“The information you gave to Irene was a setup, Callie. We’re going to lose millions—maybe everything.” Bruce’s voice cracked on the last couple of words.
Callie swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat. The information was false? They were losing millions? Palmers wasn’t in a position to lose millions, not after losing so much business to Tremont Corporation already. She’d believed that the Flinders deal, together with the latest information she had, would give them the boost they’d needed. To get them back on par with Tremont Corporation. But instead she’d dragged them into a quagmire.
Realisation dawned with damning finality. Josh had set her up. He’d set her up to take the Palmers down. To make them take the fall he’d been engineering all along.
Black spots swam before her eyes and her chest constricted on a breath that simply could not be taken. Her eyes flew to Irene.
“But you know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, to hurt Palmers. I was doing what you asked me to do. I uncovered the mole here, who was feeding information to Josh Tremont. I brought you the Flinders information.”
“The results, unfortunately, speak for themselves,” Adam said. “I’m sorry, Callie, but you know the process. Pending a full investigation, you’re being stood down from your job.”
Nothing in his voice betrayed the camaraderie they used to share. No hint of what had been a strong friendship, before she’d started to even work for his mother, remained.
Callie’s eyes flew back and forth across the table, settling on Irene. Silently, she beseeched the older woman to support her, to tell them they were wrong. To make it clear that she would never deliberately do anything to hurt the family.
“Irene?” she implored.
Irene wouldn’t meet Callie’s eyes and Callie knew in that instant she’d not only been set up by Josh, she’d been the fall guy for Irene Palmer at the same time. What a fool she’d been to think she mattered to anyone. She was little more than collateral damage in a power play she’d never stood a chance of understanding. All these years she’d believed she was worth something to Irene, worth something to Palmers, yet all along she’d been expendable. Groomed to do a job and discarded when she was no longer useful.
Her devastation was complete. And to think that she’d wanted to protect Irene from the proof of her husband’s infidelity. How naive could she have been? If the cool derision on Irene’s face right now was any indicator, she probably had known about Bruce’s affair all along.
Adam motioned to someone outside the boardroom. The blur of blue that denoted one of the security team materialised beside her.
“Callie, I’m sorry. But we have to do it this way.” Adam followed her and the security guard out of the boardroom, his voice tinged with genuine regret. “If there was anything else I could do—”
“You could believe me, Adam. You could believe that I am the innocent party here,” she pleaded.
“I do believe you, Callie. And, trust me, I’ll find a way to get to the bottom of this. At the very least I’ll make sure you get a strong reference.”
Callie looked back into the boardroom—at the accusation painted on many of the faces there, at the distance she now knew lay between herself and the woman she’d considered a mentor and friend.
“Good luck with that,” she said bitterly.
In a state of numbed resignation, Callie allowed herself to be escorted from the building and down to the parking garage to her car, and as she drove out into the bustle of Auckland, she knew her life would never be the same again.
A burst of rage bloomed inside. Rage at Irene for letting her take the fall for what she’d been asked—no, had been expected—to do. Irene had manipulated her just as effectively as Josh Tremont had. She’d trusted both of them, and in doing so it had allowed each to play her like a puppet in a sideshow.
She hadn’t even been given an opportunity to present her side of the story. The unfairness of it all settled like a ball of lead in her stomach. She’d sacrificed her relationship with Josh to protect them, to protect Irene and Bruce, and ultimately Adam and everyone who worked at Palmers. Yet she’d failed spectacularly.
She tried to rationalise the fact that if Palmers hadn’t been so hungry and hell-bent on getting ahead of Tremont Corporation, in a competition that had become decidedly unhealthy, they’d have taken the time to thoroughly and carefully analyse Josh’s notes and see for themselves the pitfall they’d rushed headlong into. Their greed had overrun their good sense, but, ultimately, she was responsible. She was the one who’d given them the information, no matter how fallacious it had turned out to be. Information that had been given to her in confidentiality. Whatever Josh’s intentions had been when he’d made those notes, she and only she had been the one to abuse them. She had made the conscious decision to pass the information across to Palmers.
It was a frightening thought. She’d become so determined to be accepted, on being part of a whole, she’d compromised her own integrity. First with Josh and then with Irene. Yes, they’d used her, but she’d let them. And that was the most galling of all.
It was time to stand on her own two feet. To stand up for what she believed in and what was right. No more being a pawn in the hands of others.
Somehow, some way, she was going to undo the harm she’d done. And she would start with Josh Tremont.
Twelve
“I must see him.”
He heard her voice as he crossed the lobby. Callie tapped her foot impatiently on the tiles where she stood at the visitor check-in area of the Tremont Tower.
“Ms Lee, Mr Tremont made it quite clear that you are not permitted on the premises.” The security guard behind the desk held firm on his stance.
“C’mon, Ted, please. I need to talk to him. Get him on the phone for me.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
She visibly flinched at the tone of his voice. Good, he thought. She had no right to be here and if his speech was enough to rattle her then she’d be gone all the sooner.
