by Lexi Blake
The last card in her hand turned out to be a dud. She’d never had a chance. Not one.
She turned, tears pouring down her face, and walked toward the elevator.
“Ellie,” Riley said.
She’d almost made it when she felt a hand on her arm. She was pulled around.
“Ellie, baby, talk to me.”
The horror of the last few days welled up inside her. She had nothing left. Nothing. There was no Andrew Lawless waiting out there for her story and offer of an alliance to bring down the man who had likely hurt them both.
Maybe it was really her fault for not going to him when she’d first found out. She’d been greedy, worried that he’d take the company from her and ruin all the plans she had for the employees. She hadn’t wanted them caught up in a powerful man’s revenge.
It had happened anyway.
“Ellie?”
She heard him, but she didn’t really care now. When she thought about it, she’d always been alone. From the moment her mother died. Her father wanted a son and got two daughters he’d never really cared about.
Her husband had changed. It was what people did. They changed, with the exception of her.
She would change now because there wasn’t a way out of the trap.
She felt his arms go around her, hugging her tight. When he picked her up and hauled her close, she didn’t care. Her misery was all that mattered now.
In the distance she heard someone crying, wailing. Someone screamed out in pain, but Ellie no longer cared.
—
Riley felt years older when he walked out of Ellie’s bedroom. It was hers because she was staying here. With him.
God, what had he done to her?
He might never forget the sound of her crying out in pain, the sound so broken it had almost made him drop to his knees and join her. She’d been so heartbroken. How was he ever going to fix this mess he’d gotten her in?
He had to find a way, and it started with talking to Drew. He needed Drew firmly on his side because he had a plan that might get them all into trouble.
“Is she all right?” Hatch stood in the hallway, his face weary.
“No. She’s asleep. She cried herself to sleep.” She’d been in his arms, but vacant. He’d felt the horrible distance between them. She’d allowed him to touch her, to stroke her hair and rock with her, but she’d been like a doll in his arms.
Ellie had pulled into herself, and he wasn’t sure he could make her come back out.
Hatch looked over at the door Riley had closed. “Your brother is having a hard time with this. You know he never meant to hurt her.”
“That’s not true, Hatch. He didn’t care and I know that because in the beginning, I felt the same way he did. I thought she’d be vile and privileged, and I was ready to take her down a peg or two because she’s Phillip Stratton’s daughter and we can’t get to him. He died and she was a convenient target.” His gut was in knots. “We all went into this knowing we would hurt her. We told ourselves it didn’t matter. She would get back on her feet.”
“No one thought Castalano was planning this. This is really his damn fault.”
“No. We put her in this position. We gave him all the ammo he needed to fuck her over for years. And guess what? She’s nothing like her father. She’s an optimist. Do you know what she wanted to do with StratCast? She wanted to make the corporation accountable to the employees, to the public. It’s so stupid. It wouldn’t work, but she was going to do it.”
Hatch sighed. “She’s not like Stratton. Damn it, Riley, she’s like your father.”
Because his father had been a dreamer. His father had wanted to change the world and it had cost him his life. The way it could cost Ellie hers.
He’d watched her for a long time after she’d fallen asleep. He’d dragged her skirt and blouse off and dressed her in one of the nightgowns the personal shopper he’d hired had brought in earlier in the day. She hadn’t been wearing panties because he’d taken them from her.
He’d left her without the shield of a pair of damn underwear. How had she felt sitting there knowing if they made her change into prison overalls, that she would have to ask for underwear. It was silly but he felt so fucking guilty about that.
She’d been alone. He hadn’t been able to be there to defend her, to protect her. He’d left her in that place.
“I can’t let her go.” She would try to leave. There was no question in his mind that she would be on her feet as soon as she woke up.
Hatch shook his head. “I think she’s already broken, son.”
He disagreed. Nothing could really break Ellie. Maybe she could be down for a moment, but he knew her. She would rise again. “No. She hadn’t really let herself cry. I don’t know why seeing Drew did that to her, but she needed this. She needed to let it all out, but you should know when she wakes up, she’s going to try to kick my balls up into my body cavity and then she’ll shoot me the finger and try to walk out. I can’t let that happen. She’ll be alone out there, and that would be the worst thing in the world for her.”
“She’s got a sister.”
“Who is useless. She needs me. She needs someone who is willing to put her first.” He started down the hall. He suspected her sister would be thrilled with the turn of events. “Unfortunately, I suspect I’m going to have to fight like hell to get her to stay here.”
He’d called Lily after Ellie had fallen asleep to let her know Ellie was safe. Even Lily thought she’d leave him. She’d offered a place for Ellie to stay, but that might not be for the best.
Lily had already been working the younger Castalano. She’d been assured she had some time before they decided what to do with her. She might be able to stay on and be Riley’s eyes and ears.
There was no way she could do that if Ellie was staying at her place. The press would find out and Lily’s loyalties would be unquestionable.
Ellie needed to stay here. Ellie needed his protection and his family’s money. She needed to be a Lawless.
Hatch followed him. “Or you could give her a reason to stay.”
