Solace in Scandal

by Kimberly Dean

  ‘The data proved problematic, however,’ she confessed. ‘The algorithm I developed here didn’t accurately predict the fraudulent reporting of Case B.’

  She pointed out the difference between the predicted and the actual values, offering up the limitations of the results freely. ‘I struggled with this until I realised that I needed to account for parallax.’

  She moved to the next slide of her presentation and Alex’s mouth dropped open. It was a shot of Wolfe Lake.

  ‘It’s like when you look into water and see a shiny rock,’ she explained. ‘I could calculate the position of the rock, but that calculation assumes that sunlight is moving through air. If you turn around and consider the rock, it’s looking up to the sky through water. The two environments don’t jibe, even though the rock hasn’t moved.’

  She was energetic now, walking right up to the professors’ table. She wanted them to understand. She wanted verification of her work.

  Alex looked to them, wondering the same thing.

  Was she right?

  She directed a laser pointer at the screen. ‘I needed to combine both views. I needed to look through air and water. Or, in this case, I needed to determine the variance using both macroeconomic and microeconomic principles.’

  With a flourish, she pulled up an advanced mathematical formula. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you my findings on how to determine if a fund is achieving questionable results.’

  One professor squinted while another ran numbers on his notes. A woman with her hair in a bun pointed a pen at the screen. ‘So this is from the microeconomic side of the pond, so to say.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Said simply, using this formula, investors can determine if their investment results in a stock or fund are “too good to be true”.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Caroline Woodward piped up from her seat. She raised her microphone. ‘Are you showing people how to play the market?’

  The crowd started tittering.

  That was stopped fast.

  ‘Security,’ the head of the committee snapped. ‘Please remove this person from the building.’

  ‘No,’ Elena said sharply.

  Heads turned towards her.

  She didn’t flinch. ‘In answer to Ms Woodward’s question, the answer is no. This is not a “how to” guide. Think of it as a mine detector, not the mine.’

  Caroline gestured belligerently at the screen. ‘But couldn’t someone reverse engineer –’

  ‘Enough,’ the committee chairwoman said, rising to her feet. ‘Get this woman off of campus property.’

  The reporter’s eyes narrowed behind her black-rimmed glasses. ‘This presentation is open to the public, and freedom of the press –’

  ‘Does not allow you to disrupt the proceedings. You were given the rules of participation, and you broke them.’ The chairwoman was radiating power in all her glory. She pointed at the door with the authority only a schoolmarm could pull off. ‘Out.’

  The university cops took over from there. Standing over the fuming reporter, they waited impatiently for her to collect her things. When she stood, one took her arm. She ripped it out of his hold. She signalled to her cameraman to stay. When the security team realised she wasn’t alone, one of the bigger men cocked his head. The intimidation was enough to make the cameraman jump out of his chair to follow, too.

  Alex felt the muscles of his face pulling in an unfamiliar direction, but then he caught the look of horror on Elena’s face. She was looking at the evaluation committee with trepidation. The urge to smile left him. They’d better not count this against her.

  The crowd was still shifting and the committee looked discomposed.

  Professor Walters adjusted his glasses. His hair was ruffled from where he’d tugged on it, and his cheeks were rosy. ‘So if I may summarise, Ms Bardot, you’re talking about determining fraudulency in real time – that is, Ponzi schemes?’

  She lifted her chin. Everyone in the room knew who she was. ‘Yes, sir. I am.’

  The crowd of reporters couldn’t help themselves. A gasp went up and pens began scratching fast against paper.

  Alex dropped his head, his breath leaving his body. Holy. Shit. She’d been doing all this right under his nose.

  * * *

  ‘Are there any more questions?’ the committee chairwoman asked.

  Elena waited with bated breath.

  Seeing there were none, the woman nodded at her. ‘Thank you, Ms Bardot.’

  The professor stood and turned to the crowd. More than one reporter cowered in his seat.

  ‘Thank you for your attendance. We’ll be going into closed session now. Please leave the room in an orderly fashion.’

