His eyes widened and shot to Connor. For the first time ever, I saw emotion in Connor’s face. He seemed…flustered.
“I didn’t see them, sir. I’m sorry.”
Daniel looked back to me.
“Must have been on a coffee run. No worries, I had a little chat with them.”
“What did you tell them?”
I waited, wanting the anticipation to burn in him.
His lips thinned. “You’d better start talking.”
“They had photos of Mark dancing with me at the gala.”
“What did you tell them?”
I stared hard into his eyes, keeping my face as steady and emotionless as I could.
“What did you tell them, goddamnit?” He grabbed my shoulders and shook me.
“Let me go.” I wrestled free from his grasp, breathless from the adrenaline that pumped through my veins. “Don’t touch me. Ever.”
I saw Connor moving from the corner of my eye. He had a wide stance, like he was ready to act on Daniel’s command.
“I lied, Daniel. I lied like a pro. You’d have been proud. And do you know why?”
“Indulge me.”
“Because as I’ve much as I’ve grown to hate you, for some inexplicable reason, I still care about you. I care about your life and your freedom, and I even care about your stupid fucking campaign. My finger’s on the trigger, and I can’t shoot.” I took a breath, trying to keep the tremble at bay. “Because that’s not who I am. I’m never going to be like you. I’m never going to play the game for the sick, greedy fun of it.”
“I’m sure that’s not the only reason.”
“It is the only reason. I’m not scared of you anymore.”
He shot me a chilling look, his lips curled into a snarl. “Maybe you should be.”
“You’d no sooner kill me than I’d send you to jail for murder, Daniel. Oh, and let’s not forget obstruction of justice.”
His eyes narrowed a fraction.
“Yeah, Blake told me about all that. How does it feel knowing that all those great pains you went to covering Mark’s ass paved the way for him to do what he did to me, the same way he did it to so many other girls?”
His jaw clenched.
“Thanks for that, Dad.”
He flinched slightly at the word. I was getting under his skin, and that emboldened me.
“The threats, the manipulation, you trying to assimilate me into your world. All this shit is going to stop right now. Today.”
He let out a short laugh. “What gives you that idea?”
“When Mom died, I had no one. No one.” My voice wavered, but I swallowed to keep the emotion in check. “She gave me all the love she could give, for as long as she could give it. And from that point on, I had to figure out how to make it on my own. I made the rules. I figured it all out. Even when people like Mark came into my life and threatened to destroy everything, I survived. I thrived. And you’re not going to take that from me. I’ve come too goddamn far to live under anyone’s thumb. Not yours, not Blake’s. No one’s.”
He motioned to Connor who then walked a few paces away, out of earshot. I relaxed a little.
“You sound very certain of this. I realize you’re trying to be strong here, but I think we talked about how I feel about people threatening me.”
“I’m not threatening you. I’m reasoning with you because you’ve been nothing but unreasonable from the start. Don’t you think I deserve to have a voice if this relationship means anything at all to you?”
His expression didn’t change. He wasn’t going to give in easily.
“I realized something today. You’ve been making my life hell since Mark died, and I would have given anything to make that stop. But I can’t watch you go to jail, or even watch your campaign crumble, at my hand. And you can’t knock off your own daughter. Somewhere in that cold heart of yours, you care about me. And you can care about me and trust me without owning me. It’s not quite like a father-daughter dance, but I suppose in some fucked up version of reality, that’s love.”
He made no indication that he wanted to speak, so I continued. I’d give him all I had. I had nothing more to lose.
“I know you loved my mom. I see it in your eyes every time we talk about her.”
He winced, his jaw tightening. “Don’t talk to me about Patty. You don’t know anything about it.”
My voice quieted. I’d been nearly yelling up to now. “I don’t know what went on between the two of you, but I know that if you’d stayed together, my life would have been so different. None of us can change those circumstances now. But trying to take the wheel on my life at this late stage of the game isn’t going to work for either of us, trust me. If you still feel a shred of love for her, or regret for what you left behind, I’m begging you to give all this up and be the kind of man she wanted you to be before you wrote her off.”
His lips parted slightly, and he looked past me. I caught a flicker of emotion then, the pain I thought I’d mistaken before when I spoke to him about my mother. I was gambling on the chance that somewhere in his heart, he did still love her. Enough to love me.
He let out a slow breath. “It would have never worked. I did her a favor by ending it. She wouldn’t have been happy with this life.”
“Then why would I?” I threw my hands up, exasperated.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked back to me. A long moment passed between us.
