by J. A. Dennam
Of course, he was more likely there to supervise so that she couldn’t take anything considered Master Ink property. It was the same practice that she’d exercised the few times she’d fired someone, only now the tables had taken a humiliating turn. She looked at her longtime friend with a plea in her voice. “Go back to your department, Roger. I’ll be fine.”
But it was a lie. He knew it. She knew it. She didn’t even bother with the brave face. He took her hand, their fingers locking for a few moments. Then he squeezed it and let go.
Brooke watched him walk away, her heart pounding louder than ever in her ears. She felt a pair of eyes on her and turned around to see Ethan leaning against the conference room doorway with arms crossed.
“It’s policy,” he said in explanation for his observance.
Brooke knew exactly what he meant. He wasn’t there to gloat; as vice president, he’d been appointed the job of supervising the exit of a terminated employee. It was quite clear that anything between them was over. He probably thought she’d been playing him all along; that her declarations of innocence were all an act; that her feelings for him had never progressed into something more.
How could she blame him? Sure, her intentions had been honorable, but as Ken said, they didn’t know her. She’d hoped to catch the leak. In doing so, however, she’d pointed the finger at herself. The timing had simply not been on her side.
Brooke squared her shoulders and gathered her few personal items from the desk. Ethan quietly went through her briefcase to remove any company-related items. Once it was nearly empty, he looked up with the same professional detachment Ken had bestowed on her. “Is that it?”
She nodded.
“Nothing at home or in your car?”
She shook her head.
He closed the briefcase and handed it to her. Avoiding his gaze, she took it from his outstretched hand and added it to her other personal belongings.
Then she gathered her purse, took the box in her arms, and— amid the whispers and curious looks from the other employees of the administrative department—began her last journey toward the elevators.
With the security guard on one side and Ethan on the other, she passed by a stern-looking Shannon who’d positioned herself in the perfect spot to witness her walk of shame. Their eyes met and locked. Brooke noticed a touch of satisfaction on the woman’s face. Careful to keep her expression blank, Brooke gave her nothing else to celebrate. All she could do was hope that some kind of proof would surface that Shannon was behind the leaks all along.
When they passed through the lobby, Letreece sat behind the reception desk with a frown of curiosity. The woman had become sort of a friend, but Brooke was too mortified to say goodbye. Besides, she was sure that Ethan would fill Letreece in when she was gone.
The three of them rode the elevator down in silence. She wondered if Ethan were reliving the wild memories they’d made in the very same corner in which she stood. If so, he showed no signs of it.
On the ground floor, the security guard walked with them only to the double doors. Ethan, however, continued to walk her to her car. She unlocked it, slid the box in the backseat…and then saw the small travel bag she’d packed for their trip.
Brooke froze, remembering now that she’d packed it with a strange sense that it would never be used.
“You saw my notebook, didn’t you?” she asked. When he didn’t answer, she turned to regard him. “Why didn’t you tell Ken?”
Ethan looked off into the distance. “After we discovered you’d bypassed security, I didn’t see the need.”
Yes, that had been damning enough. But the notebook contained information she shouldn’t know—specific details regarding high-end bids that belonged to other account specialists, details that could encourage Ken to file a lawsuit against her.
“Guess I should thank you then,” she said.
“No, you shouldn’t.”
Brooke finally cracked. “Why did you do it, Ethan? Why couldn’t you have just asked me last night? That’s why you came over, isn’t it? To find something damaging against me?”
“Because I don’t believe that you would have told me the truth.”
“Maybe it’s because you wouldn’t have believed me!”
Ethan swore, his face finally revealing the pain and frustration they both felt. “I blamed your fiancé for fucking up, but it was you, wasn’t it, Brooke? He didn’t want a wife who couldn’t be honest with him.”
His words, designed to inflict the utmost pain, forced her back against the car door. Ethan swore again and ran a hand through his hair. Sensing that he was about to apologize, Brooke reached for the door handle and pulled it open. “Take care of my Ficus.”
When she got behind the wheel, he stopped her from shutting him out. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped back, horrified by the agony in her voice. “You won the job, and you won’t ever have to worry about my reasons for anything.”
Resting a hand on the car roof, he leaned over and glared. “Regardless of what you might think, I didn’t want to win like this.”
“I’m smart enough to know I brought it on myself,” she admitted with a heavy heart. “You were right, I’m too naïve for this job. Shannon wanted me out, and I practically helped her.”
“Don’t blame this on Shannon!” he yelled.
This was getting them nowhere. He would never believe the woman was guilty, despite all the shit she’d pulled. Brooke reached for the door handle and closed her eyes. “Goodbye, Ethan.”
This time he let her close it. She started her car and backed out. He simply stood there, watching her leave the lot. She knew because she watched him too in the rearview mirror.
This was the best thing. If she’d delayed any longer, he would have found out the awful truth one way or another: that she was more than just naïve.
She was hopelessly, completely, and miserably in love with him.
