Vanessa held up a hand in mock surrender. “I’m on your side. Always.”
Silence fell over the table as Ellie tried to find the right words. She was furious and hurt. This dragging sadness exhausted her.
She hated that battered-from-the-inside gnawing sensation that overtook her when she thought about the ring and Derrick. She was not the crying type, but right now she wished she was.
She didn’t even know what to say to Derrick because he wasn’t wrong. She had agreed to the fake arrangement. It had just taken him longer to launch into this part than she’d expected. She’d hoped that meant something.
“It was the way he did it.” And that was true. Even a fake arrangement deserved some sense of importance. He’d handed her a ring without even bothering to open the box.
Thinking about it, reliving the moment in her head, had fury bubbling up inside her again. Really, the man was clueless.
“You’re angry because he didn’t get on one knee and ask you?”
Ellie didn’t like that question, either. “Maybe I’m not telling this story right.”
“Hey, listen to me.” Vanessa reached her hand across the table. “There is an obvious problem here.”
“Derrick.”
“Him, too. But I think the real issue is you’re in love with him.” Vanessa winced as she said the words.
“This is about the way he—”
Vanessa fell back in her chair. “Oh, my God. You didn’t deny it.”
She couldn’t because she was. Vanessa said the words and they didn’t sound wrong. The realization terrified Ellie. She’d tried to be smart and careful, but she’d fallen. It was stupid and dangerous and would likely break her heart, but it happened.
She thought the truth would hit with a jolt. Instead it settled in and snuggled around her. But she still wanted to throw up.
Rather than deal with any of that, she fell back on her anger. On Derrick’s depressing choices. The least he could do was fall with her.
“You don’t start a fake engagement by shoving a ring at someone.” How could she not see that? Ellie thought for sure she would get an immediate agreement on that topic.
Vanessa nodded. “Okay.”
“Stop smiling.”
“I should because I’m worried about you.” The amusement left her tone. “You changed the rules in this thing. You fell for him.”
“I thought... I mean, we’ve slept together.” When Ellie realized she’d yelled that bit of information, she immediately lowered her voice. “We’ve gone out on these dates. None of it feels fake.”
“Maybe that’s what the two of you need to talk—” Vanessa stopped herself midsentence then leaned in closer. “You’re not confronting this because you’re afraid the relationship didn’t change for him.”
Exactly. That was it. She should clear all this up. But what if the answer was something other than what she wanted it to be? “Maybe I should sell the ring and move to Alaska.”
Vanessa’s eyes bulged. “Wait, is that thing real?”
“He said it was.” Ellie studied it for the fiftieth time. It was stunning. Big. But not too much. A solitaire surrounded by smaller diamonds, and a perfect fit. She didn’t even want to know how he’d pulled that off.
“Damn. Go Derrick.”
Anger or not, the ring made a statement. “Right?”
“I’m going to give you some advice.”
Ellie didn’t hide her groan. “About shoes? That’s about all I can handle right now.”
“You need to end this.”
Her stomach went into free fall. “Did you miss the in love with him part?”
“That’s my point. You guys need a do-over. Start fresh and honest.”
“We’ve been honest with each other.” With a few false starts, they had made a deal. They’d both known, going in, what this was and what it would mean: solving problems for both of them and little more.
Well, damn. Vanessa was right. She was the one who changed the deal.
“Since you’re here and not with him, I think that’s not true.” Ellie started to talk and Vanessa talked over her. “You did storm out, right?”
“I do not storm.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen you storm.”
“He makes me want to throw things.”
“Not the ring.” Vanessa picked up Ellie’s hand and gave the ring a closer inspection. “You’re keeping that if the knucklehead doesn’t get his act together. I mean, come on.”
“The problem is I want to keep it all—his friends, his house, his brother.” The words ripped out of Ellie. It hurt to admit all of that.
“Oh, man. You have it bad.”
Ellie was starting to realize that. “No kidding.”
Fourteen
The DC Insider: They’re engaged! You know who they are and what we’re talking about. We’re hoping for a September wedding. You?
“He didn’t actually steal the money.” Derrick said the comment more to himself than to any one person. He’d forgotten Jackson was sitting in the chair across from him, one leg crossed over the other, so he did have a captive audience.
He looked up. “Excuse me?”
Derrick wasn’t sure how to explain how he’d come to that conclusion, but he tried, anyway. It was more of a feeling than any one specific grounded in fact. Still, he thought he’d stumbled over the right answer. “It was this thing Noah said. He talked about being my mentee.”
From the beginning Derrick had assumed the situation with Noah was about money. That fact fit with what he knew about Ellie’s precarious finances and now with what he knew about her unstable upbringing and the limited resources and attention given to Noah.
Noah hadn’t been searching for easy money. He hadn’t even tried to take the amount he’d managed to gather out of the account he’d created, which would have been easy. He’d moved the money the same way he’d moved around everything else in the company’s system. Without one person noticing. And Derrick hired smart people. They knew what they were doing but their brains were no match for Noah’s. He’d acted almost as if he were bored and looking for a better way to categorize things.
