The Titan Was Tall (Triple Threat Book 1)

by Kristen Casey

  Plus, Piper had cooked him breakfast wearing nothing but his t-shirt. Checks in all the boxes, today.

  But the day’s headline stared up at him in grim black boldface, putting the lie to all his smug assumptions: Questions of Funny Money at New PKM Darling.

  He’d run out of time. Motherfucker. How could this be happening right now?

  “Piper. Honey,” he began. Red had to tell her—right the fuck now—but no matter what he said next, the timing was going to look suspicious, and rightly so. Damn Luca’s father and his lunatic village advice. Damn himself for being a coward.

  She turned up the sound on the little television she had near the stove. “Hey, look,” she chirped. “It’s you!”

  “Piper, no. Let me—” It was too late. It was way too fucking late.

  “Credible allegations of financial misconduct have arisen at Trident Publishing this morning,” the business correspondent said, reading off an officious-looking clipboard. “In a serious blow to Padraig MacLellan’s PKM conglomerate, who acquired the struggling New York publisher mere months ago.”

  Piper stood frozen while Red frantically tried to remember what he’d done with his blasted phone. His jacket—the front hall. He bolted for it and discovered numerous texts and missed calls from Wayne and Rob, and Anika and his parents.

  Back in the kitchen, the broadcaster intoned, “Coming in the wake of yesterday’s big announcement by the company, this is hardly welcome news for MacLellan. Sources tell us that investors are jumping ship en masse, and many of Trident’s well-known authors are demanding answers.”

  Red skidded to a halt ten feet behind Piper, took one look at her rigid posture, and knew he was screwed.

  He hadn’t turned his grandfather’s company into the juggernaut it was without possessing more than luck and a good-looking face, though. Red was a fighter, and he was willing to do whatever it took to win. He just hadn’t ever wanted to fight with Piper.

  It occurred to him that someone had executed this revelation perfectly. Someone had done this to him—set him up for a hideous fall. That someone would pay dearly for what they’d done.

  Red felt a growl of rage bubble up out of his chest. Piper spun slowly to look at him, her face an awful shade of gray.

  “Red? What’s going on?”

  He stepped closer to her and said the worst three words he could possibly utter, “I can explain.” He might’ve laughed if he didn’t feel so sick.

  The television proclaimed, “The majority of the malfeasance appears to center around three authors…”

  Red wanted to roar again. No, no, no. How had this gotten out? He trusted his staff implicitly. No one was supposed to say a word.

  “You knew about this?” Piper asked.

  “…James Denton, only son of Trident’s founders and a well-respected crime writer; Rachel Wilbon, the award-winning author of Come Hither, Moon; and Antoinette Corelli, a romance writer with nearly thirty titles in her backlist.”

  Piper flinched at the mention of her pen name, and demanded again, “You knew?”

  “Yes, but I—”

  “Both Wilbon and Corelli figured prominently in PKM’s triumphant announcement yesterday, their new projects the apparent linchpins in a last-ditch deal MacLellan reportedly put together personally in order to save the faltering publisher.”

  God damn it. Red spun and threw his phone against the far wall. “Will you turn that fucking thing off?” he bellowed.

  Piper went from gray to white and shrank into herself. “I will be in my office,” she told him coldly. “And you will be gone from this house within the next ten minutes.”

  Before she left, she looked down at her hand, methodically removed his ring from her finger, and set it precisely on the counter. “Take that with you,” she said.

  Her voice was flat. Toneless. Red hated it with every fiber of his being. He gripped his skull to keep from punching something.

  “No, Piper. You have to listen. Trust me, I took care of all of this already. I don’t know what those assholes are talking about, but—”

  She advanced on him and stabbed a finger into his solar plexus. “Trust you? Trust you? You’ve got to be kidding me. All this time, I’ve been telling you I needed my new series to do well so I could get this place in shape, while you sat there like a pig, buying me pretentious shit I don’t need. While you hounded me about hiring your contractor and moving out. Holy guilty conscience, Batman!”

