by Lynda Aicher
“Really. It’s no problem,” Avery quickly said. “Gregory told me the twins both have ear infections.”
“That’s the way it works with two,” Tam said with a sigh. “If one gets it, it’s only a matter of time before the other does. And if we’re really lucky, they have it at the same time.” She did a little cheering motion that screamed of sarcasm.
Avery winced. “Sorry.”
Tam waved her off. “No worries. It’s life, and I wouldn’t trade those little shits for the world.” Her expression softened with the love shining on every exhausted line on her face, just like Gregory’s when he spoke of his family.
Avery’s chest squeezed around that display of love as it pressed on the longings she’d tried to ignore. She’d always envisioned having a family. A husband, the proverbial two kids and a dog in the suburbs. She’d been raised in that nucleus and no matter how sheltered it’d been, it’d been good. “At least they’re sleeping now,” she said more for something to say.
“Finally.” Tam’s relief was palpable. “I think the medicine is finally working.”
“That’s good.” Even though that meant she wouldn’t get to see them. Avery glanced at the clock. “I should be getting back.” She looked to Tam, waiting.
Tam frowned before she launched forward. “Right. I’m supposed to get you a ride back.” She scanned the counter. “Sorry.” She moved to the other side of the island, frown deepening. “Tired mom brain in play here.” She scratched her head, turning to the family room. “And I have no idea where my phone is.”
“Where’d you use it last?” Avery asked, wandering toward the kitchen table.
“Hmm... I think after Gregory called about the papers.” She turned in the middle of the family room, gaze landing on every surface. “But I honestly don’t know.” She flipped a blanket off the couch, moved the pillows around.
Avery scanned the table. Two high chairs consumed the space along the wall where an array of green, orange and creamy-colored food stains were splattered across the yellow paint. “Is this it?” she asked, lifting a cell phone in the air. She assumed it was, but it could be an older model they used for child entertainment now.
“Yes.” Tam grinned as she came forward, taking it. “Thank you!”
Avery laughed at her obvious relief. “No problem.” Even this scrambled, tired side of motherhood called to her.
“Okay,” Tam said, tapping at her phone. “One car ordered. It’ll be here in five.” She lowered her phone and brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. “Thanks again.”
Avery waved the thanks away. “It’s fine. I hope the twins feel better soon.”
“You and me both,” Tam joked. She followed Avery down the hallway as they returned to the front door. “I wish you could’ve seen them.”
“I’m just happy they’re sleeping.” Which was true.
Tam hesitated, her hand on the door handle. Her lips thinned, concern flashing before she spoke. “I hope this isn’t overstepping my bounds, but I’m here if you ever need or want to talk about anything.”
Avery stilled. “About what?” Warning bells rang in her head for no real reason, but...
Tam tilted her head, frowning. “About the Boardroom.” Her voice was clear and flat when she made the statement, all coyness gone.
Avery inhaled, and those bells clanged loud and instant. She blinked, unable to believe what she’d just heard. “The Boardroom?” A clammy heat spread over her chest and neck before flashing down her back.
“Yes.” Tam drew out the word, brows dipping. She straightened, caution screaming from her expression. “I feel like I stepped in something here. I don’t mean to be intrusive, but Gregory mentioned it and then I saw your profile on the app and assumed you’d pieced together that Gregory and I were also members.”
The world blacked out for one long moment. They were members? Tam and her boss? In the Boardroom? And they knew she was a part of it?
Oh. My. God. How? How! “App?” she managed to ask, thoughts squirreling down to that one nugget of information. She couldn’t think about the rest, not if she wanted to walk out of there with any dignity at all. “What app?” Her voice had flattened out to a single note with the cold focus that settled in.
Tam bit her lip, clearly confused. Well, that made two of them. “I’m guessing that explains why your profile’s so thin,” she quipped.
“So I have a profile?” Excellent. Awesome. “And who has access to this app?”
Tam made a few swipes on her phone before turning it to show Avery. “Every member.” She touched an icon that had a red B in front of a black outline of buildings. How simplistic. The application opened to show a login page, the word Boardroom stamped in red font across the top.
“And what does it do?” she asked. The full impact of what she was seeing was held off by the simple need to survive the moment. She wouldn’t break down. Not here. Not in front of Tam.
Her boss’s wife.
Tam lowered the phone. “It’s where the scenes are scheduled.” Her voice had softened to a patient, explanatory tone.
So that was how Carson did it. Why hadn’t she asked that detail before?
Because she’d trusted him.
And she hadn’t wanted to know the details. Her actions had been easier to accept when she’d sat back and let Carson make the arrangements.
“And everyone has a profile?” she asked, circling back to that detail. What did hers say? Who’d created it? Carson. It had to have been him. No one else in the Boardroom knew her—or so she’d thought. She shook her head. “I’m such a fool,” she mumbled.
“Why?” Tam leaned in, reaching her hand out. Avery shook her head, stepping back. Her stomach soured at the thought of being touched. Tam curled her fingers in and let her hand fall to her side with a weighted sigh. “I don’t understand.”