Derrick’s tech people were still trying to figure out how the kid’s mind worked so they could mimic it.
“You know you’ve been sitting for three hours without moving.”
“So?”
“You worked late last night.” Jackson nodded in the direction of Derrick’s cell. “You haven’t been texting with Ellie today like you usually do.”
Derrick had no idea what that had to do with the information Jackson mentioned, except to question why he spent so much time tracking Derrick’s movements. “I’m working.”
“Are you sure you’re not pouting?” Jackson dropped the file he was looking at on his lap. Closed the cover and focused on Derrick instead.
“Does that seem like something I’d do?”
Jackson snorted. “Not before Ellie.”
Derrick didn’t know how he felt about that answer, either. He knew she’d turned his life upside down. He’d lost control of his office and his home but he’d hoped no one else had picked up on that.
While they were spinning around topics without finding answers, he figured he might as well add one more fact. “We’re engaged, by the way.”
Jackson’s foot fell to the floor. “What?”
Derrick returned to looking at the printouts in front of him. “I need you to send out that press release and leak the info to the Insider.”
That was the game, after all. A fake engagement to clean up his reputation and defuse Noah. The idea had once made sense but Derrick had grown to hate the words. Now he wanted a shot at making it real.
“Back up.” Jackson knocked his fist against the desktop. “When did this big event happen?”
<
br /> “Yesterday.” A day that now ranked as one of the most confusing days of Derrick’s life.
He’d thought he was doing the right thing when he’d taken out the box. Settling the unsettled between them. Giving Noah another reason to calm down. Feeding the PR machine. But he’d forgotten that Ellie didn’t always do and say what he expected. She worked in this other world that he didn’t get.
Bottom line, he’d hurt her and she didn’t seem ready to let him fix the damage. That might have been good since he had no idea how to fix it.
“And we aren’t celebrating the big event?” Jackson asked.
There would be a party. That was the point. A public coming-out of sorts. But he had one problem with arranging it right now... “She hasn’t talked to me since.”
Jackson laughed. “That sounds like a good start to a marriage.”
“A fake marriage.” For some reason everyone kept forgetting that part. Sure, the ring was real. It seemed like a dick move to get her a fake one of those. Besides, he liked the idea of her wearing his ring. Of seeing it on her finger.
He was totally losing it. He no longer knew exactly what he wanted. His emotions bounced back and forth along with his priorities.
Jackson exhaled long and loud. “We’re back to that. The damn agreement you two signed.”
“Did we ever leave it?”
Jackson tapped his pen against his folder. The clicking sound thumped through the room. “Derrick, what did you do?”
Derrick wanted to dig in to his work. Buying properties, selling properties, building properties. He could assess a piece of land and pinpoint its future value, see what it could be once he was done with it.
Figuring out Ellie? He needed a team of experts for that mission. Maybe Jackson could be on it. “What do you mean?”
Jackson exhaled a second time. “How did you ask her?”
“You’re coming up with a lot of questions.” For some reason that made Derrick nervous. Very little made him nervous.
“Maybe answer one.”
“I gave her the ring.” There. Simple.
Jackson’s pen stopped midtap. “Gave?”
Since Ellie had treated him to a similar response, Derrick decided to stall. His delivery of the ring had been off. He got that now. Interesting how everyone seemed to know the fake engagement rules better than he did.
“Can you only talk in questions now?” he asked, ignoring the irony of that.
“What do you think?”
Some days it was hard to like Jackson. “Very funny.”
“When you say ‘gave,’ you mean you asked her...” Jackson made a face. “Please mean that.”
“No.”
“Ah, I see.” Jackson coughed, clearly trying to hide a smile. “How did that romantic gesture go over?”
“I slept alone last night, so not well.” Derrick had walked to her door. Before they’d started sleeping together, every night he’d knock and go in. Once they were together and not fighting the sex, where she slept hadn’t been a question...until yesterday.
“Do you really not see the problem or what your contribution to the mess you’re in now actually was?” Jackson asked.
Of course he did. Now. “No.”
“Damn it. I’m going to lose that bet.”
That stopped Derrick. “What bet?”
“The one I made with Spence.”
“Want to fill me in?”
“You’ll figure it out.” Jackson stood and took out his cell. “If you don’t, I’m out two hundred dollars, so please figure it out fast.”
* * *
“I’m here as ordered.” Noah sat at Derrick’s dining room table. “I’m not sure why we couldn’t meet at the coffee place again.”
“Because I can’t go outside without having my picture taken.” Ellie had about reached the end of her patience on that subject. She glanced to where Derrick sat at the head of the table. “We’re going to talk about that, by the way.”
His gaze went to her ring then bounced to her face. “What did you expect would happen?”
