by J. A. Dennam
“If he’s up there, I have a feeling Mr. Troll left him with quite an impression. Can I borrow a pen?”
While she waited for one to appear, someone spoke her name from down the hall. She looked up and saw Shannon coaxing her shaggy blonde hair into place. The woman winked and disappeared into the alcove of bathrooms. As Brooke wondered what she was up to, Roger emerged from the creative department looking rather disheveled. When he spotted her, a flush crept up his neck. “Hey,” he said with a guilty swallow as she approached him. “What’s wrong? You look upset.”
Her focus shifted to the misaligned buttons of his dress shirt. Numb inside, she pointed out the fashion gaffe. “Better fix that before someone suspects you’ve been banging Shannon in the darkroom.”
His ruddy complexion losing all color, Roger’s gaze shot down and his fingers fumbled with the gaping hole in his clothes. “I—uh—shit. Listen, Brooke—”
But she had already spun on her heel and was walking back toward reception. Luckily, he didn’t follow, because Roger Kerrigan—her so-called friend—had absolutely nothing to say that she wanted to hear.
Brooke took the pen from a stunned Letreece. As she scribbled a message on a sticky note, the receptionist leaned in and whispered, “There’s a darkroom back there?”
Damn. Guess she’d forgotten to whisper. Brooke handed back the pen with a stiff smile and left without answering.
File in hand, she made her way up to the roof one slow step at a time. As awful thoughts scrambled inside her head, she pushed them back in accord with Miranda’s advice. Luckily, she was very much unaffected by the fact Roger had just screwed another woman. It was his choice of woman she had a problem with. Wasn’t he the one who’d warned her that Shannon was up to no good?
Guess betrayal had no face in the dark. Brooke had a wry laugh over that one and pushed her way through the rooftop door.
“You bitch!”
She whirled around and saw Ethan approaching with rage in his eyes. His jacket and tie were off; his shirt was darkened with sweat and flared open. Though she tried to focus on something else, her attention zeroed in on that sculpted torso of his, which was lightly dusted with hair and glistening like an athlete’s in a Gatorade commercial.
The fact he wanted to kill her right now seemed almost mundane. “It wasn’t me,” she said automatically, holding out the file.
Ethan snatched it from her and forced her back a step. “So much for putting it all behind us.” He stormed through the door she still held open and slammed it shut in her face.
Effectively locked out, surrounded by warm, colicky air, Brooke sighed and faced the wind. Thank God she hadn’t worn heels that day.
ON HIS WAY DOWN THE STAIRS, ETHAN PRAYED for rain, a real toad-soaker that would wash Brooke Monroe straight out into the undertow. He wasn’t pissed because she’d locked him on the roof. That was no worse than the shit he’d pulled on her. But she’d gone far beyond an acceptable level of payback by actually sabotaging his biggest account while he baked to a crisp in the brutal Florida sun.
The woman either had fewer brains than he gave her credit for or a well-hidden set of elephant balls. Either way, he now had a legitimate reason to cry foul in this competition of theirs.
Ethan buttoned his shirt only enough to make himself decent before he burst into the air-cooled lobby of the eighth floor. Chest heaving and head swimming with heatstroke, he sank into one of the chairs and caught his breath.
“Damn,” Letreece said from behind the desk. “How long were you up there?”
He pried his eyes open a crack. “Long enough to turn my lungs into bread pudding.”
She looked from him to the stairwell door. “Where’s Brooke?”
“In hell. Don’t worry, I won’t let her stay home too long.”
The woman got up, circled around her desk and stood over him with her hands on her hips. “Did you even look inside the file?”
“Why?”
“She wrote something for you in there.”
Letreece took the file from his grasp, opened it wide, and held it up. Ethan squinted, still catching his breath as he sat up a little straighter.
A signature at the bottom of the competitor’s bid had been circled and the word “forgery” had been written beside it. Ethan grabbed the folder and read the sticky note next.
If you want an explanation, come back and get me.