“Thank you, Ted. I’ll take care of Ms Lee. It should only take a few minutes.”
Josh wrapped his fingers around the top of Callie’s bare arm, ignoring the warmth of her soft skin beneath his touch and the reminder of how soft her skin was all over her body. He staunchly reminded himself that this encounter was unfortunate, but unavoidably necessary. Clearly, she hadn’t understood him when he’d sent her away.
He all but frog-marched her to the elevator bank and into a waiting car. He swiped his card in the reader and hit a button. As the doors closed them into the isolation of the car Josh faced her. He knew the expression on his face was anything but friendly.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Why aren’t we going up to your floor?” Callie countered.
“You wanted to talk to me. You have my undivided attention for the next five minutes. Now, talk.”
“You used me.”
“As you did me. Call it even.” He crossed his arms and assumed an expression of boredom. “Is that it?”
“No, that’s not it.”
Anger suited her—her brown eyes, usually doelike and sexy, hardened and shone like dark polished cherry-wood. He tried to keep his observation on a dispassionate level, but the primal beat of his libido shouted him down. Even as distant as he attempted to remain, face-to-face she still affected him on a base level he couldn’t control. And knowing that made him need to withdraw even more.
He raised one brow and waited for her to continue.
“You deliberately fed me information that would damage Bruce Palmer.”
“You gave it to them.”
“How could you do that?”
“Business.” He sighed, “Look, this is a waste of time. You made it quite clear the other night where your loyalties lie and they’re not with me. The fact you gave them the information you did is proof positive.”
And that, he admitted, hurt more than he’d been prepared for. The
past two weeks had been hell. He hadn’t even begun to look for a new assistant. This close to Christmas who could be bothered anyway? No, he needed to be honest. He’d tried to tell himself he didn’t trust anyone else to work alongside him, but it was much more than that.
He’d missed Callie with an aching need that he didn’t want to begin to examine. The last time he’d felt so bereft, so lost, had been when his mother died. But Callie was nothing like his mother. It hadn’t been difficult to remind himself of that.
“What happened with your employers is no more than what they deserved.”
“Was everything a lie, Josh?”
He looked at her and bit back the retort that flew to his lips. She should know all about lies.
She closed the short distance between them and laid a hand on his chest, her slender fingers curving over his heart.
“We had something there. Something special. I know I screwed up, but please. Won’t you hear it from my side—my reasons why?”
“You and I have nothing further to discuss. You took your job with me under false pretences. You abused a position of trust to feed information back to people you knew were my enemy both personally and professionally. Why the hell should I believe that whatever else we shared was any different?
“To be honest, you went above and beyond the call of duty by sleeping with me. I don’t think even Irene Palmer could have expected that of you.”
He didn’t miss the look on Callie’s face and felt ice form deep inside his chest at the truth he saw reflected there. He took her hand and removed it from him.
“So, she did expect that of you. And like a well-trained puppet you did exactly as she said. Well, I hope they’re looking after you, Callie. You’re quite the employee of the month.”
“I told you before. I couldn’t have done that if I hadn’t been falling in love with you. I’m not like that.”
“I believe you mentioned food and shelter once before. However you dress it up, this was no different.”
“Josh,” her voice broke, “I love you.”
“Then I’m sorry for you, because I could never love anyone I didn’t trust and I do not trust you.”
Even as he spoke he felt a shaft of pain as a shadow of longing died deep inside. He released the lock on the elevator and the doors opened. As she walked away, he gritted his teeth and forced himself to hit the button that would close the doors and shoot him skyward to his office, to where she still lingered even though he’d ordered her things removed and her desk cleared.
It was over—the damage had been done. Which left one last task on his list.
Josh tossed the morning newspaper onto his breakfast table in disgust. Couldn’t they find anything better to report in the lead-up to Christmas? Did speculation about the consul appointment to Guildara really warrant such intense coverage?
Really, he didn’t know why he was so at odds. The media coverage was heightening interest. Interest that would fly off the Richter scale when he exposed the prime candidate for the kind of man he really was.
He stalked through to the living room and snatched his mother’s chest off the bookcase. He flipped it open; he hadn’t bothered to lock it again. What was the point? It was as if by locking it he could keep what had happened shut away inside, allowing it to fester and grow.
But the time had come to let it go. To use what was there and finally achieve some form of recompense for his mother’s hardship, and her early death. Today was the day he’d planned to release the letters to the media. He’d have bet his entire fortune on the fact they’d be falling over one another to decry the man they feted now.
He should just send the letters to the national newspaper and be done with it. Then he could just sit back and anticipate Bruce Palmer’s very public downfall with a deep satisfaction. Yet somehow, the satisfaction in what he knew would be the ultimate outcome was lacking. Against his will, Callie’s words to him echoed in his mind.
Promise me you’ll read the letters again. Really read them this time.
