by Whitley Cox
Scott chuckled. “I look forward to the blueprints.” As they rounded the corner around the hedge back onto Scott’s property, a Mercedes-Benz SUV drove by, slowing down in front of them. The windows were tinted so he couldn’t see who was inside.
Was that Todd’s vehicle from yesterday? Now he couldn’t remember if the guy drove a Beamer or a Benz. He shook his head. Liam was the motorhead that took after their mechanic father, not him. He liked vehicles well enough, but he couldn’t tell a make or model without looking at the company emblem on the front or back of the car. Liam and their father could tell a Chevy from a Ford by listening to the rev of the engine.
Freddie yawned again. “Race you to the door, Dad?”
Scott released his son’s hand and gripped his shoulder. “You’re on. On your mark, get set … GO!” Then he playfully held his son in place, shoved him backward and, with a whoop, Scott took off toward his front door, a giggling Freddie behind him yelling, “No fair. You cheated!”
Monday morning, Scott propped his feet up on his desk and cradled his phone between his shoulder and ear as he jotted down notes on his yellow notepad. McGregor, Liam’s PI, had texted him before sunrise to say that he had new intel on Todd and for Scott to call him ASAP.
That’s exactly what Scott did.
“This is great, McGregor, thank you,” he murmured into the phone, doodling on the page to keep his fingers busy. “So your guy was able to get into the underground dogfighting ring?” He shook his head. “Fuck, man, that’s just sick.”
“Liam’s been forwarded everything. He suggests you and Ms. Marchand take all the information to the police together, with your lawyers,” McGregor said into the phone. A straw at the bottom of a cup slurping up the last dregs sounded like a chainsaw on a metal fence in Scott’s ear, and he pulled the phone away from his head and cringed.
He waited until the noise ceased before he spoke again. “Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Best to look as professional as possible. Thanks again.”
“No problem. I’m going to keep digging for a bit, see if I can find out any more about that young woman he was with last week. If you can even call her a woman. Girl, was more like it.”
“Fuck, man. Yeah, the more we can nail this guy with the better. Talk soon.”
McGregor hung up without saying goodbye at the same time there was a knock at Scott’s closed office door.
“Come in,” he barked, sliding his feet down to the floor and turning the pad of paper over before the person entered.
The doorknob turned, and in sauntered Todd.
Scott’s palms bunched into fists, and his pulse kicked up speed.
“Hey, Scottie-boy,” Todd said, his eyes thin slits and his dark, thick brows pinched. The chipper tone to his voice did not match the expression on his face.
“We don’t have an appointment, Todd. What can I do for you?” He was determined to keep his rage out of his voice. If Todd caught even a whiff of what they had planned, the whole thing could be derailed faster than a train on an icy track.
“Don’t need an appointment. Not a VIP like me, right?” Unbuttoning the bottom button of his suit jacket, he sat down in the seat on the other side of Scott’s desk and cocked the ankle of one leg on the knee of the other. Scott couldn’t get a read on the man. His face said fury, but his tone said jovial. What was his angle?”
“What can I do for you, Todd?” Scott repeated, unwilling to bite and give the man any kind of sense he was as important as he was.
Todd sneered. “You never told me you lived on Hollyhock Avenue.”
What the ... ?
How did he know where Scott lived?
Scott’s eyes narrowed, and he focused on Todd’s smirk of evil. A muscle in Todd’s jaw twitched.
Oh, fuck.
He knew.
“You sleeping with my wife?” Todd asked, deadpan.
Scott was equally unflappable. “I have no idea what you are talking about. Who the hell is your wife?”
Todd’s nostrils flared. His eyes darkened. “You know what I hate even more than a liar, Scottie? A liar who is also a thief.”
Scott swallowed down the lump in his throat and willed his heart to stop hammering in his chest. He shook his head and tried his damnedest to smile through the fear. “What are you talking about, Todd? Thief? Liar?”
“I know you’re neighbors with my wife. I know you’re fucking her. How long have you been fucking her?”
How did he know?