“Shit.” The word tore from his mouth before he could stop it. Could this day get any worse?
Having also read the note, Letreece straightened up with raised eyebrows that suggested he should act now. Ethan slowly rose to his feet. “Am I really that predictable?” he asked while heading toward the door he just came out of.
“Mmm-hmm,” she replied with attitude.
It was the longest flight of steps he’d ever taken. When he finally reached the top, he opened the door to find Brooke lounging against the nearest ledge using his discarded jacket for shade.
“Hurry up,” he said. “I’m thirsty.”
She sauntered toward him with a haughty lift to her chin. When she passed by, he took his jacket from her outstretched hand and glared. “Am I really that predict—”
“Yep.”
Now why had he bothered for a second opinion from a woman who hated his guts? “Come on, how did you know that I’d—”
“All I had to do was think like a child.”
Her bitchy response echoed in the windowless tunnel of stairs. Still suffering from heat exhaustion, Ethan wasn’t sure of his own mood, let alone hers. “And what would you have done if I didn’t get your message?”
“I would have let myself back in.”
“How?”
She produced a wry laugh. “Something you may not have heard, Ethan, but I’ve worked in this building for a long time.”
Ignoring his body’s thirst for cool air and something with electrolytes, he grabbed her arm to keep her from entering the lobby. “You know what I think?”
Her green eyes dulled behind the wire-rimmed glasses. “Yes, I know what you think.”
“Who locked me up there if not you?”
She shrugged. “Gee, I couldn’t guess. Certainly not the woman who’s been pulling morbid pranks on you lately.”
His look narrowed. “Shannon’s not the one who just ran off my biggest client.”
Her eyes growing cold, she dislodged her arm from his grasp and pushed into the lobby. “Your reaction is exactly what I would expect.”
A small Asian woman occupied one of the waiting room chairs. Brooke blew at the loose hair that had escaped from her ponytail and, once again, broke into a professional smile. “Mrs. Higashi, how nice to see you again.”
As he watched her greet an old client, a part of him wanted to strangle her. Another part of him admired her stamina. She was obviously shaken by their private talk. She was also windblown, hot, and smelled of copper, yet she managed to pull off the demeanor of Princess Di at a charity ball.
Both he and Letreece watched the pair stroll down the hall of windows.
Letreece also watched him from beneath her glossy black bangs. “Hey, Ethan?”
He barked out a gruff “What?”
“Did you know that there’s a darkroom in here somewhere?” When he went still, she cocked an eyebrow. “I hear it’s quite the place to get some workplace freak on.”
“Who told you that?”
“Brooke.”
Before he could regroup from the fact Brooke had told an avid gossipmonger about their private affairs, Letreece broke into a huge grin and said, “When she busted Roger and Shannon coming out of it, she ripped into him loud enough for me to hear. Boy, was she pissed.”
Ethan’s jaw went slack. “Roger and Shannon?”
She made a face. “Yeah. I know, right? It’s like feeding a cute little bunny to a piranha.”
Having suffered several cases of whiplash already, Ethan rubbed his forehead to sort it all out and walked away.
; 15
HIS BODY TEMPERATURE BACK TO NORMAL, ETHAN sat before Ken’s desk, a half-empty sports drink in one hand, the Romcore file in the other. “So Brooke thinks Ted Troll had this signature forged?”
Ken sat forward and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “The signature on that bid is from a Ms. Marion Dailey.”
“I see that. Does Brooke know this lady?”
“Not well. Design Solutions is a relatively small firm in Estero, but they’ve attended some of the same tradeshow events in the past.”
“So how could she know her signature?”
Ken turned his computer screen around and pointed to a newspaper article covering a 2013 awards banquet. There was a picture of a middle-aged man wearing a garish, orange tuxedo holding his award in the air. “Because Marion Dailey of Design Solutions is a guy.”
Ethan closed his eyes, rubbing at the sudden tension between them. There had to be an explanation. Ted Troll was the president of a fairly large company. Why would he resort to forgery?