22
ENSCONCED IN THE SAFETY OF HER HOME, BROOKE dropped everything on the foyer floor, kicked off her shoes, and noted the time with numb disinterest: 8:45 A.M.
She had spent an entire twenty minutes in the workforce that day. She trudged up the stairs and entered her studio. Morning sunlight sliced through the wooden blinds, casting a pattern across the desk. She looked at her own private workstation through Ethan’s eyes. After a careless slip from Roger about her background, Ethan had come here yesterday looking for answers.
On the verge of tears, she sat down in her chair, picked up the phone, and made a call she’d avoided for weeks now. Her father’s deep voice filled the line. Still upset with his choices, Brooke fought the now-familiar urge to call him Stanley and to control her tone. “Dad? It’s me.”
There was a moment of silence. “I was wondering when you’d call. There must be something wrong.”
Her face fell. “How can you tell something’s wrong?”
“I’ve been reading your moods since you were in diapers. Fess up.”
The natural authority he exuded almost made her want to smile. God, she missed him. “I was fired today.”
He cursed. “Why?”
She released a wobbly sigh. “I forgot that Monroe Graphics isn’t mine anymore.” Brooke put her face in her hand and fought to keep from thoroughly losing it. “And thanks to that non-compete clause, I can’t even look for another job.”
“Aw, hell. I was sure that after your initial disappointment, you’d settle in.”
“Is that why you tricked me into working for Ken?” she sniped.
“Sweetheart, it was either that or stay out of the business altogether. I figured you’d eventually realize that my way was the better way.”
Suffering from a sudden headache, Brooke undid the top buttons of her blouse and pulled the elastic band from her hair. “If it makes you feel any better, you were right.”
“You like Ken, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” she admitted with
a grimace. “Despite the fact that he fired everyone.”
There was yet another pregnant pause on the line. “He only did that at my recommendation.”
The blood promptly drained from her face. Brooke stared at the phone in horror. “What? You advised him to let go of our entire staff?”
“Something I never wanted you to know.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Honey, Monroe Graphics was on the cusp of bankruptcy. It seemed that no matter what I did, we lost money.”
She shot up from her chair. “I know that. I wanted to try and fix it, but you wouldn’t give me the chance.”
“Frankly, sweetheart, I didn’t think you could.”
Her pain doubled with those five words uttered by the man she looked up to more than anyone. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
She heard her mother’s voice in the background, pictured her asking who it was and the hope in her sea-green eyes when her father said her name. Then she heard a door shut in the background and knew he wanted a private moment. “The reason I advised Ken to start with new employees is because I strongly suspected we had a leak.”
Brooke went still. Her lashes slowly lifted. “A leak?”
“Our high-end projects kept getting outbid by other firms. When I looked into it, I discovered a pattern that went back way farther than it should have. I didn’t want to admit I’d let it go on that long, so when I sold to Ken Stevens, I told him about the problem.”
Brooke ran a hand through her hair, her mind running wild with the only equation that made sense. “Why did you recommend that he keep Roger?” she asked, knowing that their old systems administrator was the only common link besides her.
“Roger is the one who helped me find the pattern,” he answered. “I trusted him.”
Then again, her father had just admitted to a certain naïveté of his own. Brooke let her new suspicions marinate for a while and then came up with a plan. “Dad…I need to go.”
“But your mother wants to—”
“Tell her I’ll call back later.” She abruptly ended the call without even saying goodbye.
No wonder Ken suspected her. He knew about the leaks her father had just mentioned, so naturally he believed she’d used the same proven technique to compromise his takeover. And why wouldn’t he, considering how vocal she was about the whole thing?
But she wasn’t the only common link to Monroe’s troubled past. There was another person who was much savvier than she when it came to cyber stealth. With a determination born from betrayal, Brooke turned on her computer. She plugged in her external hard drive, selected a file, and opened it. There, she found exactly what she was looking for.
She picked up the phone again and, taking a gamble, dialed the corner office’s direct line without concern about how her call would be received.
“Ethan Wolf.”
She closed her eyes and pictured him standing by her desk and enjoying the corner view of the bay marina. Only now, the image didn’t hurt. It felt…right. “Ethan, it’s me. Don’t hang up, I’m about to do something completely out of character and admit I was wrong.”
“I thought you already did that.”
His tone was unforgiving still, but Brooke knew she’d reach him somehow. “I’m not talking about what went down in Ken’s office. I admitted to spying, not leaking information.”
He was silent for a moment. “I think it’s best that we end this phone call right now.”
“Wait!” she burst out in a rush. “I’m trying to help, and I think you know that.”
“Do I?”
With a hand to her heart, it was all she could do to keep from crying. “Remember when you said you didn’t want to win this way? It’s because, aside from all the bullshit things we’ve done to each other, you’re a painfully honest man whose loyalty runs incredibly deep. I’m not trying to score any points or get my job back. I accept that I am completely done with Monroe Graphics.” She took a steadying breath. “All I want is to settle a score with a certain hack.”
Her heart nearly stopped as she awaited his reply. When he finally spoke, there was hesitation in his voice. “You said something about being wrong?”