When Scott didn’t answer, Todd continued. “The kids told me. Which is just another thing that I hate, the fact that I had to hear this from my children and not someone I considered not only a colleague but a friend. I thought we were friends, Scott. So imagine my surprise and then my hurt to find out that my friend is sleeping with my wife. My friend stole my wife. Sneaking around behind my back, all the while smiling to my goddamn face. Pretending that you have my best interests at heart. That you’re going to make me a bunch of money.” He lunged forward in his seat, his volume raised as he spoke, “All the while you’re fucking my fucking wife!”
“Ex-wife,” Scott gritted out. “And I haven’t stolen a damn thing.” He knew he was better off not biting and instead taking the high road and remaining silent—Todd was, after all, a client, a VIP client at that—but the man was just so infuriating, the way he continued to lay claim to Eva, to call her his wife as if their marriage still existed, as if he still had a chance in hell with her.
Todd lips curled. “Ah, so you do know her. You’re okay with my sloppy seconds? That stretched-out pussy of hers turn you on?” He leaned back in the seat again and casually examined his nails. “You know, Scottie-boy, I’m not so sure Dynamic Creative is a right fit for Fletcher Holdings. Particularly if I can’t trust the man I’m supposed to lay the fate and financial success of my company with.”
“What’s this?” Remy popped his head inside Scott’s office because, of course, Todd hadn’t bothered to shut the door. “Y-you’re thinking of leaving the company? Wh-why?” Remy was stammering the way he always did when he was nervous.
Where was your stress ball now, Junior?
Todd flicked his pale eyes up to Remy. “I’m firing Mr. Dixon here because the man has been sleeping with my wife.”
Gasps from outside the office ricocheted through cubicles, followed on the heels by murmurs and whispers.
Oh, great. Now Scott was a new link on the company gossip chain. Damn it.
“B-but you’re not firing Dynamic Creative, are you?” Remy asked, beads of sweat emerging on his reddening forehead like a diamond-encrusted headdress. “What if we just transferred you to another team leader? Another entire team, perhaps? I could even be the team leader. You’ll be my V-VIP client. My Very Very Important Client. Please, Mr. Fletcher, give us another chance.”
Todd tilted his chin toward Scott. “I will if you fire this asshole.”
Remy nodded. “Done. Scott, I’m sorry, but you’re fired. You’re still within your three-month probation with the company, and after new information has come to light, it would appear that you and Dynamic Creative are just not a good fit.” His enormous Adam’s apple jogged in his throat, and he mopped up his forehead with the bottom of his tie. “I’ll need you to pack up your things immediately.”
Scott’s jaw was clenched so tight, he wasn’t sure he’d have any molars left after all was said and done. There was so much that he wanted to say, that he needed to say, but now was not the time.
McGregor was still digging, and Liam wanted to compile all the evidence they had against Todd in one organized, easy-to-read (and convict) package. And he needed time to do that.
But fuck. Scott hadn’t anticipated he’d lose his job over all of this. Probation, maybe, but his job?
Goddamn it, Remy was a weaselly little tool.
Todd lifted his brows. “Well, Dixon, better get a move on.” He turned back to Remy, who looked like he was about ready to shit his pants—or already had. “Unless you�
�d like me to escort Mr. Dixon out to his vehicle.”
Remy swallowed again. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Fletcher. Mr. Dixon here is a reasonable man. I’m sure he won’t be a problem.” His amber eyes shifted to Scott. “Right, Scott?”
Scott nodded stiffly. “Right. No problem from me. Though I will say I’m disappointed in you, Remy.”
Remy’s baby face turned deep red, and he blinked a bunch of times. “In me?”
Scott shoved his hands in his pockets. Otherwise he would probably strangle Remy and then punch the living daylights out of Todd. “Yes. I came to you last week to let you know that there was a conflict of interest with me continuing to lead the new marketing team for Fletcher Holdings. When I told you, albeit reluctantly, that I was dating Mr. Fletcher’s ex-wife and should be removed from his team, you dismissed me. You said it was a non-issue and that I was underwhelming you. Boring you. And now that it has become an issue, now that Mr. Fletcher has found out before I or his ex-wife had a chance to tell him ourselves, I am being fired. I have done absolutely nothing wrong, and even though I am within the three-month probationary period, don’t think I won’t fight this.”