  Red’s heart was thundering. “Piper, it wasn’t like that.”

  “What was it like, then, asshole? Because it sure sounds like that to me.”

  He took a deep breath, striving for calm. “It’s true that I knew the Dentons were cooking the books, but I didn’t learn the full details until well after we began dating. I made arrangements to fix it, though. Once the Millhouse deal went through, everything was going to be fine.”

  “Is that so? Well, as it turns out, big shot, I don’t care,” Piper snarled. “Take your damn ring, get your shit, and get out of my house.” She paused at the door but didn’t turn around. “Incidentally, how much was it? How much money did it take for you to feel comfortable snowing me, exactly?”

  Red rubbed at his jaw, forcing himself to utter the indefensible. “Roughly 1.8 million dollars, give or take, stretching back approximately five years.”

  Piper’s head dropped for only a moment before she squared her shoulders. Jesus, she was a warrior, even now.

  “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,” she said, and then she was gone.

  In the corner of the room, Red’s wrecked phone began ringing once more. Inside his ribcage, his heart fractured into sharp, painful shards like a broken fucking mirror.

  THIRTY-TWO

  LITTLE DOVE. THAT’S what Red had called her. Before, Piper thought it was an endearment. Doves, after all, made people think of soft and kind things. Like peace, and love.

  Now, sitting on her back porch wrapped in a blanket, Piper saw Red’s real meaning. What were doves, really? Nothing but pigeons, and pigeons, Piper knew, were humble, practical birds. No iridescent plumage, and no special talents.

  Pigeons were just common creatures that people liked to throw crumbs at. And long after that token offering was gone, they would keep pecking around near your feet, looking for more.

  All the time that Piper had thought Red was falling for her the same way she’d fallen for him, he’d only been mocking her. He’d known he could toss a few shock-and-awe kisses her way and she’d probably never bother to look deeper—to look past the crumbs and see the conniving fox throwing them.

  She stared across the barren late-autumn grass, toward the leafless trees crowding along the back edge of her property. They were like gray and silent sentries, ominous in their judgment. Telling her that after Kyle, Piper ought to have known better. She was such a fool.

  It was cold, but she barely felt it. Her cheeks were wet, though, and that bothered her. Piper mopped at them with a corner of her blanket and was surprised to find that it was already damp. She really had to stop this stupid crying. It was getting her nowhere.

  Red was good, she’d give him that. He’d listened so attentively when she’d told him about her grandparents and the way they’d built this house. And then, later, he’d jumped all over the idea of renovating it in his usual, ridiculously-outsized way.

  If Piper had been thinking clearly, she would’ve smelled a rat right then. Who the hell even suggested stuff like that, much less actually did it? Who, but someone with a very guilty conscience? Who, but a dastardly villain with a damning secret to hide?

  She should have realized that once she allowed the fantasy hero to leave the pages of the book, she’d also set free the bad guy. Unfortunately for Piper, she’d gone and mixed up who was who in this little tale. That might not make her the worst writer in the world, but it sure made her the biggest dolt.

  She’d have to give all of it up now, anyway. There wasn’t going to be a lucrative new contract or a s
moking new series to sell. There was absolutely not going to be a real-life happily-ever-after. Now that Red’s betrayal was out in the open, Trident would get rid of Antoinette Corelli as fast as they possibly could.

  Knowing about her house repair problem as he did, Red would also be aware that Piper wouldn’t have the means to take a big company like PKM to court, either. Perry would almost certainly want to sue Red’s lying, cheating ass. It wouldn’t come cheap, and so Piper couldn’t let him. She choked down another humiliating sob.

  God. A broken heart. What a goddamn stereotype she’d become. She’d be absolutely infuriated, just as soon as it stopped hurting so much. Piper had been flayed open and left for the birds, and she’d never even seen it coming.

  Furious with herself, she pushed to her feet and went back into the house. It took a long, awful minute for her to understand that the tears on her cheeks and the tears making her blanket soggy could not explain why she was standing ankle deep in water. Her cats were blinking owlishly at her from the top of the table.

