Blind Trust

by Lynda Aicher

  Her firm swallow hitched her throat and dragged memories of that same action beneath his palm. The feel of the muscles working. The power that’d hummed through him at her blind trust.

  Would she ever trust him like that again?

  No. She had no reason to.

  “So where do we go from here?” Her voice had dropped to the focused business tone she’d employed in all her professional interactions with him. He never thought he’d miss that huskier, playful one. Or the softer one that could beg so beautifully.

  Where was his head?

  Emotions such as loss were something he’d purged long before he’d reached middle school. Attachment to anything, even his favorite stuffed animal, only resulted in its accelerated demise.

  He checked his rambling thoughts behind his wall of useless items and shifted through the available tactical strategies. Every battle had a weakness along with a possible settlement.

  “In many ways, I believe that is up to you,” he finally said. “But I should remind you of the NDA you signed prior to entering that room.”

  Her nod was slow and cunning. “As did you—I presume.” The slight lift of her brow brought another wave of brash respect for her. She’d earned a heavy dose of that over the last hours of work, but to see that same calm intelligence applied now hitched it up another level.

  “I did. As does everyone who chooses to play.”

  “The details and clauses left little room for litigation.”

  He ignored the shot of pride that could lead to arrogance at her unintentional compliment. “As all solid NDAs should.”

  Her soft humph held only a small dose of mirth. “Nicely done.”

  He didn’t deny or affirm her assumption when there was no point in it. “Your private activities will remain as such within the group.”

  “The group?” There was no way to miss the dose of sarcasm attached to the question.

  Years of practice kept his frustration from escaping. “If you have a question, ask it. Fishing will get you nothing.”

  A long moment ticked by on the wavering line of her mouth. It lifted, fell, pinched slightly before a disbelieving smile broke free. She shook her head, arms falling from their crossed position over her chest. Her fingers started that quick running tap against her thumb before she spoke.

  “How much will you honestly tell me?”

  “How much do you want to know?” He could answer open-ended questions with questions all day.

  “God.” She clamped her mouth shut, eyes closing briefly before her shoulders fell from their stiff hold. “I can’t do this now.” She shook her head in a defeated motion before she moved back to her computer and proceeded to shut it down.

  Ryan had no words. Nothing, when he should be laying down promises and platitudes. Yet the contract they’d both signed didn’t need clarification. She understood the law and the terms of the agreement. What happened in the Boardroom was completely separate from the office. She should understand that without him needing to explain.

  He bent over his computer, pointedly rejecting the notion of disappointment that tried to wedge its way into his chest. “I have a meeting first thing tomorrow, but I can meet you in here at nine,” he told her as he checked his calendar.

  Her stunned stare caught him off guard when he glanced up. He lifted a brow. Was she going to refuse to work with him now? And there was nothing he could do or say if she did.

  “I have a dentist appointment in the morning,” she finally said.

  Regret snuck in to settle deep in the pit of his stomach. She was by far the best employee he’d worked with since joining the firm. He understood why Charles had laid exclusive claim to her almost as soon as she’d been hired. Her attention to detail and intuitive understanding of both the law and the information required to defend the case had been refreshing.

  He straightened, debate clashing between calling her on the apparent lie or letting it go. She slipped her suit jacket on, scooped up her personal items and headed toward the door. He’d reserved the room indefinitely, so the files could remain in their organized stacks, but would she be back?

  Her skirt swished softly in the silence that seemed to deepen the closer she got to the door. An errant thought hammered that he should be doing more to stop her. That he hadn’t secured her assurance of secrecy or any real understanding of their current professional footing.

  Her hand was on the doorknob before he finally found his voice.

  “Brighton.” Her name flowed out on the deeper tone he reserved for the Boardroom. He hadn’t consciously thought to use it, but there it was.

  She froze, visibly tensing. Her scowl could’ve cut him if he’d had thinner skin. As it was, it left a grazing slash somewhere near that empty space in his chest. The burn warned of trouble he’d avoided his entire adult life.

  “Yes?” The flat note left another cut that he dismissed. There were far deeper and worse ones that could be inflicted with a simple tone or selection of words.

  The last glow of the sun cast soft shades of orange and pink into the room in a final battle against the harsh cast of the fluorescent lights. She was stunning even in her guarded anger—or was that disappointment? Her suit was tailored to accentuate every curve that shifted the basic black from sedate to alluring.

  “Brie is safe with me.” Always. He shoved the truth out before he could check the statement against the long list of possible consequences. She deserved to know that bit and he wouldn’t keep it from her.

  Her eyes fell closed in a slow descent that lasted through a long inhalation. They gave away nothing when she reopened them. “And what about Brighton?”

  “She’s safe too.” Probably more than any person in the office, including himself. “I respect them both equally.” How could he not?

  Her shoulders lifted with another deep intake of air. Did she believe him, or did she doubt everything he said? Did it matter?

  For his career, yes.

  For himself, no.

  The lie ripped open to release the remnants of his father’s cackling laugh that he’d thought he’d banished long ago. It bounced around in his head, mocking him.