  Elena caught the woeful looks aimed in her direction. The reporters had more questions for her, but they knew better than to ask her now. She felt as if she were stepping off a rollercoaster ride as they started to disperse.

  She knew they wouldn’t be going far. They’d be waiting when she left.

  Bowing her head, she concentrated on collecting her things. She’d just gone through the most intense interview of her life. Her knees were wobbly and her stomach was tight, yet the thrill in her chest was near euphoric. She’d done it. It was over. One way or the other, she’d given it her all.

  She had to be happy with that, but she had a feeling things had gone well. She hadn’t let even Caroline Woodward rattle her.

  She took her first deep breath of the day.

  ‘Elena?’ Professor Walters said.

  She raised her chin. Did he have more questions? What more could she tell him?

  ‘If you’ve collected your things …’ Seeing that she had, he gestured to another door at the end of the room. ‘You can wait in my office if you’d like.’

  She looked around. Everyone had left.

  He was offering her an escape route, and she felt nearly light-headed with relief. ‘I’d appreciate that.’

  She gathered her computer bag and the rest of her things. Passing the committee’s long table, she smiled at them nervously. Her heels clonked against the old wooden floor as she headed for her getaway. It opened up to a side hallway, she knew.

  Still, she was careful when she opened the door. Peeking out, she surveyed the scene. Students milled about, but apparently none of the reporters were familiar with the building. She slipped into the hallway and hurried down to Professor Walters’s office. She whipped the door shut behind her and sagged against it.

  Oh, thank God. It was over.

  When she opened her eyes, she realised it had only begun.

  Alex was in the room. The rollercoaster ride started all over again. His grey gaze locked with hers and she set down her computer bag before she could drop it.

  He’d stayed.

  She felt a pang in the middle of her chest. She’d missed him so much. He was leaning back against the office’s cherrywood panelling, looking like a GQ model. He had one foot propped against the wall and his hands were in the pockets of his natty blue suit. He wasn’t wearing a tie today, and his hair was mussed.

  He looked classy yet casual, and so sexy she wanted to launch herself at him.

  She ached for him. The two weeks they’d been apart had seemed like two years.

  But she couldn’t forget why she’d left. Things had gotten too intense between them. She couldn’t go back to living that way. A gilded cage was still a cage, no matter how pretty the trappings.

  Movement nearby broke her out of her trance. Flinching, she turned to see who was watching them.

  ‘Congratulations, Miss,’ Vasquez said.

  She pressed her hand to her stomach. ‘Thank you, but it’s early. They’re still deliberating.’

  ‘There shouldn’t be any question,’ Alex said.

  The bodyguard moved away. ‘I’ll scope out another exit for us.’

  Elena’s nerves intensified when the man left and she and Alex were alone. Today was one of the most important days of her life. There was only so much she could h
andle.

  ‘How do you think it went?’ he asked.

  ‘OK. They threw a few curve balls at me, but I handled them as well as I could.’

  ‘You were prepared.’

  She nodded, once again feeling the tension. All she’d done over the past two weeks was study and give practice pitches. Now that she’d come out of that protective shell, she was starting to feel again.

  He raised one eyebrow. ‘Ponzi schemes?’

  The question was posed calmly, but all the clattering in her head came to a screeching halt. Oh, God.

  For the first time, she took in his body language. She was a chaotic mess, but he was eerily still. Friction burned in the air, and it was all directed at her.

  She reached for the door behind her. Her knees suddenly felt more than wobbly.

  He was angry.

  She hadn’t even thought. The Ponzi scheme was a sore point for him. She’d never told him the crux of her research.

  ‘I needed to understand,’ she said, her mouth going dry. When the scandal had first come to light, questions had consumed her. She’d wanted to know why but, more so, she’d needed to know how. Her father’s actions had mortified her and pushed her.

  It had become an obsession for her.

  ‘The lake?’ he pressed.

  She shouldn’t have shown that picture. It was private property. It had been their safe place, the one where they’d kept people out, yet she’d waved that photograph around like it was her right. ‘It all came to me one day when I was looking at it.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t …’ But she did know. ‘It was such a touchy subject, especially at that house.’