Avery clutched the folder to her chest, anger trembling through her on the controlled wave of loathing spreading from her heart. She swallowed, and forced back the tears that burned in her throat. “I’m assuming you can’t download the app from the app store.” She let the snark blaze in her voice, well past the point of caring what Tam thought of her reaction. “So who gives out access to it?”
“Avery,” Tam pleaded. “I’m sorry. I just assumed—”
“Who?” she snapped. She braced herself for the answer, a part of her already knowing.
Tam heaved a sigh, shoulders falling in defeat. “Carson.” She took a breath. “And Trevor.”
The world dropped out from beneath her yet again. Her heart hitched, then raced at the implications released by those two names. Her lover and her boss.
The big boss.
The president of her damn office.
There was no reconciling the wave of shame and anger flooding through her. Why had Carson kept the app from her? What had Trevor and Gregory been thinking? How long had they known about her when she’d been clueless about them?
“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” Tam rushed to say. “But I’m sure it’s not what you’re—”
“You’re right,” Avery bit out, cutting her off. “You have no idea what I’m thinking. None. So don’t even try to guess.” She blinked back the tears welling behind her eyes. Her throat ached with the betrayal, but she wouldn’t break. Damn it.
She refused to break.
Tam nodded. She took a step back. “All right. I won’t.” She crossed her arms and leveled a steady gaze at Avery. “But I’ll listen if you need to vent.”
She barked out a harsh laugh and stared at the ceiling. Those damn tears collected at the corners of her eyes. Like, right. She could vent—to her boss’s wife.
That was so not happening.
A car horn blasted from outside, and Avery praised the universe for the awesome timing. She forced a tight smile toward Tam, not an ounce of since
rity behind it. For all she knew, Tam had been aware of her involvement since that first embarrassing night.
Was she the only one clueless to how exposed she really was? How many other people at work were a part of this “private” group?
And why had she never questioned that before now? She had, right? At some point?
Or was that another detail she’d willingly ignored?
“The car’s waiting,” she stated. Tam still blocked the door, and short of shoving her aside, Avery was trapped until she moved.
“Avery?”
She shook her head. There was nothing left to be said.
Tam sighed, but she opened the door, stepping back to let Avery leave. “I’m sorry,” she said as Avery passed.
She snorted a laugh, not looking back. What did Tam have to be sorry about? For letting the cat out of the bag or being a part of the secret all along?
Avery slid into the car, numb to everything yet screaming silently from the ice that was slowly encasing her heart. How? How had she been so naïve? There was nothing secret about that group. Nothing.
Except what hadn’t been told to her.
The driver rattled off the address to the office, half turning to see her. She stared at him as his question slowly registered.
“No,” she said. But where could she go? Tam was probably already on the phone with Gregory. “Wait.” She still had the papers he needed. “Yes. But can you wait while I run in and drop these off? I’ll need a ride somewhere else then.”
“Sure,” he said. He turned around and jerked the gear shift into Reverse. “Not a problem. But the fare is only paid to the first stop.”
Her laughter died in her throat. Of course.
She closed her eyes and sank into the seat, the damn file still clutched to her chest. Maybe she’d know where to go by the time she reached the office.
And maybe she’d wake up and realize this was all a bad dream. And maybe pigs would fly and cows would jump over the moon.
And maybe her heart could be put back together again.
Right. It was past time she stopped believing in fairy tales. Especially the ones with happy endings.
Chapter Twenty-Six
One hard knock was all the warning Carson received before Gregory stormed in. He slammed the door closed behind him.
“What the fuck did you do?” he barked. His rage vibrated through the room to smack Carson. Gregory pointed his finger at him, accusation blasting. “I told you not to fuck with her. I told you not to mess with my assistant. But you had to fuck it up anyway.”
Carson jerked up. “What the hell are you talking about?” Avery. That was all he knew. It had something to do with her.
Gregory shook his head, lips compressed in a hard line around the words. He let out a growl, spun around and stalked to the wall, then back.
Carson rose from his chair, a knot already cinched in his stomach.
“Why did you hide the app from her?” Gregory threw up his hands in exclamation, frustration humming over his words. “Why?”
The app?
The knot in Carson’s stomach tightened into a firm ball of dread. He swallowed, guilt snapping out to laugh at him. There was only one app Gregory could be talking about. Fuck.
“What happened?” he asked, worry already centered on Avery. Was she okay? Where was she? He stepped around his desk. “I need to find her.”
“She’s not here,” Gregory bit out. He gripped his hips as he sidestepped to block Carson’s path, the action subtle but pointed. “No thanks to you.”
Carson pulled up, anger bubbling. He clenched his jaw and forced back the reflexive instinct to fight. It crawled over his skin and picked at his pride. “You need to tell me what is going on.” The words were ground out over the rough edge of grit lining his throat. “Now.”
Another knock blasted through the tension before his door burst open. Carson shifted his glare to Trevor as he entered and received an equally cutting one in return.
“What is going on?” Frustration simmered from Trevor as he glanced between the two of them.
