Love Me Later

by Libby Rice

  At the last, Ethan sat forward in his chair. He automatically held out his hand, into which Susan placed a second folder bearing the insignia of The Peninsula Hong Kong. “I have, of course, made arrangements for a hosted banquet at The Peninsula, where the team will be staying. The banquet is scheduled for Tuesday night, and Mr. Wong will be a distinguished guest. Invitations were sent a week ago. Mr. Wong has accepted. I suggest you study the event details prior to Tuesday”—she inclined her head toward the folder —”to make a lasting impression. The banquet will round out the visit on a high note.”

  “Anything else?” Ethan asked as he flipped through Susan’s research. She’d conducted the investigation with her usual devastating thoroughness. He’d soon know more about Mr. Wong than the man’s own mother.

  “Yes.”

  Ethan looked up, waiting for the punch line.

  “You’re not the only one courting Mr. Wong and his company for an exclusive arrangement. Last week he met with Nokia. He’s scheduled to rendezvous with Apple, Sony, and HTC in the coming weeks.”

  With that, Susan rose and strutted from the room, leaving him wondering how the hell his executive assistant was privy to the confidential negotiations of the international business elite.

  At the door, she stopped. Without turning, she added a parting shot. “Bring your A-game, Ethan.”

  As usual, it sounded like a threat.

  Chapter 4

  July—New York City

  “So Hong Kong busted. Big fucking deal.” Ethan sipped his single malt, sinking further into the cushioned sofa in his office. “We offered the best package. The schmucks that paid more lost out.”

  “Correct,” Billboard replied without any real enthusiasm.

  “We’re shifting focus. Looking to Denmark.” One required a camera module that was miniscule, yet capability-rich. With the Chinese officially off the table, the Copenhagen-based Optik Scandinavia offered exactly what Ethan needed, taking better, faster, cheaper to extremes.

  Not missing a beat, Billboard switched tracks. “It’ll be prohibitively expensive to purchase from Optik. The Danes bring superb design, not affordable manufacturing.”

  “Not buying from Optik—”

  “Good.” Billboard’s expression conveyed both pleasure and unease. Over the years, he’d retained the smooth movie-star persona, but otherwise little was left of the defense lawyer Ethan had known. These days Billboard was the silver fox of corporate sharks, one that looked ready to unleash bad news.

  Instead of prodding him, Ethan sat back. Eventually, Billboard would spill, but that was just it. Only in time.

  “Look,” the other man drawled after several moments of tense silence, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees. “You want Optik?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Then we need a different team. Our guys don’t get it. Think about Hong Kong—all coulda, woulda, shoulda.” Ron downed the rest of his own whisky in a single gulp. “I know of a lawyer based here in New York—a woman who asks the right questions and gets the right answers. Her clients don’t end up eating billion-dollar mistakes. We need her.”

  “Fine.” And?

  Billboard raised his shoulders in a graceful shrug Ethan didn’t buy for a second. “It’s Scarlet Leore.” A pause. “And before you ask, yes, she’s your Scarlet.”

  The hairs rose on the back of Ethan’s neck. His most trusted advisor had the gall to suggest he hire her. His Scarlet. The woman who, within a day of his discovering her unconscious form, within twenty-four hours of his saving her life, had accused him of trying to take it.

  The arresting officers had been caustic when he’d questioned their cause. “Any idea why she might think you robbed and then stabbed her twice?” Both uniforms, one for each arm, had jerked him away from the cold brick of his Brooklyn apartment building, neighbors gaping at the spectacle. “You have the right to remain silent… If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you…”

  God, the indictment. His prints had been found at the scene, prints he’d laid down while seeing her to safety. Her mace spray had been recovered from his apartment, a bauble haphazardly collected when he’d found her crumpled, unresponsive body. And the crown jewel—Scarlet’s damning testimony, swearing he’d cornered her in that parking lot, threatened her, stolen from her, and then slammed a blade into her body before dumping her car and calling the police in either an attack of conscience or a diabolical attempt to cover his tracks.