Looking into his cool blue eyes filled me with conflicting emotions. We were supposed to be important people in each other’s lives. A father, a daughter, and here we were, sparring and threatening. Our hearts were filled with anger and mistrust. Under all of that, there had to be something worth protecting, but it was so faint and buried so far deep under all the muck that I could barely believe it existed.
He broke my gaze and pulled out another cigarette. His hands shook slightly as he lit it. “So you’ve made your point. Now what?”
I sighed. “No more stalking. I never want to see Connor’s fucking face again. And no more threats. You stay away from Blake and me unless, at some point, I feel like I can trust you again.”
“He knows everything now, I gather.”
“Don’t concern yourself with him. I know it’s hard for you to trust me, but I’m not really giving you a choice.”
“Maybe he’s the one I don’t trust.”
“Hurting you would hurt me. And he loves me too much to do that.”
He paused. “What if he stops loving you?”
The words settled over me. I’d spent days in agony, afraid he’d done just that. I’d given him plenty of reasons to stop, but he hadn’t given up on us. “I’ll never give him a reason to.”
“And the campaign work, I suppose you’re hoping to bow out of that as well?”
“If I know I can trust you to stop this madness, I will help you. I spoke with Will and we came up with a good plan that would allow me to consult with your team without giving up the business. He seemed to think it would be a great solution, but he wanted to run it by you. I’m assuming he didn’t do that.”
He shook his head and a smirk lifted his lips.
I frowned. “What?”
“I honestly can’t figure out if you’re more like me or her at this point.”
I couldn’t hold back a small smile.
“Yeah, sometimes I wonder about that too.”
I fidgeted a little. This whole conversation had become somewhat surreal. Had I really just won an argument with Daniel Fitzgerald?
“Listen, I need to go before Blake sends out a search party.”
“He didn’t know you came?”
“God, no. I had to sneak out of the apartment and past a pack of bodyguards. He’s probably completely freaking out right now.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Well, I guess I don’t need to worry about him not taking care of you.”
I laughed. “Yeah, not a concern, trust me.”
He exhaled heavi
ly and flicked his cigarette. “All right. We’ll drop this for now, but I’d like to meet again soon to talk about logistics.”
I hesitated, sensing an authoritative tone in his voice that threatened to bring us right back to where we’d started.
“I’ll call you. Frankly, I need some time to put my relationship and my business back together after all of this.”
He nodded. “Fine. Connor will take you back home. Assuming you can handle that?”
“Yeah, as long as he doesn’t plan on killing me and dumping my body in the river.”
* * *
I called Blake on the way back. He’d called dozens of times since I’d left and I knew he was going to be a mess.
“Erica, where the fuck are you?”
“I’m on my way home. Please calm down.”
“Where have you been? You leave me a note telling me not to worry, and then you completely disappear?”
“You’re not calming down. I will be home in ten minutes. Tell the SWAT team to stand down.”
“Where were you?”
“I’m fine. Everything is fine, I promise.”
Connor dropped me off down the street. As much as I wanted to see Clay and his friends jump Connor, that wasn’t really in the spirit of peace I was trying to cultivate with Daniel. I approached the entrance of the apartment building. Blake was pacing like a mad man, spouting heated words to Clay and another brawny man dressed in black.
As soon as his gaze landed on me, he started toward me. I was expecting him to start yelling and freaking out, but instead he trapped me in a hug that left me breathless it was so tight.
He released me enough to look me in the eyes. His face was tense, his skin tight over the angles of his beautiful features. His hand trembled slightly as he caught my face in his palm. “Don’t ever leave like that again. Promise me.”
I nodded and swallowed hard, feeling less brave and more guilty with each passing moment.
“Promise me, Erica.”
“I promise. I’m sorry. I had to see him and set things straight.”
His eyes widened slightly. “What? Who?”
“Daniel.”
He stepped back and shoved his hands through the fine strands of his hair. “You’re kidding me. Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Everything is fine now. I reasoned with him. He was pissed of course, but I think I finally got through to him and made him understand where I’m coming from. He’s going to leave us alone.”
“How do you know? What if he was just appeasing you? What if he’d… Christ, Erica. I can’t even believe you did this.”
I thought it over for a second. My meeting with Daniel could have gone all wrong, completely different from how it had. Blake would have never forgiven himself if something had happened to me.
“He’s my dad, Blake. He’s horrible sometimes, but he’s not going to hurt me.” I sighed, grateful that I could finally believe that. “We came to an understanding. He promised to back off.”
“And you believed him?”
“I believe him.”