Remy’s face went from red to white in under three seconds. His throat bobbed again as if he had a large chunk of bread stuck in there and couldn’t get it out.
With a bored expression on his face, Todd stood up from his chair and buttoned the lower button on his suit jacket. “Ignore him, Remy. Let’s say you and I go grab lunch? Talk more about this new and improved team you have planned for me?” He slapped Remy on the shoulder and wheeled him toward Scott’s office door, but not before craning his neck around and pinning a steely, psychopathic glare on Scott. “I’m prepared to pay Dynamic Creative’s legal fees and give them my best lawyer on retainer if you fight this, Dixon. You will lose.” His gaze narrowed. “Everything.” Then, with a sinister laugh that made Scott’s skin crawl, he ushered Remy out into the lobby and toward the elevators.
“Oh my God, Scott, I just heard.” Sondra rushed in once Fletcher and Remy were gone, concern in her honey-colored eyes. “They can’t fire you.”
“Oh, but they can.” He pulled a few pieces of paper out of his big blue recycle bin and began to load up all his personal effects into the box.
“But they just can’t!”
Scott didn’t bother looking up again, though he knew by the way the air in his office grew thick that there were other people milling around the door, watching him pack up his things.
“What are you going to do?” Sondra asked after he was all packed and had said his goodbyes.
“I have a few plans,” he said, resting his hand on her shoulder. “This won’t be the last you see of Scott Dixon, trust me. I just need to take care of a couple of things first.”
Sondra wiped a tear from her eye with one of her bejeweled fake nails. “We’re going to miss you.”
“I’m going to miss you guys, too.” He pulled her forward for a hug. She smelled like peppermints and Pantene. When they broke their hug, there were more tears in her eyes, which caused her mascara to run.
He reached for a tissue off his desk and handed it to her. “Can you do me one last favor before I go?”
“Anything, honey,” she said, nodding and blotting at her eyes.
“Can you find me Remington Barker’s home number, please?”
Sondra’s eyes grew saucer-size. “Coming up!” She was all grins now as she skittered her body back behind her desk and her nails began to do their thing on the keyboard.
She handed him a pink heart-shaped Post-It note less than thirty seconds later.
“You going to call the big guy?” she asked, a new sparkle to her eyes.
He took the piece of paper and glanced down at it. “Well, when my son is behaving like a horse’s ass at school or on the playground, the teachers or other parents come and talk to me. Let me know that my son’s behavior is unacceptable. Then I sit Freddie down and we talk about what it means to be a good person.”
“I think Remington Senior skipped that talk with Junior,” Sondra said, tossing a hand on her hip. “Maybe having a father-to-father chat with Mr. Barker Sr. is just what Remy needs from you.”
Scott tapped his knuckles twice on the counter. “My thoughts, exactly, Sondra. My thoughts exactly.”
20
“Have a seat,” Eva said with a smile, patting the backrest of the chair beneath the hair dryer.
Mrs. Ferguson from down the block shuffled over with her foils in her hair and sat down. “Thank you, dear.”
“Would you like a magazine or a Reader’s Digest? It’s going to be about twenty minutes.”
“That would be lovely, thank you, honey.”
Eva handed sweet, old Mrs. Ferguson a stack of magazines and Reader’s Digests, then she turned on the hair dryer and returned to where Mrs. Clark was sitting with her feet in the footbath, waiting for her pedicure.
She was going to have to dedicate every Monday to the seniors in her neighborhood. Ever since the ladies on the block found out that Eva was a hairdresser and aesthetician, they’d been calling nonstop to book appointments. But as Eva had quickly learned, an appointment, whether it be hair, nails or a lip wax, was never just an appointment. It was an update—on everyone else in the neighborhood.