  She left without another word. Her departure sucked the air from the room and took his volleying thoughts with it. There was nothing he could do about her or the knowledge she now had.

  No, there was a lot he could do. There was nothing he was willing to do—yet.

  The outer office echoed with the deserted emptiness that was his comfort zone. The lights would dim automatically before long, but hours remained before the cleaning crew appeared.

  He pulled his chair in and sat back down. He blinked at his computer screen, mind blank.

  Do you even have emotions? The accusation tossed out by his ex-wife had bounced off him back then. There’d been no need to respond when she’d already formed a conclusion. But now, he found himself pondering the question.

  He snatched up a notepad littered with scribbled to-dos for the case and homed in on the top one. It was pointless to waste time or energy on anything else. And he had even more work to finish now that Brie was off his team.

  Brighton.

  Ms. Wakeford.

  Brie was a part of his past, and after tonight, he’d be lucky if he ever caught a glimpse of her again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Brie. What’s—”

  Brie stormed past Lori and into her friend’s apartment without a hint of guilt. Her controlled calm had spun between empty acceptance and outright rejection on the bus ride across town. She turned on her now, frustration overriding heartbreak.

  “Did you know?” She pointed her finger at Lori in accusation that she hoped wasn’t just.

  Lori shut her door, a confused frown in place when she faced Brie. “Did I know what?”

  “About Burns?”

 
; “Burns?” Her brows winged up to declare how lost she was. Did she really not know? Or was she playing Brie for the naïve fool she wasn’t?

  “Burns,” she stated again, like that would clear up everything. She tried one more time when the blank stare remained. “Ryan Burns.”

  Her eyes went wide then, her lips forming an O. She moved into the room, ushering Brie with her as she did. “Have a seat.”

  Brie spun out of her hold. “I don’t want to sit.” With the amount of compressed energy buzzing within her, she didn’t know if it was even possible for her to sit. She strode to the window, turned back to glare at her so-called friend. “And don’t placate me.”

  Lori raised her palms in a show of defeat. “I wasn’t trying to. Honest.” She waited a beat in which Brie didn’t respond.

  She didn’t know what to think anymore, let alone what to believe.

  Her friend eased a bar stool out from under the small breakfast counter and sat, her gaze only shifting from Brie in brief increments as she did.

  The combination kitchen, eating area and family room was short on space in typical San Francisco fashion. The one bedroom offered little in the way of luxuries, but Lori had the proud distinction of claiming sole occupation of the unit. Her status in the legal community was higher than Brie’s, whose salary, although nice, trapped her into roommate status if she wanted to stay in the city.

  Brie braced her back against the wall, her purse and bag sliding to the floor as she locked into the stare-down her friend had engaged. She wasn’t backing down. Not on this.

  Not on Ryan Burns.

  “How’d you find out?” Lori finally asked.

  “So you did know!” She thrust away from the wall, the betrayal slamming into her heart. “Why didn’t you tell me? No.” She looked away, jaw aching with the emotions sealed behind her will. “Forget that.” She refocused on her friend, her pain leaking out. “Why did you let it happen in the first place?”

  “I didn’t let it happen,” Lori defended herself. “It just happened. That’s the way the group works.”

  It just happened.

  The stunning connection that’d melted her insides and woven false dreams into her heart. Ones of her own doing with no encouragement from anyone.

  Yeah, that just happened.

  She dropped into the cushioned armchair as the huge mountain of hurt swooped in to replace the fight that’d brought her there. Resignation sucked away the energy that’d kept her moving since Burns had ripped her world apart with one simple word. Brie.

  “I trusted you.”

  Lori had taken Brie under her wing way back when she’d been a TA, and Brie had been drowning in legal case studies her junior year in college. Their friendship had only grown stronger in the ten years since.

  “Okay.” Lori accepted the cutting remark without so much as a flinch. “But I don’t see what I did wrong.” The comfy lounge pants and baggy cotton top didn’t diminish the authority Lori tended to wield without thought. Even with the messy topknot, her regal confidence reigned.

  Brie barked out a harsh laugh. “Right.” She rubbed her brow in an attempt to ease the throbbing behind it. “The blame is all mine. Got it.” After all, she’d been the one who’d stepped into those rooms of her own free will.

  And no matter how many times she repeated that truth, she couldn’t reconcile this outcome with her own actions. This was what she got for daring to be a little naughty. For breaking out of the mold her mother had stuffed her into before she could walk.

  She ended up in a compromising position with the exact type of man her mother would love for her to snag. And he was her boss. Her. Boss. How humiliating was that? God, what he must think of her now... “How did I not know?” she reprimanded herself. “His voice. How’d I not recognize it?” But she had, right? At least her subconscious had.

  “You weren’t expecting to know anyone.”

  “But still—”

  “How often do you work with him?” Lori cut in.

  Brie tensed, recognizing her friend’s debate intro. “Not very.”

  “You were in a foreign environment way outside your comfort zone. You weren’t expecting to know anyone. In fact, you didn’t want to know anyone.” Lori’s shrug was the final note on her simple argument.