Ken continued from across the desk. “Brooke knows the project coordinator at Design Solutions. She called and confirmed that they never bid a project for Romcore.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“She thinks Mr. Troll was able to get his hands on our bid before it was actually shown to him. He came prepared with a forged bid on Design Solutions letterhead that looked like the real deal.”
“Can he go to jail for this?”
“Maybe for the forgery,” Ken said with a thoughtful roll of the eyes, “but that would be more Marion Dailey’s problem. Right now I have someone looking into whether Romcore actually owns the copyright to the textbooks he wants to print. Even if he provided proof, who’s to say that those wouldn’t be faked too?”
Brooke stuck her head in the door. “You wanted to see me?”
Ken gestured to the chair beside Ethan. “Shut the door and have a seat.”
When she appeared from behind him, Ethan sensed her stress. Their working relationship was in such a state of limbo, even he didn’t know what to think. He stared at her profile as she kept her attention solely on Ken.
“How did your meeting go?” Ken asked first.
“Fine,” she answered. “I was a little late.” Her eyes darted sideways in accusation.
Ethan kept his visage carefully blank. If his suspicions were right, Brooke was anything but a victim.
Ken leaned back in his chair, his expression extremely serene for a man whose headache should have returned in force. “Ethan and I were discussing timing,” he said.
Brooke cocked her head. “Timing, sir?”
“Yes. He found it strange that his unfortunate incident on the roof occurred just before his Romcore meeting.”
“There’s a brick by the door to keep it open,” Ethan said. “Someone nudged it out of the way and locked me out.”
“How do you know it didn’t just slip?” she asked, keeping her attention on Ken.
“Because I heard someone coming up the stairs before the brick was moved,” Ethan answered tightly.
Ken held up a silencing hand in Ethan’s direction. “Letreece was away from her desk around that time and can’t verify who entered the stairwell.”
“Are you accusing me?” Brooke asked outright.
“Not at all. More like ruling you out.”
She turned to Ethan, her green eyes cold. “I told you it wasn’t me. I was at my desk after I got back from lunch.”
“You understand,” Ken sat forward, regaining her attention, “with this competition between you two, Ethan would naturally suspect you first. We’re just trying to get the facts.”
“I understand.”
“Do you have reason to believe someone else would want him to miss his meeting? One of the other account specialists, perhaps?”
“I’m not exactly close with many of the employees here yet, sir,” she answered, her back ramrod straight. “But no, I haven’t heard or seen anything suspicious. Why don’t we consider other possibilities?”
Her transition from suspect to Sherlock Holmes left Ken with a barely contained smile. “By all means.”
“Maybe this was more of a move against me. As you said, I’d be the first suspect, especially since I’m the one who took Ethan’s place in that meeting.”
“Why would anyone bother?” Ethan asked.
“Maybe they want me fired,” she shot back.
It took a moment for Ethan to realize that maybe she was accusing him of framing her. Of all the…
“In this case, it worked out in everyone’s favor,” Ken broke in. “If Brooke hadn’t caught that one discrepancy, we would have eaten a lot of money and possibly earned ourselves future legal problems.”
“Easy for you to say,” Ethan grumbled. “Without that client, I’m screwed.” Not to mention that Brooke now basked in the glory of sainthood. “Why don’t we go over how Mr. Troll could have possibly gotten his hands on our bid?”
Now that the tension was effectively crackling, Ken blew out a breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It would have had to come from an internal source, someone with access to Shannon’s computer files or Ethan’s.”
“Wouldn’t it be obvious to suspect Shannon first?” Brooke’s suggestion came out quickly and with a hint of condescension.
“She wouldn’t do something like that,” Ethan said before downing the rest of his sports drink. He could feel her cutting gaze.
“Are we even discussing the same person?”
“Brooke,” Ken interrupted, “it’s just that we’ve known her for a very long time, much longer than you.”
“Of course. After all, you had no problem accusing me.”