  “Oh, no,” Piper whispered, horrified. The phone rang. Fredo yowled.

  ERIC WHITTIER’S CALL had come with almost uncanny timing. When Piper explained the situation, he’d arrived on her doorstep within the hour, then immediately sloshed through her kitchen to the basement stairs, so he could make sure she’d turned off the water correctly.

  In rapid order, Eric then set about determining which pipe had burst, and what kind of water damage Piper was looking at. She headed into her relatively-dry office and found the number for her insurance company.

  When they reconvened outside on the porch, Eric’s face was grim.

  “As far as I can tell without ripping into the drywall,” he told her, “The rupture happened upstairs in the master bath. All the water in your kitchen must have flowed down through the joists.”

  When she didn’t immediately reply, he added gently, “I’m sorry Piper. It’s a real mess, but it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

  “Yeah, about that. You need to know that Red MacLellan is no longer involved in this project at all. No exceptions. If you want the job, you’re going to have to deal directly with me, and that means we are going to have to scale way back on whatever he might have told you.”

  “That’s not a problem,” Eric said.

  “My homeowner’s insurance does not have a flood clause. So, let’s figure out how to prioritize what needs to get done, and how much we’re looking at.” She sat on the porch swing, while Eric sank onto the bench next to her front door and perused the notes he’d made on his phone.

  When he spoke, he was calm and unruffled. “Okay, so obviously all the strictly-aesthetic stuff can wait. You can probably milk another five or eight years out of this roof, and we might even be able to do the windows piecemeal. We’ll just figure out which ones need to get done first, then pick off the rest, room by room.”

  “Great.”

  “However, getting at the old pipes is going to be a bit of an undertaking,” Eric warned her. “And I truly hate to tell you this next part, but…”

  Piper motioned him on. “Just say it. Nothing can possibly make this week worse than it already is.”

  The soft-spoken contractor met her square in the eyes, and she knew she was wrong. “Termites,” he said dismally. “I found termite damage in the basement, and it’s probably other places, too.”

  Then he told her how much it would all cost.

  ULTIMATELY, THERE WASN’T much Piper could do. Camped out on her parents’ couch, she reviewed her finances and confronted the fact that all the possible outcomes would suck.

  She had a good chunk of money set aside for her property taxes, due at the end of the year. If she used the bulk of it on repairs, she might not be able to earn enough back in time to pay the government.

  Not with her career hitting the skids, anyway. If the news was correct, Trident was in complete disarray, and not even Perry could seem to get answers from his contacts at PKM.

  Piper had no idea if her new contract would withstand the fire, or if her existing royalties would dry up altogether. She couldn’t dip into her savings with that kind of uncertainty—not if she might end up living off them for a while.

  It was the exact wrong time to be taking financial risks, of course. Still, Piper called her mortgage company anyway, hoping to secure a home equity loan to cover the worst of the damages. Regrettably, she was turned down flat—told her grandparent’s beloved home wouldn’t even appraise for half of what it was worth in its current condition.

  Piper couldn’t fix it and she couldn’t sell, and she hadn’t written a single word in weeks.

  When Eric Whittier met her for coffee a few days later, she could barely force herself to tell him about the impasse she found herself at. He sat and listened, though, and his tranquil demeanor gave her the courage to speak the words that she hated.

  The contractor had said all the soothing things, then assured Piper she could call him if anything changed. He’d wished her luck, finished his coffee and left the shop, and then he’d stopped out on the sidewalk, seemingly stuck in place next to his parking meter.

  Eric spun around and met Piper’s eyes through the plate-glass window, and then he came back inside. He stood awkwardly next to her table and fiddled with his keys.

  “What if,” he began, and hit his thigh with the overstuffed ring of metal. Ching. Ching.

  “What?”

  “I’m a hyena to even suggest this.”

  “You have an idea?” Piper prodded, curious about why he looked so uncomfortable.