At least he was willing to listen. Shoulders sagging in relief, she twirled in her chair and faced the computer screen. “Yes. I’ve been focusing on the wrong person. I let my feelings for Shannon get in the way, and I completely overlooked the obvious.”
“Why call me?” he asked. “Why not Roger?”
Her lips drew into a tight smile. “Because, in order to catch this person, we need to bypass the systems department altogether.”
He let loose a muffled curse. “Not that I’m saying I’ll go along with anything, but…what exactly do you want from me?”
Her smile faded. She stared at the icon on the bottom of the email she’d just composed, knowing just how absurd it was to even ask. “First and foremost I need you to trust me.”
“God help me.”
“I’m going to send a file to your personal email,” she went on. “I want you to download it on your own machine, not an office one, and put it on a thumb drive. Then I want you to manually install it on Shannon’s hard drive.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
Panic brought her to her feet. “Just hear me out! Then I’ll leave it up to you to decide, and I’ll never bother you again.” When he refused to answer, she finally let go and did the unthinkable: She begged. “Please, Ethan. You don’t even have to respond, just listen.”
The continuing silence was killing her, but at least he hadn’t hung up yet, so she rambled on and hoped for the best. “A good hacker will use a stealth program to spy on a targeted computer without being detected and without leaving an easy trace for the IT guys to find. What I’m about to send you is also a stealth program, but it’s an anti-malware tool. The next time anyone establishes a connection with Shannon’s computer, she should get a pop-up warning highlighting any suspicious activity. I’ll need you to take a screen shot of that warning and email it to me so I can trace it.”
“You realize what you’re saying, right?” His voice nearly floored her with relief. He was there and he was listening. “You want me—a man you’ve despised from day one—to actually upload a stealth program to the computer of a woman you’ve also despised since the beginning?”
Brooke ran a hand down her face in abject misery. “That’s pretty much it.”
“You’re a real piece of work,” he accused her with bitterness.
“Like I said, it’s entirely up to you. If you decide not to do this…I don’t know, just keep in mind it’s not only for me. It’s for Ken. It’s another way to keep an eye out, that’s all.”
“Brooke, if you’re targeting a specific person, I’d like to know who it is.”
Though it was tempting to say, it was something she couldn’t bring herself to do. “No. I won’t make any more accusations without actual proof this time. Besides, if I’m right, everyone will know.” She was poised to hang up, but hesitated. “And Ethan?”
“What?”
“I don’t despise you. Not anymore.”
She placed the phone back in its cradle, preventing her from making an even bigger fool of herself. There was only so much humiliation she could take in one day. For now and for the sake of her sanity, it would be best to assume that Ethan wouldn’t go through with it. If she didn’t hear from him within a week, she would figure something else out. What that was, she didn’t know, but at least she was now looking in the right direction.
With no human interaction to keep her grounded, the daylight hours may as well have been night and vice-versa. It was her own fault, but wallowing in a sea of self-pity and betrayal, Brooke had failed to answer her landline as well as her cell phone the many times they had rung over the weekend. Unless the caller ID displayed the number she was waiting for, she would continue to ignore them. The few times the doorbell rang, she ignored it and the voices behind it, knowing
that it was in everyone’s best interest not to answer. Though she kept careful watch for an email from Ethan, all others were ignored and trashed.
On Monday morning, Brooke rolled out of bed earlier than usual, determined to keep watch over her inbox now that the workweek had officially begun again. Any moment now, an email would arrive or her phone would ring and it would be Ethan sending her a screenshot of Shannon’s desktop computer. Feeling like a mad scientist with her wild hair, bloodshot eyes, and cracked lips, Brooke waited as the popsicle wrappers accumulated on the island around her laptop. By 1:30 P.M., her inbox was cleaned out with still no word from Ethan. If he’d decided to use her program at all, wouldn’t he at least have the decency to tell her? Was a hint or even a code word too much to ask for?
Still in her pajamas and more depressed than ever, she ate an afternoon breakfast of grapefruit and a buttered English muffin.
By Tuesday—the fourth day in a row with hardly any sleep—she was positive that Ethan hadn’t used her program, since her hack would have certainly tried something by now. She finished the day in a deep state of depression with lots of alcohol to dull her pain.
On Wednesday morning, Brooke woke to the sound of pounding. Determined to ignore it as usual, she rolled over and covered her ears, sensing that she had yet to achieve even a couple hours of sleep. The word “police” spoken in a very loud male voice forced her to reconsider.
What the hell was going on? Was it a crime to want your goddamned privacy? After a brief moment of confusion over the amount of daylight filtering through the curtains, she stumbled out of bed, shuffled through the living room, and—under the weight of a crushing hangover—leaned heavily against the door with eyes closed. “I am still alive and no one is holding me hostage,” she managed to croak out.
“Ms. Monroe, my name is Officer Warren and I’m going to need visual confirmation of that.”
She opened her eyes long enough to check out her reflection in the ornamental mirror beside the door. “Believe me, you don’t want a visual.”