. But her hair? It didn’t look wind-tousled at all. It was smoothed over her shoulders in perfect, freshly styled ringlets arranged decorously over her shoulders. He’d just seen her finger-comb them back off her face moments before.
This was all wrong. The look on her face. The calmness, the unhurried air. Her hair, unruffled by wind or fingers, curling over her chest.
Which was on full display. Luscious cleavage popped up over the neckline of the crinkly edge of the chiffon bodice. The fabric encased her breasts like flower petals.
He didn’t remember admiring Sophie’s cleavage during the party. It was the type of sexy detail that would burn itself permanently into the long-term memory of any straight man with a pulse. But it hadn’t registered on his.
His hand shook as he guided the mouse to click back on the previous video of Sophie outside the room.
No cleavage here. Because the floppy pink chiffon rosette was positioned right at the level of her breasts. Not below.
He observed the indoor clip again. In this image, the rosette was much lower. Hooked loosely closed at waist level, leaving her chest uncovered.
It wasn’t adding up.
But something told him that drawing Malcolm’s attention to Sophie’s luscious cleavage was not going to earn him any points. He’d just look like the balls-for-brains idiot that he was, wildly in love with the woman that he’d just stabbed through the heart. That wasn’t going help her cause, if he—
Wait.
Stabbed. Through the heart.
Oh, God. Sophie’s heart.
His own heart started thudding so loudly he had to bend over for a moment. The searing flash of emotion almost wiped him out for a second. Then he was out the door. Belinda leaped to her feet as he raced past.
“Vann!” she called. “What is it? Did anything happen? Can I help?”
He turned, still moving. “Yes! Tell them all that it’s not Sophie. Tell everyone. It’s not her, and I know it for a goddamn fact. I have hard proof!”
“Um... Vann, slow down! I’m not sure it’s a good idea to rush back into—”
“I have proof,” he repeated. “The video they’re using was a fake. And I know who did it, too. He framed her, and he defamed her. And now he is going down.”
Belinda hurried after him, panting. “But...but where are you going?”
“To beat that lying bastard to a pulp,” Vann said.
Rage bore him along like jet fuel, all the way back to Malcolm’s office. He heard Sylvia’s squeak of protest behind him as he burst through the door.
Malcolm’s face darkened. “What are you doing back here? I already dismissed you! Get gone!”
“Not until I’m done,” Vann said. “I have something to say to all of you.”
Zack stepped in front of Malcolm. “Calm down, Vann,” he said.
“Sophie is not your thief,” Vann announced.
Malcolm grunted. “For God’s sake, stop letting your little head do your thinking for you. She’s been exposed. Lying won’t help her now. Don’t embarrass yourself.”
“I don’t have to lie,” Vann said. “I’m in love with her, yes. I’m crazy about her, and I’m not embarrassed to admit it. But it’s not necessary to lie for her. The woman in the video taken inside your hotel room is not Sophie. The outdoor images are genuine, and they dovetail with Sophie’s account of what happened on the day of the wedding. She was set up. This whole operation was carefully planned. But the woman at the computer? Not Sophie.”
“Vann.” Malcolm’s voice was pained. “Don’t insult my intelligence. I saw her with my own eyes. It’s very clearly Sophie Valente.”
“You saw a doctored video,” Vann said.
“Vann, please,” Bryce scoffed. “Don’t
do this. You saw her come to the ceremony twelve minutes after it started. You saw the videos. She has no alibi, because we were all at the wedding. It’s a slam dunk. I’m sad, too, but it’s time to accept it and move on.”
Vann lunged before Bryce had finished talking.
Crack. His fist connected with Bryce’s jaw. The other man careened backward, arms flailing as he hit Malcolm’s antique Persian rug with a heavy thud.
Malcolm stared in shock. “Vann!” he barked. “How dare you?”
Zack grabbed him from behind before he could do any more damage. “Easy now,” his friend muttered into his ear. “Stop it right now. Not the place or time.”
Vann went still, breathing hard. He jerked his chin in Bryce’s direction. “It was him, Malcolm,” Vann said. “Bryce doctored the video. It’s a deepfake.”
“That’s a lie!” Bryce blustered, dabbing at the blood from his split lip. He cowered back as Vann jerked toward him, but Vann was still restrained by Zack’s hard grip.
“Keep that thug away from me!” Bryce said, his voice high and shaky. “He’s gone nuts!”
“It’s not a lie,” Vann said. “The woman in that video was dressed like Sophie, and she’d styled her hair like Sophie’s, but she is not Sophie.”
“Don’t try to confuse me, boy,” Malcolm said. “What the hell are you saying?”
“It’s a video of another woman, with old footage of Sophie’s face incorporated into it,” Vann said. “It’s called deepfake technology. It’s done with artificial intelligence. It’s hard to spot. But that’s what happened here.”
“You’re grasping at straws, Vann,” Malcolm told him. “Why should you conclude that the woman in the video is not Sophie? She’s in the same clothes.”
“The woman in the video has no scar,” Vann said.
Malcolm’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“Sophie had open-heart surgery when she was a toddler,” Vann said. “She has an eight-inch surgical star over her sternum. That’s why you’ve never seen her wear anything low-cut. If you look at the outdoor video, you can see that the fabric rose is holding the wrap closed right at the level of her chest. But whoever played Sophie’s body double in the video had her wrap closed at the waist. And there’s no scar to be seen. It’s not Sophie. It’s not even necessary to investigate the video itself, but if you did slow it down, you’d find the splices. It’s a fake.” He glared at Bryce. “His son, the one who was looking for Sophie before the wedding. Isn’t he a CGI expert? He doctored that video. Bryce is your thief, Malcolm. Not Sophie.”
Corner Office Secrets Page 15