Unable to ignore the compulsion any longer, he carefully lifted the first of the less seriously damaged envelopes he’d retrieved and, after setting the box back on the shelf, gingerly slid the letter out from inside.
He dropped down into an easy chair and unfolded the charred sheet of paper, his fingers blackening as they held its damaged edges. His eyes roamed over the words. Words of love from a married man to his mother. Words that promised the earth, together with an undying love.
Josh finished the letter and reached for the next.
Ten minutes later his eyes burned as he read the second to last letter in the box. He was suffering eyestrain, that’s all it was, he told himself. But deep down he knew he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. With the maturity of his years and without the rawness of teen grief, he’d read the letters in a new light.
With each one his anger had lessened a degree. His bitterness paled. There were nuances in the letters he’d totally missed the first time he’d read them. Nuances that spoke volumes as to how miserable and unhappy Bruce had been in his marriage to Irene.
They weren’t the words of a man to a woman he saw as a casual fling. Every letter he’d addressed “To my dearest, Suzanne” and he’d signed off “Yours forever, Bruce.” While the rest of her life had undoubtedly been hard, his mother had genuinely known love. For that alone, Josh could find a glimmer of gratefulness.
Had Bruce Palmer really planned to leave his wife, as he’d promised? To make a new life with Josh’s mother? It had certainly appeared to be so. But what had happened to kill that? To have him send her away so callously?
Josh set down the letter he’d been reading and reached inside the box for the final envelope. He extracted the typewritten note on an early version of Palmer Enterprises letterhead and the company cheque that his mother had never deposited.
How had Bruce gone from a man devotedly in love to the cold, calculating creature who had sent this letter and cheque? Telling Suzanne to leave and to never show her face again. It just didn’t make sense, but it had made enough sense to his mother that she’d packed her bags and checked out of the boardinghouse where she’d stayed in Auckland, and seen her catch the first bus south.
He stared blankly at the now rusty staple that still attached the cheque to the letter and idly flipped the paper to look again at the sum of money Bruce Palmer had thought worth getting rid of his mistress forever. A paltry sum in today’s terms, but it would have made a difference for his mother back then.
It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. Suzanne was dead and no amount of revenge would bring her back.
Josh went to scoop the letters up and put them back in the box, but something stilled his hand. A niggle in the back of his mind that wouldn’t let go.
He picked up the letter with the cheque attached and studied it anew.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said to the empty room.
He hadn’t expected Irene Palmer to agree to see him so easily, but it seemed that whoever was acting as her assistant these days had no idea he was persona non grata in the exalted Palmer Enterprises building. The looks he’d received on his way up to Irene’s office would have made him laugh out loud had he not been so hell-bent on reaching his destination.
But those looks were nothing compared to the expression on her face when he was shown through to her office.
“Your ten o’clock is here, Mrs Palmer.” The fresh-faced secretary who’d made his appointment showed him directly into her domain.
“My ten…” Irene rose from her chair. “You! Call security, Anna. This man should not be here.”
“I think you’ll find you do want to see me, Irene.”
Josh slid the typewritten letter and cheque from his pocket and opened it out on the desk in front of her. He could almost have felt sorry for her as the colour drained from her face and she slumped back into her chair.
“Mrs Palmer? Do you still want me to call security?”
“No, not any more,” Irene rasped through lips that had turned slightly blue around the edges. “Please close the door on your way out.”
As soon as the door shut behind her assistant, Irene appeared to summon courage from somewhere. Josh had to admit to a grudging admiration. Not many people could recover from a shock like the one she’d just received with such aplomb. Even seated she managed to convey that she was looking down her nose at him. That he was nothing more than a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her heel.
“So you’re her son,” she finally said, almost to herself. “Now it all makes sense.”
Without waiting for her invitation, which he doubted would be forthcoming anyway, he settled his frame in one of the button-back leather chairs that faced her desk. “Just what did you say to my mother to make her leave?”
“What makes you think I said anything?”
“Don’t patronise me, Irene. We both know it wasn’t Bruce who sent her away. That’s your signature on that cheque.”
Irene seemed to shrivel a little under his stare.
“It was pathetically easy, you know. Mind you, so was she.”
Josh clenched his jaw against the fury her deliberate insult roused inside him. He took strength in the secure knowledge that her words were a lie. His mother had never been easy. She’d been a devoted mother and she’d been a lady. And if she’d ever craved male companionship after her affair with Bruce, she quelled that craving, putting Josh’s needs ahead of her own every day of his life.
When he didn’t visibly react to her comment, Irene continued.
“Bruce and I had difficulty starting a family. After ten years, we’d all but given up hope—the failure created a distance between us. In many ways it was a relief when he turned to her for comfort, and I was always grateful for his discretion. He knew if a scent of his relationship with her leaked out how destructive it would have been to me. No one else ever knew.
Defiant Mistress, Ruthless Millionaire Page 12