A Tangled Web

by A. Claire Everward

  He shrugged. “It had vision. It saw what no one else did at the time and succeeded in developing it effectively.”

  “But when you started investing in it, its idea wasn’t anywhere near as advanced in its implementation as it is today. And there must have been other startups with similar concepts. How did you know InSyn was your bet?” She looked at him with a slight tilt of her head. “How do you choose all your companies? How did you become Ian Blackwell Holdings?”

  No one had ever asked him that before. “I look at the company and I know. I see where it fits in, or where it will fit in if I guide it.”

  “And when InSyn was causing you trouble you went to see it and you knew how to fix it.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “What you missed was something only an insider would know. You knew enough to make the initial difference, calm it down. How?”

  “I walked through it, saw the place, the people.”

  She nodded. “You look at the tangible components of the company on all levels, and you build a multi-dimensional picture in your mind where you see all of them and all the links between them. This combined fundamental and integrative view allows you to see what others don't.”

  He nodded. He'd never thought about it quite that way.

  “That’s exactly what I do with data.”

  He contemplated her thoughtfully. Finally, he decided to ask. “One thing I don’t get. Why remain in the basement all this time?”

  “My choice.” She didn't elaborate, and he caught something shift in her eyes.

  He let it go. For now. Saying nothing, he turned to leave. Then he stopped and turned back to her as the realization hit.

  “You trained people to replace you.”

  She looked at him in silence.

  “That new team, you intended for it to stay under Jayden. Without you. You knew InSyn’s situation, you saw that Pythia Vision was the only company it was working with, and you understood something was going on, even that far back. You figured InSyn will at some point be purchased by Pythia Vision’s parent company and you made sure you could leave, didn't you? Without hurting who, InSyn? Jayden?” He considered her, going back in his mind. “Is that what I was? A way for you to leave?”

  She almost said something. For the first time ever. To him, she almost did.

  He saw it.

  He turned away and went to the door, opened it, and then, as an afterthought, turned back to look at her. “Just so we’re clear. Despite that clause in the contract, I haven't been with anyone since the day we got married.”

  And with that, he left.

  The next evening he was in his den when she came in. He looked up from his laptop, and focused on her when he saw the expression on her face.

  “You made Jayden the CEO of InSyn.”

  He'd surprised her, he realized, and found himself oddly pleased. “Joint CEO. He’s helped build the company and he obviously knows the people and know-how better than anyone, but I need beside him someone who can actually run it. The interim CEO has agreed to stay permanently, and he thinks Jayden is a good idea.”

  He settled back in his chair, fully prepared to watch her squirm at the realization that she'd been wrong about him when it came to InSyn, that he was willing to listen and do what was needed. That he had thought one step ahead of her, by appointing Jayden as CEO.

  “I did not see that coming,” she said simply and walked out again, a smile on her face, leaving him gaping behind her.

  It took him a while to focus back on his work.

  Three weeks later he came into the library and handed her a report. Saying nothing, he took his jacket off and sat down on the sofa with a weary sigh. She put her book aside and read what he’d given her, noting the changes in InSyn, the improved numbers. Ian watched her with interest. He had certainly never done this with any woman he’d been with.

  She was completely absorbed, and he could the wheels accelerating even before she looked at him. “And the cooperation with Pythia Vision and with the Alster virtual interface team?” The patents were in the process of being transferred to Pythia Vision, and the developer and the team he’d assembled were already working in its offices.

  He got up, walked over to her, and handed her his tablet. She glanced at it, and then looked up at him. He'd just given her access to all the information about Pythia Vision and its projects, including confidential strategic information, such as his detailed plan for it. It had notes in it, his.

  She read it. Even before she finished, she went to work. With what she knew, with her experience with InSyn and Pythia Vision’s past work and her knowledge of their current cooperation, and with her knowledge about the Alster virtual interface and what her husband wanted, why he had started Pythia Vision and was buying specific knowledge for it, she could provide her own input. And she did. For the Ian Blackwell who she knew now, she did.

  “Dinner time, Mrs. Blackwell.”

  His voice brought her out of her thoughts. She squinted at him. It had been almost two hours and she hadn’t noticed he’d left and returned again.

  “I'll eat later, I want to finish this,” she said.

  She turned her gaze back to her work, and so she didn't see the smile that crossed his lips. “We'll eat in the den,” he said. “You can see what you’re doing more clearly on the screens there, and you can work on my laptop if you want to.”

  She looked at him with that slight tilt of her head that told him she was thinking him through.

  Finally, she nodded.

  He'd had Graham prepare the ultimate dinner for the occasion. Pizza. And since he had no idea what she liked and had no hope of asking her now, while she was engrossed in taking his flag project apart and optimizing it, she came into the den to find the most varied assortment of pizzas she had ever seen.

  She laughed in delight, and Ian was struck with the realization that the smallest gesture was more to her than all that the money and power he had could give her. And this was, he suddenly realized, quite romantic. Which was ironic, considering he wasn't allowed to be. Not with her.