* * *
I spent the rest of Saturday regurgitating my conversation with Daniel to Blake, trying to get him to believe that we were going to be okay. He was still skeptical, but I had at least convinced him that he didn’t need to release any damaging information to the public for now. I made him swear on our relationship that he wouldn’t.
Risa and I agreed to meet at Mocha on Sunday morning. She’d suspect something was wrong, but I had to see her face to face. It was my best chance to get more information on what she and Max were up to behind the scenes.
“Hey.” She slid into the seat across from me, looking fresh and sweet, as usual.
I canted my head to the side and stared at her, as if I were seeing her for the first time. In a way, I was. I was seeing the person she’d been the whole time, knowing what I knew now.
“I’m pretty disappointed, Risa. That’s what’s up.”
She paled a bit. “What do you mean?”
“I’m curious. How long did you plan on pretending you were a part of our team before you cut loose? Was it just whenever the opportunity struck, or did you and Max have a long-term plan?”
She hesitated. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“I saw that you sent Max the files, so you can start being honest now. What I want to know is how you went from loving your job and caring about my company to sharing confidential information to a third party with a vengeance, because I seriously don’t get it.”
Her countenance changed, a bitterness washing over her features. “Really? What don’t you get, Erica? You’ve been a nightmare to work with from day one. Everyone thinks you’re this great visionary who’s built the business, but where would you be without people like me? I’ve been busting my ass for you, and for what? So you can take all the credit?”
I frowned. “Sorry, isn’t that your job?”
“It will be when Max and I start up our own site. It’s already in the works, and we’re taking all the advertisers with us, so consider yourself warned.”
I let out a laugh filled with pure shock. Her betrayal had run far deeper than I’d expected.
“Wow, Risa. You’ve really outdone yourself. Max too, apparently. Never underestimate the power of jealousy.” Max would stop at nothing to best Blake. I regretted that I’d ever doubted Blake’s warnings.
“Call it what you want. Good luck picking yourself up after this. You’re going to regret it.”
“What you fail to realize is the company’s success isn’t about you. It’s not even about me. Any one of us could leave, and the company could survive now. You were part of a team, but I guess you completely missed the point of what that means. Good luck running your business with a founding philosophy based on jealousy and underhanded deceitfulness.”
“Go to hell,” she snapped.
I stood to leave. I’d heard all I needed to hear. I paused before I walked away.
“Oh, Risa. One more thing.”
“What?”
I let a slow smile cross my face. “Blake wanted me to let you know he’s not interested.”
BLAKE AND ERICA’S STORY CONTINUES
IN THE HACKER SERIES SEQUEL,
This book belongs to my husband. Thank you for bringing me snacks and making me protein shakes when I refused to stop writing. Thank you for being the good parent, the chef, and the soccer dad so I could pursue another dream. Thank you for being my best friend, my biggest fan, and for letting me talk endlessly about everything.
I can’t imagine being who I am today, having done all that I have, without you by my side every step of the way, helping me believe that anything is possible. Who we’ve become and the life we’ve built together are better than any life I could have imagined. For this, I will be eternally thankful.
Whew. Okay, drying my eyes… Who’s next?
While writing is a fairly solitary effort for me, when I do come out of my cave, there are people whose support and enthusiasm give me the boost I need to keep going!
Thanks to my momma for your unconditional love.
Thank you, Susan, for your friendship, support, and for loving spicy fiction as much as I do.
Special thanks to my editor, Helen Hardt, for not letting me get away with anything, and for inspiring me to make chapter ten far kinkier than I had originally planned. I’m still blushing.
Lauren Dawes, thank you for your eagle eyes!
Thanks to my Twitter peeps for the writing sprints that pushed me through the tough spots and to all my social media pals who make me feel popular and loved!
Big, big thanks to the many fans who have kept me motivated through this journey. Your enthusiasm gives me purpose and warm fuzzies when I need them the most! You ladies are rock stars, pure and simple.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Meredith Wild picked up her first romance novel at the tender age of twelve. Shortly after, she put pen to word processor and made he
r first attempt at writing a love story inspired by those she so enjoyed reading well past her bedtime.
Her dream of writing took a back seat to college, parenthood, and eventually entrepreneurship, which led her into the fast-paced high tech industry. With enough life experience to fill a few lifetimes, she now devotes her hours to writing contemporary adult romance with a hint of kink.
When she isn’t writing or mothering, Meredith can be found sunbathing with an adult beverage.
Official Website: www.meredithwild.com
Official Facebook: www.facebook.com/meredithwild
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