  Why the hell would he have outed himself like that?

  Bathed in cold sweat, Ethan swiped at his brow before Billboard could note the mental flailing. Seeing Scarlet’s look-alike in the train station had been one thing. Working with her, trusting her to act in his best interest? Whole ‘nother fucking show.

  Funny how quickly the mind could travel through time and space. One moment he drank barrel-aged whisky in his posh office with an old confidant. The next, a gavel rapped against a judge’s bench. “Bail is set at five hundred thousand.” It might as well have been ten million. There’d been more handcuffs, a different jumpsuit, and then a wrenching blue-and-white corrections bus.

  Finally, Rikers Island. To await trial in style.

  And all for the bargain price of two words: Scarlet Leore.

  Surging to his feet, Ethan grappled for his two fingers of scotch. “Hell, no.” The harsh words brooked no argument.

  Billboard lifted his hands. “Easy.”

  “Fuck easy.” Desperate to move around, Ethan prowled to his desk and picked up a discarded suit jacket ready for the cleaners. Billboard remained splayed out on the couch, looking ready to stay awhile, and the distraction beat violence. “I won’t place myself in that path of destruction again.”

  Because try to destroy him she had. Not even a full day had passed in Rikers before his first test. He’d stalked onto a concrete basketball court, sweat dripping between his shoulder blades, heedless of the flurries cartwheeling from an overcast sky. Several men had tracked his movements, not bothering with subtlety. They’d hung back, likely contemplating whether his fight could match his size.

  Ethan had propped a hip against a concrete wall, watching and waiting, forcing any strikes to come from the front. Sure enough, the initial reprieve hadn’t lasted. Three men had broken away from the pack and prowled forward. The first taker had brandished a screwdriver. The tip had been filed to a point, with the other end swaddled in dirty strips of linen to form a makeshift handle. The guy had advanced with an uneven gait, throwing the shank in the air like a juggler’s pin.

  Forcing a show, the guy projected his voice. “This here?” He rolled his head on his shoulders, indicating the surrounding court. “It’s mine. You wanna play? You pay.”

  Ethan crossed his arms over his chest and stared.

  “You deaf?” the guy said, creeping closer. This time when the asshole flipped the shank, he skipped the acrobatics and caught the weapon by the handle. Still grandstanding, he added, “Don’t fuck with me,” then sank back on his rear leg and adopted a dagger-hold on the weapon.

  Arrogance like that—the kind rimmed with something to prove—didn’t take a talk down, so Ethan waited, perfectly still. Let him wonder. After a moment, the man advanced with a smirk, gearing up for a lucky strike. Keep telling yourself that, asshole.

  At the last possible second, a scant moment before the sharpened tip of the screwdriver sank into flesh and bone, Ethan reverted to type. He flashed a hand out and thrust his thigh high on a skyward jump, a disarmament he’d perfected years ago. No man, however lethal, could defend against an attack he failed to anticipate.

  Bone crunched, giving way to Ethan’s up-thrust knee. The man’s shank arm overextended backward from the elbow. The joint cracked, and the weapon thudded to the ground seconds before its owner. A low moan drifted upward, the big man on campus reduced to a wounded animal, fumbling in the dirt.

  “Think about it,” Billboard snapped, dissolving Ethan’s memory in h
is refusal to leave well enough alone. “She’s young. Hungry for success. Ready to run circles around the goons we’ve overpaid for years.”

  Ethan cracked his office door and tossed the jacket at Susan. “Clean,” he clipped, unable to voice more. Whirling on Billboard, he said, “You presume she’ll come cheap.” Like hell. Scarlet wouldn’t be bothered to get out of bed in the morning for less than his first born child. These days, probably more.

  “Not even close.” Billboard flashed his shark smile. “And, by the way, I’m told she’s still stunning.”

  Of course she would be. After his release, the only thing more disturbing than how much he’d hated her had been how much he’d wanted her. The years hadn’t dampened either emotion.