  “I do, but I’d hate for you to think I’m trying to take advantage. I’m not, I promise.”

  “Tell me.”

  Eric sat back down with a thud and launched into his proposition. “My older sister was widowed recently,” he explained. “Her husband’s unit was protecting some senator or something and got caught up in this insurgent attack. She’s staying with our parents right now, while they figure out what’s what, but she’s got three kids and it’s a tight squeeze. I thought…maybe…”

  Piper saw instantly where he was going. “You thought they might like my house?”

  Eric nodded glumly. “Now that she’s on her own, she wants to live closer to family. I could take your house off your hands for a fair price, then fix it up for her to live in. We wouldn’t even need to involve any real estate agents.”

  “That would save money,” Piper mused.

  “It would. Your lawyer guy could look everything over for you, make sure it’s what you want.”

  “The house has four bedrooms,” she said.

  Eric nodded again. “One for each kid, plus their mom. Big yard, too.”

  “And good schools.” Piper sat across from him and couldn’t understand how her way out had fallen into her lap so neatly. It seemed almost too good to believe.

  And then Eric Whittier said the kindest thing imaginable. “Someday soon, this whole mess is going to blow over for you, and my sister will get back on her feet. Then you can buy your grandparents’ house back from me and bring it into your family again, where it belongs. Until then, we’ll take good care of it. I swear.”

  Some belated flash of suspicion percolated within her, strong enough for Piper to wonder, “Is Red putting you up to this?”

  “No. Of course not. I haven’t spoken to him since you told me he was off the project.”

  She consulted her instincts and made up her mind on the spot. “Then I think we have a home sale to discuss.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  HE COULDN’T MAKE the puzzle pieces fit. Red had been trying, though—trying for what felt like hours, but had probably only been twenty minutes or less. What had he been thinking, anyway, when he bought this stupid thing?

  Stress relief, that’s what. The woman in the Duane Reade aisle had seen Red looking at the jigsaw puzzles and said her husband did them for stress relief. Next thing Red knew, he’d snatched the first one that caught his eye, and carried the
damn thing home.

  And now, in all his newfound spare time without Piper, he was at his dinner table with a thousand tiny blue pieces spread in front of him that were supposed to depict either sky or sea—but were indistinguishable from each other.

  It was exactly like him, Red thought sulkily, to go completely overboard and get the big, complicated puzzle instead of the smaller, simpler one.

  After all, why simply fail, when you could fail spectacularly? He’d always been too fucking big for the world around him.

  Red couldn’t even manage to find all the border pieces. And he couldn’t seem to stop counting all his miscalculations for himself, either. There’d been the part where he’d underestimated his investors, certainly, along with the Dentons. He’d gotten arrogant, and complacent, and that was infuriating.

  But Red had behaved like a complete and total idiot when it came to Piper. He had focused so much on pushing her to trust him—like that was the important thing—that he’d totally missed the fact that if he earned her goddamn trust, she’d give it to him naturally.

  Trying to push the river, as it were. He’d been such a fool. And now, Red’s stupid mistakes were going to make him lose her.

  He shoved at the mound of impossible pieces, mocking himself for ever telling Piper he’d like to make this a hobby. He was obviously incapable of it, and it was anything but relaxing.

  Over and over, Red had sifted through what he knew, trying to make sense of what had happened that day. No one at PKM had leaked the information about the royalties. He was certain of it. Which could only mean that one of the actual people involved had.

  So, who was that, exactly? John and Lisa Denton. Probably their son Jim. And one other person. As Red had discovered, the reporters had gotten one detail wrong in the early days of their coverage—Rachel Wilbon was not, in fact, a victim. No, she’d been a beneficiary, just like Jim.

  It wasn’t until Wayne had come into work one day, breathlessly recounting how he’d seen Jim Denton and Rachel out on the town the night before, canoodling happily in the back booth of a bar, that Red had understood why. Sure enough, once Rob and his team started digging, the evidence was all there in black and white.