“You went to him first?” Carson accused Gregory. His disgust grew with each passing second. And he still didn’t know the full scope of what had happened.
Avery. The worry hammered in his skull and twisted through his chest until each breath was a forced effort.
“I had to,” Gregory ground out. “You fucked up, and now I have an upset wife and a missing assistant.”
“What did I do?” Carson growled.
“You didn’t tell her about the app,” Gregory shot back, his finger pointed in accusation once again.
“So what?” he exclaimed. Yet his guilt sat on his chest to further impede his attempts to breathe. He sucked in deep gusts of air, but each one came back empty. Possible outcomes spun through his mind in an endless stream. Ones that brought down the entire Boardroom to less dramatic ones that left him without a job and Avery.
Avery. Fuck.
Pain pierced his chest, and he focused on it for one long moment. On the ache that spread through his ribs to pound in his head.
“Enough.” Trevor’s command cut through the argument in one clean stroke. He glared at each of them in turn, his scowl harsh with reprimand.
Carson stared at the floor, his teeth clenched at the scolding. The added humiliation did nothing to calm the rolling sea of angst, guilt and worry.
“Gregory,” Trevor snapped. “Explain.”
Carson looked up to stare directly at his accuser. He’d take whatever hits Gregory threw out and deal with them, just like he’d done his entire life.
Gregory took a deep breath, blew it out. “I forgot the McPherson papers at home.” He winced at Trevor’s silent rebuke. “I know, okay? It was a shit night with the kids.” He dug a hand through his hair, leaving the strands in a wild mess of wayward curls. “I asked Avery to run down and get them from Tam, and she mentioned the Boardroom app to Avery while she was there.”
“Why?” Carson bit out. Why in the fuck would they talk about it?
“I don’t know,” Gregory flung back. “The real question is, why didn’t you share it with Avery?”
Two sets of eyes drilled Carson, waiting for his response when he had none. The truth laughed at him, though. Hard and bitter with his own denial. He tried to drag in another breath only to fail. Countless possible answers shuffled through his mind, but he could only hold on to one: control and fear.
And he’d let it screw up the one thing that’d come to matter to him the most. His stomach heaved at the realization, a clammy unease spreading over his skin.
“Where’s Avery now?” Trevor asked.
“I don’t know.” Gregory’s voice had lowered, a tired resignation filling it. “The papers were delivered to my office from the security desk downstairs along with a note that said she didn’t feel well and would be out for the rest of the day.”
Trevor looked to Carson. “Has she contacted you?”
“No.” Not a word since her “good morning” text before he’d arrived at work.
Trevor’s eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms over his chest as he shifted into that full analytical mode Carson recognized.
“There’s more,” Gregory said, caution in his tone. He jerked his gaze to Carson before returning it to Trevor. “Tam mentioned that she and I were both a part of the Boardroom. That’s how the app came up. She told her she was there if Avery had questions or wanted to talk about anything regarding the group.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, winced. “She also said that you could give her access to the app, along with Carson.”
Trevor’s expression flattened into a blank facade. Technically, Tam hadn’t disclosed anything that wasn’t openly known by all Boardroom members. But... “Let me guess,” Trevor said, his gaze boring into Carson. “She didn’t know
about Gregory, Tam or me.”
And there was that good ol’ guilt again. It punched Carson in the gut before tightening the winch around his chest. “No.” He shook his head in a slow rejection. His guilt lay exposed in his voice. “There was no need for her to know.” Not when she doused her desires in shame when they were exposed to someone she knew—and she’d been blindsided with that reality.
Fuck.
“Full disclosure,” Trevor said, each word clipped with conviction. “There is no true consent without it.”
“I know.” Carson met his gaze and managed to withhold his flinch. “I fucked up.” The admission did nothing to relieve his own shame that was growing into a hot, sick mess.
Trevor spun around and stalked to the window to stare out it. He gripped his hips, his shoulders lifting and falling with his deep breaths. “Every member is entitled to all the facts so they can evaluate if the Boardroom is for them.”
“You’re right.” Carson didn’t even try to contradict the reprimand. “The starting circumstances were different with Avery. You know that.”
Trevor faced him. “And you told me it was handled.”
“It was,” he snapped. “In fact, it was going fucking fantastically until Tam opened her mouth.”
“Fuck you,” Gregory growled. “You don’t get to blame Tam for your mistake.”
Carson cringed, eyes lowering as more of that shame rushed in. “You’re right.” He forced his gaze up. “Sorry.”
Gregory’s eyes narrowed, but he gave a nod. “You need to fix this.”
“I know.” Irritation crawled over his neck alongside the growing sense of desperation and...loss. The truth smacked him in the face with the clarity he’d been avoiding. “I have to find her.” He bolted for the door, moving before he’d finished the thought.
“Wait.”
He froze at Trevor’s command, pulse racing, nerves jumping. An urgency pressed on him now that he had a direction. He needed to talk to Avery and explain his actions—before she made the wrong conclusions. Like that hadn’t already happened. His own sharp laugh cut through his mind.