Ethan capped the empty bottle. “You have motive and you also have Roger.”
She turned in her seat to face him squarely. “Roger has nothing to do with this, so leave him out of it.”
Defending a man she’d just caught screwing her worst enemy? “You sound very sure of that, Brooke.”
“Are you really that blind, Ethan? Or just that worried I may actually beat you?”
“Only if you beat me unfairly.”
“Alright!” Ken began to massage his temples. “I can see more orange cotton balls in my near future.”
Their shared laughter over the orange cotton balls earlier that day was all but a distant memory. Now that they were back at each other’s throats, Ethan couldn’t help but feel a loss over what could have been construed as progress in their tumultuous working relationship.
Ken rose from his chair and headed toward the blinds. “Why don’t you two call it a day?” he said as he closed them, blocking out the afternoon sun.
Ethan’s head snapped up. “I need every hour I can get, Ken, espe-cially now.”
“You can make it up tomorrow,” Ken snapped. “Both of you go home. That’s an order.” When they both stood up with reluctance, Ken indicated the switch by the door. “And turn off the lights on your way out.”
BROOKE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT WAS WORSE—THAT Ken suspected her of spying or that Ethan did. For one brief moment, they’d let their guard down around each other. They’d shared a laugh. To Brooke, it had been a sort of turning point, proof that they might actually like each other under different circumstances. Apparently, she’d read way more into it than he had.
If only she hadn’t offered to take Ethan’s place during that meeting. What had started as a harmless quest to make a point had come back to bite her in the ass. Even though she’d caught the forgery, doubt would linger in everyone’s minds as to whether or not she participated in some sort of sabotage.
She shoved her notes from the last meeting into her briefcase to work on at home. Hands shaking with the tumult of Ethan’s accusations, she shut everything down, turned off the lights, and gathered her things.
As she passed by Shannon’s door, she heard her name. Brooke stopped in mid-stride and backtracked to see what the woman could possibly want with her now.
Shann
on crooked a manicured finger, her expression sparkling with mischief. Brooke entered the office with caution.
“I hear you’ve been a bad girl,” Shannon whispered.
The woman’s hypocrisy knew no bounds. It was almost as if Shannon wanted her to throw out a challenge.
Brooke whispered back, “I know you’re the one who locked Ethan on the roof.”
“It sounds to me like it was you.”
But the truth was written on Shannon’s amused countenance. Brooke knew no one would believe her without proof. Shannon was out to effectively make her a villain in the eyes of those who counted. Instead of rising to the bait, Brooke smiled. “Isn’t it funny how every time you interfere, I end up getting Ethan off one way or another?”
The woman’s smile disintegrated into a look of disgust. Brooke left her that way and made it to the door. “Oh, by the way…,” she looked back. “I want to thank you for preventing me from making a big mistake with Roger. Guess you actually fell on that sword, huh?”
GREAT, WHAT A HELL OF A FUCKING DAY. HE GETS locked on the roof, loses his biggest account, and is forced to go home as punishment for daring to turn the spotlight on Saint Brooke.
Ethan shut down his computer and stared at the black screen for a while. Until Brooke could come up with some proof she was telling the truth, there would never be peace between them. That’s all there was to it.
“I hear you have to go home,” Shannon said behind him.
Ethan straightened up and scanned the main work area for the woman on his mind. “Guess I’m grounded.”
Shannon put a hand on his arm. “Is there anything I can do?”
Shrugging off her touch, he grabbed his suit jacket and briefcase. “You can stay away from me.”
“Look.” She blocked his path. “I’ve told you fifty times I was sorry for tricking you into that darkroom. But is it really my fault things went that far between you and Brooke?”
No, it wasn’t, which is what pissed him off most. Shannon may have done the shoving, but it was into a pit of quicksand he didn’t seem to want to get out of. Brooke was a dangerous woman who could very well be out to destroy him—would do anything to get the top position she felt entitled to. But did he really believe that? Did he want to?