  He pictured her gorgeous, upturned face near a private elevator in a garage lined with luxury cars. Their single kiss and its aftermath had gone deep, years deep. Even now, he could detect her sweetness over the burn of the whisky.

  Ethan clapped his teeth together, biting down on his cheek, close to lashing out at one of his few true friends, not to mention the man who’d given him his life back after Scarlet had done her worst. “I don’t need your fucking advice on this. The last time I tangled with Scarlet Leore, you extracted me from a prison cell.”

  Cursing, Ethan rubbed his jaw roughly. Before she’d thrown him to the wolves, his desire had mingled with a curious tenderness. Despite her outward confidence, there’d been a hesitance about Scarlet, a subtle vulnerability that had shone through her worldly, gregarious persona. Or so he’d thought.

  The want that spiked in him now had nothing to do with kindness or caring. He resisted a surge of erotic heat that only amplified his disgust.

  And prodded him about his promise of revenge.

  Billboard paused long enough for a plan to slink into Ethan’s conscious. By the time the man snapped, “You’re getting my fucking advice anyway,” Ethan sat pensively behind his desk, brooding in silence while Billboard droned on.

  “…plus Copenhagen is a hip, modern city, a perfect environment for a woman like her…”

  The red-tinged need for retaliation had long since faded to gray, but since she’d figuratively fallen into his lap…

  Ethan dragged twitching fingers through his hair, recalling each run in with Scarlet in detail. Her apology had been too easy for a rich girl. She’d offered cash, of course, and it had been money he’d needed but couldn’t take. Acceptance had looked a lot like forgiveness at a time when he’d been burning through anger like fuel, craving the fire as he did food and water and air. Scarlet hadn’t been allowed to steal his only energy source to ease her conscience.

  As her client, he could work her too hard, bending her to his will and beyond. She’d be entirely at his mercy, all nice and legal like. Perhaps she’d mended her calculating ways, in which case she’d be safe. But if she fucked up, he’d be waiting.

  The first glimmerings of a shrewd smile strained Ethan’s tight cheeks. His head snapped up, and he crossed the span to Billboard in three strides, not bothering to mask the unholy light he knew gleamed behind hooded lids. “Do it. Get her.”

  Come to me, Empress. Time to pay my way.

  He stalked out, quietly pulling the door closed behind him and leaving Billboard to ponder his abrupt change of mind when there obviously hadn’t been a change of heart.

  ******

  Scarlet pressed a shaking palm to her lips, hiding behind her office door. Rocking back and forth on her kitten heels, she could practically hear the music—I am the champ-ion, I am the champ-i-on, of-the-world. Today would go down in Scarlet history as the day she rose up and fisted her full potential.

  And what potential it was.

  Perhaps swaying to imaginary congratulations from Queen delved into delusions of grandeur. A tad. But she did have a new client. A big fish. She would get to say, “My client needs you to…” and “That’s not good enough for my client…” Until now, she’d always said “So-and-so’s client wants this…” and “The firm’s client requires that…” Fine, but not earth shattering. Or particularly wallet-enhancing.

  She’d received a call that morning from the President of Parlann Technologies, a Mr. Ron Michael. He’d requested a same-day conference call and had said that, if possible, Parlann wanted to retain JTS as outside counsel in evaluating and negotiating the acquisition of a Danish optics company. If it worked out, Parlann would throw more work her way.

  Ron had done his research. He knew exactly what she and her firm could offer and was comfortable with JTS’s astronomical rates, so with that, the pressure ramped. Fine with her. She was prepared to bring it.

  Descending on the conference room, Scarlet couldn’t help but reflect on the years of work and compromise that had brought her to the doorstep of success. In the months following Ethan’s release, she’d come up hard against her father’s aloofness. The struggle to heal what she could had knocked against injuries—the invisible kind—that wouldn’t mend. Any sense of bravery had proved elusive.