  She hadn’t, Lori was right on that point. No one was supposed to know the intimate details of what she’d done there. No one she knew, at least.

  But Ryan did. He’d had a front-row seat to every embarrassing moan and plea for more.

  “But I still should’ve,” she insisted. Shouldn’t she have been aware enough, smart enough to place his voice to someone she worked with? If not before, then after? Unless she’d willfully chosen to not identify him? Which, apparently, she had.

  “So it is my fault,” she concluded, sinking deeper into the chair.

  “I don’t see why you’re intent on placing blame on anyone.” Lori moved from the bar stool to enter the kitchen. Her turned back allowed her to miss the childish face Brie made at her. She pulled a bottle of wine from her cupboard along with two wineglasses. “Can you please state what, exactly, is upsetting you so badly?”

  Brie could only stare at her as she set the items on the coffee table. Did she really not understand? “He’s. My. Boss.”

  Lori lifted a brow in a clearly unspoken “So what?” She twisted the cap off the bottle, grinning. “I truly love screw-caps on wine.”

  Really? That’s where her thoughts were?

  Brie gaped at her, lost and too exhausted to even attempt to understand her friend’s thinking. She accepted the glass Lori held out to her. The generous portion of red liquid sloshed in the oversized glass as she sat back.

  She didn’t wait for a toast before taking a long hit of the liquid. The flavor sat on her tongue like a dry crumb of burnt wood, but she swallowed it down and took another. The magical sense of relief floated through her muscles to loosen every tightly clenched one that lined her neck and dug into the base of her skull.

  The wine might suck, but the effects were wonderful, even if they were only a temporary illusion.

  “He’s your boss,” Lori stated with a shrug. “Nothing that happened in the Boardroom will impact your job.”

  “Easy for you to say.” She wasn’t the one who had to face him in the office every day.

  Lori curled her legs up to tuck her feet beneath her as she settled into the corner of the couch. She eyed Brie with the same look she’d wielded back in college. The one that said think before you jump off the cliff of insanity. That plea only worked once, and it was best to save it for emergencies.

  “What?” Brie snapped before giving in. “Okay. Fine. Just lay it out for me. What am I missing or misconstruing?”

  Lori tossed her head back, a hardy laugh flowing out to tug a reluctant smile from Brie. Lori raised her glass in silent salute before taking a drink. The college déjà vu continued to soothe her. Those years spent living at home but stretching her freedom at school had provided the basis for her eventual flight from her mother’s tentacles. Granted, they still stretched across the bay, but they were easier to evade now.

  “Sex can exist without ties,” Lori said. “Separating the expected emotional bullshit from the physical act is just one of the benefits of the Boardroom.”

  The boardroom. The NDA flashed in her mind, the term jumping out to signal its significance. She’d dismissed it before as a loose term for the entity, but got it now. “That’s cute.”

  “What?”

  “The name. The Boardroom.” She waited for Lori to respond but got nothing. “It’s a play on words, right? Because the sex takes place in the boardroom.” The wine was apparently going to her head faster than normal because it all seemed funny now. Hysterical actually.

  Only she wasn’t laughing.

  Lori wasn’t laughing either.r />
  “The name of the group is irrelevant.” Lori swirled the liquid in her glass in an act of casualness Brie wasn’t buying. “You’re upset because you now know the identity of a man you performed sexual acts with. But it’s only a big deal to you.”

  She’d only performed “sexual acts” with her boss. Great. That made it feel better—not.

  “Have you?” she asked, both wanting to know and hating the thought of it. “Performed sexual acts with my boss?”

  Lori gave away nothing as she eyed her. That blank mask was essentially a prerequisite for anyone involved in law, but it irritated her to no end now. Didn’t anyone show their emotions anymore? When had everyone lost their heart?

  Thank God her dad had swung the pendulum of icy superiority wielded by her mother to show her how love was supposed to work. The man had dedicated his life to providing for them, his gentle kindness often overshadowed beneath the louder demands of her mother’s. But he’d never shied from showing his love in each hug, kind word and gentle encouragement that’d bolstered her courage and assisted in landing her the job at Cummings, Lang and Burns.

  Burns.

  She was so screwed.

  “One.” Lori raised a finger. “I can’t disclose that. And two,” she lifted a second finger, “you know that. You read and signed the NDA and I know you’re not a dumb cookie.”

  “So what?” she challenged. “Are you going to turn me in for violating the terms? After all, I just told you who I performed sexual acts with.” The heavy dose of sarcasm hung on those two words to show her disdain for them and everything they represented. But wait. Her frown deepened as she slotted another piece into the picture. “How did you know about Burns before I told you?”

  “There’s an app for that.” Lori shot her a cheeky smile before taking a drink of her wine.

  An app. Of course there was. There was an app for everything. Why wouldn’t there be an app for arranging group sex in public boardrooms?

  Brie slumped further into the chair, utter defeat sucking the last dregs of resistance from her bones. She was in over her head and it was apparent her only friend in the area wasn’t tossing out a life preserver.