  As the night deepened she was standing in front of the screen that doubled as his television and work screen on the wall opposite his desk, crossing synergies. He walked over to her and put another slice of pizza in her hand, a choice of extra cheeses with tomatoes and onions. She looked at it.

  “Eat,” he instructed. She frowned but did, then frowned again when he put a glass of wine in her other hand.

  “I need coffee, not wine.”

  “You need to sleep later, not lay awake. None of these companies are going anywhere, they're already IBH, and we already have what we need to move forward.”

  “Mmm,” she said and turned back to the screen, sipping the wine.

  He smiled.

  It occurred to him later, as he went to bed, that he hadn't wanted the evening to end.

  Chapter Thirteen

  His den was arranged for one man, him. Where his office at Blackwell Tower was sprawling and as intimidating as him, designed to remind those who entered it whose domain they had walked into, this was his private workspace in his home. It was meant to accommodate no one but him, to allow him to work quietly, alone, and it was furnished that way.

  And now he was sharing it with a woman. And this woman always came to sit in the same place, on the same armchair that she had moved closer to the doors that opened to the back of the house, where her thoughtful, contemplative gaze could rest on the skies up above or on the picturesque grounds stretching outside. As she did in the library, here too she would sit with her feet tucked under her when she worked or just sat deep in thought, lean her head on the back of the chair when weariness set in. He had initially thought he might place another desk here for her, but now, as he sat behind his desk, his eyes on the empty chair beside the doors that were open to let the evening air in, he was glad he hadn’t. That wasn’t her. This chair was.

  He turned his eyes back to his laptop, a furrow appearing
in his brow. Another month had gone by, InSyn’s internal audit report finally came in, and he had left a message for her with Graham, to come see it. He had spent a large part of the day in his office, and had come home to find that she was out with Muriel. This wasn’t disappointment he was feeling, he’d done his best to convince himself, just irritation that their work together would be delayed. But Graham’s inquisitive look had told him otherwise.

  He was engrossed in his work when she came into the den, looking, he couldn’t help but notice, rather breathtaking in the white, delicately floral knee-length dress she wore on this uncharacteristically warm day. Absently, she shook down her hair, which she had pulled up. There was none of the hesitation that had been there at the beginning, not anymore, not with him.

  “Hey,” she said, slightly out of breath. “Graham told me, the InSyn report is here?”

  He handed her the tablet and she took it and turned to her habitual place.

  And stopped. His armchair, which she’d been sitting on whenever she’d worked in here, had been moved to the side. In its place, in the spot she liked to sit in, stood a copy of her softer, far more comfortable overstuffed chair from the library, made in a lighter shade more fitting her husband’s den. She approached it tentatively and walked around it, her fingertips brushing its back.

  His eyes followed her every move.

  She raised her eyes and looked at him with that considering look of hers. Considering, but not guarded, not at all, he thought, and something new, something endlessly pleasant washed over him, although he did his best not to heed it. After all, it was, he made a final attempt to reason, simply a logical move to ensure that she could work comfortably here. It suited his purpose.

  She sat down on the soft chair in that way of hers, her sandals fell on the carpet and she tucked her feet under her. A moment later she was leaning back comfortably, her eyes on the tablet screen she was holding.

  His smile mirrored hers, and he made no effort at all to wish it away.

  She finished reading the report and contemplated it. Inadvertently, her eyes turned to her husband. He was intent on his laptop and on the two external screens he had on his desk. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up loosely and its top two buttons were open. She watched him, and had no idea that she smiled.

  She turned her gaze away because she had to. It wasn’t because she was attracted. It was because she was in love. That wasn’t something she could miss, not even her. But he would not, could not, know, she would make sure of that. There was no other way. Not for her.

  There was something in him for her, she knew him and so knew this even without the gestures he’d made these past weeks, like the new chair she was sitting on. But she couldn't allow herself to find out what. And not only because of her. The thing was that he was . . . the thing was that she had, as he had said it, studied him. And studying him meant that she saw the photos, and she saw the videos. She saw him at various social functions, much like the ones she accompanied him to these days, invariably with a woman. Saw the way he smiled, the attention he gave them. Yes, she had studied him, the man he was. And he was experienced. Very much so. He knew how to talk to women, how to be with them. How to get them.

  And so the fact was that she simply didn’t know what it meant, the way he was with her. It could be the natural closeness that had developed between them. They did live together, after all. She thought it might be more than that, but she wasn’t at all sure. She had never let any man close enough to her to know. For all she knew he was just being . . . She had no idea. He hadn’t behaved with her the way he had with those other women. She thought, it seemed to her, that with her he was different than he was with them, as a man, but . . . No, she had no idea at all. It was so much easier to see these things in others, and they seemed to be able to figure it out so much better than she could. She couldn’t begin to figure out that part of it, of him. But then she couldn’t begin to deal with that part of herself, either.

  And anyway, it wasn’t possible. She couldn’t even imagine how it would be. Maybe if things were different, if she was different. Would it be possible then? The fact that she could even think about it, think about him this way, was inexplicable to her.