  Ethan had come up during one of many stilted calls with her dad. After explaining that Ethan would never forgive her mistake, she’d wondered aloud why her father had insisted she accuse him so quickly. No doubt she would’ve gotten around to it—at the time, the cold whisper of “Empress” against her throat had echoed through her nightmares—but Tripp had demanded an immediate accusation, as in schlepped NYPD’s finest to her hospital bed for the gory details.

  Her father’s answer had been cryptic. “Because money has its perks, and we needed closure.”

  What kind of man leveraged monetary clout to send a possibly-innocent person to prison, and why the hell had “they” needed closure? She’d needed it, sure, but not at Ethan’s expense. Her father had never needed anything.

  Confused, and desperate to forge a meaningful relationship with her only relative, she’d asked whether he believed Ethan would overcome adversity to live a full, satisfied life despite her error. Foolishly, she’d shared her hopes that he would.

  His response? “Time to grow up.” And the phone had gone dead.

  The next day, a Cartier wristwatch had arrived at the penthouse. A red box with no note—nothing at all to indicate the giver of such a fine gift—but of course her father had been the source of the sophisticated timepiece.

  Time to grow up, the cold metal had silently admonished. Let go. Move on.

  Staring at the watch, the price of the Leore fortune had crashed in, suffocating her remaining desires to beguile a man who preferred not to be won. Financial backing certainly hadn’t brought the family together. Worse, had Leore not been a household name, her accusations of murder and mayhem might have been better vetted before Ethan’s arrest. Her true lie had miscarried justice because of who she was, despite the fallibility of what she’d said.

  Flip.

  Ethan would never take her apology, but she’d taken herself off the payroll. Tripp Leore had gotten the watch back, and aside from keeping her other personal property—which she admitted was far from paltry—she’d never taken his money again. Through a combination of her own income and the sale of her old life, Scarlet had cobbled together an upper-middle-class existence. Independence had morphed into her new normal.

  Now, walking the halls of JTS, Scarlet beamed with each step toward cementing her status as a pseudo-self-made woman.

  Twenty minutes later, she surfaced for a breath. Some nameless in-house attorney at Parlann talked fast while she wrote slow. Already, lines upon lines of notes swam before her bleary eyes as the basics of the upcoming acquisition rattled through the call speaker.

  In the middle of a lengthy monologue, a deep voice cut in. “No, once the acquisition is complete, Atavos, or most likely Parlann, will maintain the Danish design team in Copenhagen. We’ll manufacture elsewhere, possibly in Brazil or Malaysia, so we’ll need the Danes’ expertise on the manufacturing side only temporarily.”

  At the mention of Atavos, Scarlet’s heart lurched and then sped up.
Atavos was Ethan’s. There hadn’t been time after Ron’s initial call to research Parlann’s corporate structure. Major projects got off the ground in no time at all, and she knew only that the conflict check had come back clean. It occurred to her now that Parlann could be a division of Atavos. And she’d have to be blind, deaf, and illiterate to be unaware of Ethan’s ascent as the founder and CEO of Atavos International.

  The grapevine—and the media—dubbed her once-upon-a-fling a gifted engineer and a brilliant business strategist. Also, if the newspapers and magazines were to be believed, much of his success was attributable to the fact that few could resist his charm… when he chose to exude it.

  No surprise there.

  Taking herself in hand, Scarlet breathed deep. She stared robotically at the blinking red light of the call console. Despite Ethan’s reputation as a micro-manager, it would be highly irregular for the CEO to get intimately involved in the day-to-day details of a single business division. Ethan would be asked to weighin at a higher level. Surely he wouldn’t even know about today’s call.

  Scarlet considered the comment about separating the design from the manufacturing. “What’s your timeline for making the transition to independent manufacturing? I ask because once we have a letter of intent in place, we may need to begin looking for manufacturing facilities in your target countries to ensure a smooth conversion over a short time window.” She kept her tone mild despite her inner holy-shit. Just another lawyer getting the facts.