He had an uncanny knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. The man built an impressive enterprise that churned out money, yet he failed on a simple people skills level some days. She might lecture him about that, too.
Noah frowned at both of them. “What’s happening? Why am I here?”
“We’re clearing the air.”
Noah started to get up as soon as Derrick stopped speaking. “No, thanks.”
“Sit.” Derrick issued the order. “We’re also engaged.”
He really would be the death of her. Ignoring Noah’s stunned expression, she glared at Derrick. “Really? That’s how you drop that information?”
“If you have a script you want me to follow, please let me know.”
He was in fine Derrick form today. He shot back the one-liners faster than she could come up with them on her end.
Noah sat hard in the chair again. The thud seemed to wake him out of his stupor. “What are you talking about? You can’t marry him.”
Through the haze of frustration winding around her, she could see him. She and Derrick might have an odd arrangement they worked out, but that didn’t mean her brother was prepared for the roller coaster they’d all jumped on.
“Noah, let me explain.” Though she had no idea what she could say.
“At least wait until you see this video.” Noah slipped a thumb drive out of his jeans’ pocket and dumped it on the table.
“What’s on it?” Derrick asked.
Noah didn’t even spare him a glance. “I bet you’d like to know.”
“I can take it and watch it right now or you can save us some time and talk.” Derrick snatched the drive and held it in the air.
“You and your father and a certain woman at work.”
“This is old news.” Derrick shook his head. “This is about Abby, right? I’m not sure where you’re getting your information but Abby dated my brother. Not me.”
Noah blinked a few times. “That’s not what Joe—”
Ellie wasn’t about to let Noah stop there. “Who?”
Noah shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Joe Cantor? Is he the one who’s been feeding you false intel, hoping you’d fall for it?” Derrick asked.
“Joe?” Ellie thought her head might explode.
The ramifications of what Noah admitted flowed through her brain. Joe had planted that story in the Insider about her work. He was trying to undermine Derrick and his relationship with Spence. And this poor Abby person was stuck in the middle. Sure, Derrick had made Joe look stupid, but the timing didn’t seem right. And what kind of man would take that bait and go to all this trouble?
“You’ve been working with my former boss?” It sounded awful when she said it out loud. “The one who kicked me out of the office and sent me home without a paycheck?”
“It’s not like that.” Noah shook his head. “Only in the last few weeks when you guys started dating.”
“Let’s run through this.” Derrick’s firm voice broke through the room. “The Insider is not running anything about me cheating, because I’m not and they don’t want to be sued.”
“How did you—”
“And...” Derrick talked right over Noah’s explanation or whatever else he was going to say. “If you put up that video, you’ll hurt Abby. Not me. She deserves better than that. Honestly, she’s been screwed over by my family enough without adding yours.”
Noah shook his head. “Don’t try—”
“Why did you move the money? Was Joe involved in that?”
Derrick’s question came out of nowhere. Ellie had no idea what he was talking about.
But Noah didn’t look even a little confused. “It’s about time you figured it out, but Joe’s no
t involved.”
Ellie rushed to keep up. “What are you two talking about?”
“Noah moved money out of a bunch of work accounts and moved it into a fake client account he designed. Hid it all but didn’t actually take it. I just figured that out.” Derrick’s gaze switched from her to Noah again. “So, did you run out of time to make a withdrawal?”
“I was never going to take it. I just wanted to prove I could do it.”
It was such a Noah thing to say that Ellie’s heart melted. He refused to see the results of his choices. He acted and let everyone else clean up his mess. Whatever his issues, he had to learn a new way. “Oh, Noah.”
“You brought me on at the office then put me in that room.” Noah ignored her and turned on Derrick. “I tried to talk with you about problems in your system, but you said I had to talk with my direct boss.”
Derrick’s eyes narrowed. “You were trying to get my attention.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” Noah returned to staring at the table.
That was it. Ellie knew Derrick was right. Something in Noah’s reaction or Derrick’s tone. In the middle of their fight and Noah’s threats, Derrick had gotten to the bottom of the stealing question. He wasn’t blaming. He was laying out facts. Because he was a good man. A man worth loving. The man she’d fallen for.
This time the realization didn’t make her want to throw up. She wanted to tear up that ridiculous agreement so she’d never have to think about it again.
Derrick shifted in his chair, clearly trying to get Noah to look at him again. “I didn’t mean to ignore you in the office.”
Noah snorted. “Stop acting like I cared.”
But he did. No matter what Noah was saying, he did. It all made sense now. So many people ignored Noah and passed him over. They didn’t take the time to see what he could do. Derrick had taken an interest in him. Hired him without a load of experience or an advanced degree.
Derrick had taken a chance and Noah had taken that to mean something more than the usual employer/employee relationship. Derrick never could have seen this coming.
“I asked the prosecutor not to move ahead with the charges,” Derrick said in a low voice.
Pregnant by the CEO (The Jameson Heirs) Page 15