  God, she was rambling on. And in her own mind. It was stupid, there wasn’t anything between them and there wasn’t ever going to be anything between them and that was that. They had gotten to know each other and had much more in common than they had thought, that was all, and it was good, it made things easier. And it was best that it remain that way.

  So why did she know, quite painfully so, that if . . . no, when he would eventually choose to be with another woman, it would break her heart?

  Okay. Enough. Enough, she chided herself. It wasn’t to be, it was impossible, and she had pushed it away more than once already because it hurt. When it came to him, it hurt.

  She pushed it away yet again. She had no other choice. Hiding was the only option.

  Her eyes turned back to him of their own volition. His brow furrowed, and he shook his head. That made her focus.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He looked at her. “Nothing, just something here.” His eyes returned to his work and then immediately back to her. He considered her for a long time.

  She waited.

  “I see the workings of the tangible, you see the workings of data,” he said thoughtfully.

  She tilted her head in question.

  “That’s what you said when I brought you InSyn.”

  She remembered, of course.

  He leaned back in his chair, still considering her. This wasn’t about InSyn, she realized. He was considering whether to bring her in on something else. Something that required a hell of a lot of trust.

  “I have a . . . suspicion, you could say,” he finally said, slowly. “A gut feeling. It led me to watch Ian Blackwell Holdings more closely, but for now I’m doing this without the knowledge of anyone in it, not even Robert. I need this to remain that way until I know what I’m looking at.” And if he was right, this coming out without him exposing it himself could have a reputational cost to the company. In the least. By sharing this with her, he would, in effect, be putting his life’s work in her hands. If she accepted it.

  He saw the understanding in her eyes. She put the tablet aside, the professional in her fully focused. “Let’s do this,” she repeated what she’d said to him in the car that first time they had gone out together as husband and wife. Shared fate.

  He nodded. “Someone is making subtle changes in Ian Blackwell Holdings’ numbers. As in across the entire company. Indiscriminate choice of figures—it can be sales revenues, investments, current assets, pretty much anything. A number of subsidiaries and second-tier companies that I’ve seen, here or outside the United States, no obvious logic to it and not enough to identify a source. The changes are small enough and scattered enough to be chalked up to discrepancies resulting from human error if they are noticed. But I don’t think they’re meant to be noticed.”

  “How did you see it?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “From time to time, I look at the company from above.”

  “Ian Blackwell Holdings as a whole instead of any subsidiary or sector separately.”

  He nodded. “It allows me to see the entire picture, and to see things that I might otherwise miss. Anyway, no one knows I do this, not this way. No one except you.”

  “And no one will.” The eyes that met his made him a promise he no longer needed.

  He nodded. “I walk through everything, at every level of the company. Structure, supply chains, production and product rollout strategies, marketing strategies, investment strategies, human resources, finances of course, everything.”

  “Tangible and data, except that for you, the data immediately raises tangible links.”

  He wasn’t surprised that he didn't have to explain it to her.

  “So no one saw what you saw because no one looks at your company the way you do
. But then, no one else would feel the need to, certainly not for a company of this size, and whoever did it probably assumed that. Either that, or they simply made a mistake.”

  “Because they allowed a pattern to be created.” He understood where she was going with this.

  She nodded. “It didn’t have to be something obvious. It just had to be enough for it to be a pattern you saw. Because of the timing of the changes, or because of a non-random dispersion of the discrepancies they created—some pattern that could only be discerned by someone who regularly looks at the company as a whole and who knows it as well as you do.”

  “It wasn’t enough. I couldn’t follow them. I can see the discrepancies in the figures that show me that changes have been made, but I can’t anticipate where I’ll find the next one, where the next change will be. I almost missed them myself even when I looked for them. In fact, I probably missed some.”

  “So we’ll look together.” Her eyes were on his, but she wasn’t with him. She was thinking. He let her. Waited.

  “Can you walk me through the entire company the way you do it, so that I’ll see the changes that have been made in it?”

  He was now talking to the data expert he’d first met at InSyn. “Where do you want to get to?”

  “The bottom.”

  “You want the basement.”

  She smiled at the reference. “Yes. The underlying data only. But I don’t know the company. Looking at it from top to bottom, with you showing me what you see, will give me enough of an understanding of it so that later I can work the data.”

  “That can’t be enough.”

  “I don’t need anything else, I have you for that. I just need to understand enough of the company’s structure and content.”

  “You want to combine raw data analysis with tangible knowledge—me—that you can access whenever you need to.”

  She shrugged. “Under the circumstances, that’s the best way to do this. And it’s still going to take time. Think about the sheer amount of data for a company this size.”

  He frowned. “If I reschedule my days, work part of the time here or disappear completely so that I can be available to you the entire time, this will raise questions. With the Alster Industries integration into Ian Blackwell Holdings and the internal audits my subsidiaries are currently undergoing, it wouldn't be something I do.”