How far would he go to protect her? It was a question he’d been asking himself since the moment they dragged her away. He was already the villain. How much further would he have to go to ensure her safety? “I already have. She knows I’m paying for Garrison.”
He’d hoped that would be enough, but that punch she’d greeted him with had told him otherwise. She’d turned and started walking for the door.
He couldn’t allow her to walk through it.
“Yeah, she also knows you’ll keep paying for him,” Hatch said as they turned down the hallway.
Drew would be in the conference room. Why couldn’t they have a damn game room or family room? No. They all gathered in the conference room like being a family was a business.
It was for them. And their real business was revenge. It had been since the day their parents had died and they’d been splintered and broken.
What if they could be more?
“I’m not going to hold that over her head,” he replied as they entered the conference room. “If she insists on walking out, I’m still going to help her. I won’t leave her with no resources.”
Drew looked up from his computer. “Henry Garrison thinks that would be a mistake.”
Riley stared at his older brother. “You talked to Ellie’s attorney? He talked to you about her case? He told me he wouldn’t do that unless she agreed.”
It had been a thirty-minute argument that he’d only given in on when Garrison had explained time was running out. She’d been arrested on a Thursday. If she wasn’t moved to the federal facility by Friday morning, she would likely remain in custody all weekend long. He’d conceded because he couldn’t stand the thought.
He rather thought Garrison liked that he’d conceded. The man wa
s an asshole, but he was the best in the business and nothing else would do for Ellie’s defense.
“Money talks, brother,” Drew said. “When I explained to him that 4L would retain him for Ellie, he was more than happy to give me some advice.”
Thank God. Offering Garrison his bank account was one thing. Offering up 4L’s was like opening the gates of heaven and asking the defense attorney to come in and take what he liked. Drew had ensured that Ellie was the defense attorney’s absolute top priority. “You’re serious?”
Drew sat back. “I didn’t expect her to hurt like that. The way she cried out . . . well, it turns out I’m more human than I thought I was.”
Riley put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Thank you. You won’t regret it. She’s a good person, Drew. You’ll like her if you get to know her.”
She was utterly lovable. She was competent when it came to work, silly when it came to play. Ellie was real. She changed with the moment, with her emotions, but there was a core set of values to her that didn’t change. She was always kind. Always loyal. Always seeking to do what was right.
He couldn’t be the person who broke her. He loved her. Somehow she’d made him whole, and now he had to do the same for her.
“She has a good right hook. I already like that,” Drew replied, but sobered quickly. “She had a reaction to finding out who I was. Garrison told me she’d asked for a meeting with me. Not the Andy she thought was your fellow lawyer. She wanted a meeting with Drew Lawless. She put it all together when I walked out. Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know,” Hatch said. “It was obvious to me she had no idea Riley was a Lawless.”
“I’ll ask her about it when she wakes up, but I would like for her to sleep through the night. She’s been through a lot.” He glanced at the clock. It was already after seven. She could easily sleep until morning.
He wouldn’t, though. He would watch over her.
He’d already ensured that when she woke up she would have her purse and all her favorite toiletries to use. He’d made sure her bathroom was stocked. She wouldn’t have to ask for a toothbrush or soap or makeup. He’d filled her closet with clothes. If she didn’t like them, he would toss them all out and let her buy more.
Anything she wanted was hers, with the singular exception of a door that would take her away from him.
It was wrong, but he couldn’t let her walk away. Not when he was the only person in the world who could make certain she didn’t go to jail.
After her trial was over, if she wanted to leave, he would still get on his knees and beg for a second chance.
“So how do we keep her here?” Hatch asked. “Because I think that girl is going to want to leave. It’s obvious to me she didn’t really expect that you would be here.”
“I’ll lock the stairs,” Bran said with a smile. He walked in carrying a couple of pizza boxes. “She won’t be able to use the elevator because she doesn’t know the code. Unless you think Case gave her the code.”
“He didn’t,” Drew replied. “But you should know that our heroic brother-in-law has offered to take her wherever she would like to go. He’s apparently not into kidnapping.”
“Mia married him, why?” Bran asked, opening the first box and pulling out a slice of pepperoni.
Drew shuddered. “Don’t ask her that question. Seriously, she will tell you all about her husband’s apparently really big schlong.”
Hatch frowned. “I blame her adoptive parents. I would really think a lesbian couple would be more averse to teaching Mia to talk about her hetero sex life. She was telling me about Case and how good he is with a crop. I pray to God she was talking about his farming skills.”
Riley was pretty sure she wasn’t. Mia had a very interesting relationship with her husband.
Somehow, Mia had come out of their wretched nightmare whole and loved, and he worshipped the ground her mothers walked on for it. Those women had been supportive of all of them. They’d patiently allowed Drew and Riley to visit and taken Bran any time they could.
He wanted what Mia had. He wanted that one person in the world he could count on, he could find himself with. He wouldn’t say be himself. He was fairly certain he didn’t know who the hell he was. Ellie was his chance to find out. Loving Ellie would define him, enhance him. Make him better.
“We should listen to Mia more.”