And when she ended up with more than one little old lady in her salon at a time, it became a full-on gossip pool. Eva knew more about people in the neighborhood she’d never met than she did about people she’d known for years.
Sitting down on the stool in front of the foot spa and Mrs. Clark, she reached for a towel. “Have you picked your color, Mrs. Clark?”
The elderly woman smiled, causing the corners of her eyes to form deep creases. She held up a bottle of vibrant orange. “I’m going daring this time. It’s called Orange Dreamsicle.”
“Sounds perfect.” She gently lifted Mrs. Clark’s feet out of the foot spa and dried them with a towel.
“So you’re seeing that nice Scott Dixon next door, huh?”
Eva paused her hands and glanced over her shoulder at Mrs. Ferguson.
“Oh, she can’t hear us. Even if she didn’t have that fan-thing going in her ears, she’s as deaf as a mole rat is blind.” She leaned forward and rested her hand on Eva’s arm. “It’s just us, dear. You can tell me. I won’t say a word, I promise.”
Eva resisted the urge to make a pfsst noise.
Yeah, right. Mrs. Ferguson wouldn’t say a word … until she got home. Then she’d be on the horn to half the block.
“Mrs. Clark … ” But she wasn’t able to finish before the back door swung open and in walked the gossip-topic himself, all sexy and professional-looking in his long-sleeved white button-down, his gray trousers and his silver tie. But his eyes were what caused her to stand up and approach him. Real, deep-seated fear stared back at her.
“Well, now,” Mrs. Clark said behind her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him, ignoring Mrs. Clark.
He gripped her by the elbow and brought her back outside. “Not here.”
She poked her head back into the salon. “Just a moment, Mrs. Clark.”
“Take all the time you need, dear,” Mrs. Clark sang, her tone knowing and her eyes mischievous. If that woman had a cell phone, she’d probably be Tweeting about the fact that Scott had just shown up on Eva’s doorstep and hauled her outside.
But she couldn’t worry about that right now. What made her blood run cold was the lack of color in Scott’s face and the increasing look of panic in his eyes.
“He knows,” he said, once she shut the back door. “He knows. He came to the office today and confronted me and then Remy fired me.”
Her head began to shake, and she found herself muttering, “No, no, this can’t be happening.” Over and over again until Scott grabbed her by the shoulders and then drew her in tight to his chest. Holding her. Keeping her safe until she stopped shaking. “Breathe, baby. Breathe.”
She did as she was to
ld.
Once she’d calmed down a bit, he held her by the shoulders but pulled away to look her in the eyes. “Eva, babe, listen to me.”
She blinked at him, but everything in her head was fuzzy.
“It’s going to be okay. I called Liam on my way home. We’re going to go to the police station this afternoon and submit all the evidence we have. Todd won’t be a threat for long.”
“He’ll just post bail or get one of his rich friends to post bail. Then he’ll be a threat again.” She was shaking her head again, her vision blurry, Scott’s face just a bunch of mottled shapes and colors in front of her. “One of Todd’s best friends is a cop down at the precinct. Todd will know what we’ve done before we even get into our cars. I need to leave. Go get the kids from school and leave town. Somewhere where he won’t find us. Otherwise, we’ll never be safe.”
Tears stung her eyes as the fear bled through her body, and she began to shake.
“Oh, baby.” He grabbed her and pulled her close. She trembled uncontrollably in his arms. “It’s okay, babe. It’s okay. He won’t hurt you. You or the boys. I won’t let him.” He rubbed her back and whispered shushing noises to soothe her, but they were of little comfort. “I’m going to call Remington Barker, the CEO of Dynamic Creative, and let him know what’s going on. His stupid maggot of a son is running the company into the ground, and whether I get my job back or not, Remington needs to know.”
Hiccupping a sob, she pulled out of his arms and wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist. “I need to call Celeste, have her pick the boys up from school and keep them. She lives next door to a retired police officer, and he’s aware of our situation.”
He nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.” His hands ran up and down her arms.
“Sh-should I call the police? They can’t all be under Todd’s thumb. Maybe I’ll talk to a good one, an honest one.”