“I always thought she was weak because she hadn’t gone through what we had. Maybe you’re right,” Drew admitted. “But we have to deal with the fact that Castalano has us all by the balls now. He’s laughing somewhere and we can’t let it stand.”
No, they couldn’t. He had StratCast, and that belonged to Ellie. Maybe at one point it should have been theirs, but now Riley knew where that company belonged. God, his father would have loved Ellie. They would have been partners in crime. “So what’s the plan? Ellie didn’t steal that money.”
Drew held up a hand. “I understand that. I’m ceding this argument to you. If you say she’s clean, we’ll go with it. So we have to figure out a way to prove he’s behind all of this, but we also have to keep Ellie close. We need to figure out a way to control the optics on this one because she’s not coming out well right now.”
Because they’d paid a reporter to work her over in print. Still, she wasn’t a Kardashian. She was a tech executive. “It will blow over by tomorrow.”
“Have you watched the news? I don’t think it’s blowing over,” Hatch said. “She’s all over the news, and not only on the business channels. The press is treating it as a rich-girl-gone-wrong story. Castalano comes off as a sick, sad old man. He’s playing this to the hilt. There’s no doubt they’re tainting the potential jury pool against her. For now our names are out of it, but the minute she starts talking, we’re all screwed.”
“Why would she talk?” Ellie didn’t love media. She wasn’t one of those executives who lived to aggrandize themselves. She was shy about the press.
“Garrison will put her out there,” Drew said. “Whether I want him to or not. He’s going to fight this in the press. He needs to make her look innocent, and one way of doing that is to throw your ass under a bus. It won’t take long before your connections to me come up, and then 4L, and all of us will be out there.”
He hadn’t thought about that. He’d changed his name long ago so he could blend in. For all the good it had done him. “Castalano already knows. Why wouldn’t he talk?”
Hatch took that one. “Do you really think he wants to bring those rumors up? He might have handled the cops back then, but there was always the theory out there that they stole your father’s code. If he brings the Lawless name up, it brings back bad memories for him. It’s very likely why he went hands off with you. Otherwise, you would have found yourself in a cell beside Ellie’s.”
Drew’s eyes hooded, staring up at Riley. “Is there any way Ellie knows? Maybe her father told her at some point. Could she possibly have access to the source code? They built their entire business on Dad’s work.”
No way. If Ellie had any idea her whole company was based on a lie, she would have come forward. “She thinks it all came from this elderly scientist who was nice to her as a kid. She has no idea, though now I wonder why she knew who you were. I mean as anything but a competitor. She was really proud she managed to snag Darvisch away from you.”
Drew growled a little. “Yeah, I want to know how she managed that. I offered him way above what I should have.”
“Ellie knows how to soothe the angriest geek.” His girl was good at making a man believe in himself. He was sure it was her own sweet soul and not money that made Darvisch choose her. “He’ll likely be looking to leave without her.”
“I’ll scoop him up if I can. We do have a few things in our favor. I’ve managed to keep quiet about some of my moves. What neither she nor Castalano knows is I’m the new board member. We’re no
t out of this yet,” Drew said.
Because not only did they have the stock they’d bought, they still had Ellie’s, if they could bring her around to their way of thinking. “Until Castalano forces a sale, we’ve got a chance.”
“Unless Ellie hates you more than she wants revenge,” Bran mused. “Is there any way we can convince her to stay here? I think if she gets to know us, hears the truth about this thing, she’ll probably be on our side.”
Riley looked at Bran. “I thought you were all about female empowerment.”
“Only when it’s good for her. She’s being stubborn. You love her. You’ll take care of her. That kind of trumps her anger.” Bran gave him a bright smile. “I’m a happily-ever-after kind of guy. I blame Mia. She made me watch a bunch of chick flicks when I got to stay with her. I associate them with happiness. So I say a little kidnapping is nothing in the face of what she’ll get out of it.”
Drew’s eyes finally lit. “She’ll get a shitload of family issues. But we’ll also stand behind her. I don’t know. It’s a hard sell on our end.”
“Not if I’m ruthless. Not if I make it so there’s really only one choice.” Him. It was a dick move, but it was the only one he could make if he wanted to have half a shot with her. “I have a plan, but it’s risky.”
“Nothing that’s worth anything is safe,” Drew said.
No, it wasn’t. Riley leaned in and told his brothers his plan.
Eleven
Ellie smoothed her palm over the Chanel dress she’d selected out of the massive closet she’d discovered when she’d awakened. She’d slept like the dead the night before.
It was morning and she needed to make a few decisions, the first being the decision to take at least a few of the clothes Riley had bought. It looked like he’d hired a personal shopper and given her unlimited resources. She would think they belonged to someone else if every piece hadn’t still had a tag on it. Despite the fact that she’d been a rich man’s daughter all her life, she’d never bought designer clothes. They rarely actually fit her well given her curves, and her father’s version of an allowance hadn’t left much for designer outfits. He’d told her once that she didn’t need nice clothes. She got all the brains while Shari got the looks. She’d had to decide if she wanted to use her limited resources on Wharton or plastic surgery because that was what it would take to make her look good according to her father.