  ‘And you didn’t trust me.’

  No, she hadn’t. At first. ‘Not in the beginning.’

  She swallowed past the rock in her throat. ‘I went to Wolfe Manor looking for answers. I found them, but not the ones I expected. I was … I was hoping to find the money.’

  ‘You moved in with me, Elena.’

  She folded her arms over her chest. ‘I didn’t know if what I was doing had any merit, and I didn’t want to hurt you.’

  He’d gone to prison for the racket.

  Her arms dropped limply at her sides. ‘I’m sorry, Alex.’

  His head snapped back. ‘You’re sorry?’

  He came off the wall as if propelled. ‘Elena, it’s brilliant.’

  Her lips parted. The way he’d just come at her reminded her of when she’d freed him from the locked bathroom, oh so long ago. His body was primed and his eyes were bright. Her body melted, and her mind went blank.

  He raked a hand through his hair. It had gotten longer. ‘It’s genius.’

  She spread both hands against the door behind her. Her brain had just tilted.

  Breathing hard, he leaned into her. The lines of his cheekbones were like slashes across his handsome face.

  ‘I can’t do this right now,’ she whispered. Adrenalin was pumping through her system. Once it ran its course, she’d be a puddle on the floor. She was exhausted, and she just needed to get through the day. If she thought about him or their relationship, she wouldn’t make it.

  ‘You have to. You just made a public disclosure. We need to get started on the paperwork as soon as possible.’

  Her brow furrowed. ‘What are you talking about?’

  He jabbed a finger towards the room where the committee was still debating. ‘That. Your research findings. We need to go talk to NYU’s patenting department. Did they have you sign anything before you gave that talk? Have they started proceedings on protecting it?’

  She stared at him, not comprehending.

  His gaze slid over her face, and some of the tension drained from his body. He gave her a soft smile. ‘Sorry, that was Ax coming out.’

  Elena slumped against the door, letting it take all of her weight. She was so tired.

  He stroked a curl of her hair. ‘I’m not talking to you as your lover right now.’

  Her heart jumped. Were they still lovers? She hoped things hadn’t become too strained for them to fix.

  ‘I’m talking to you as CEO of Wolfe Pack, a Fortune 100 company that wants to license your technology.’

  ‘Wh–what?’

  He sighed, but pulled his hand back. ‘Sexy, compassionate and brainy.’

  There were footsteps on the other side of the door, and he backed away from her. Scrambling away from the door, Elena pressed her hands to her cheeks. She knew they were flushed. When Dr Walters stuck his head in, it didn’t matter.

  Because she felt her blood drain right out her feet. So soon? It couldn’t be good news. The committee had found a flaw.

  A wide grin split the professor’s beard in two. Juggling a folder of papers, he thrust out his hand. ‘Congratulations, Elena. I mean, Dr Bardot.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  The emotions of the day were starting to wear on Elena when they finally made it back to the penthouse. She couldn’t believe it was over, that her studies were through at last. There was still the final official paperwork and ceremony, but she’d reached her goal. She hadn’t known if that would ever happen. With all the drama and stress, it had become questionable.

  The accusations and suspicions had beaten down her confidence. At the very heart of it, she hadn’t been sure she was onto something, even though it had made sense to her. She couldn’t even describe the sense of pride that had gone through her when the committee had declared that her research had merit.

  Alex certainly thought there was something to it.

  She rubbed her head as she sat down on the sofa. It had all been such a whirlwind. She hadn’t expected him to show up at her dissertation defence, much less drag her down to the university’s intellectual property office. She still didn’t understand what was going on.

  With this licensing agreement … Or between them …

  She watched as he set her laptop on the coffee table. Contrary to her, he was bounding with energy. He took off his suit jacket and tossed it over the loveseat. She swallowed hard. If anything, he looked harder and leaner. She’d forgotten the intensity of his physical presence. He was so raw, so male.

  She pressed her thighs together.

  She hated sleeping alone. She’d hated tearing them apart the way she had, but things had gotten toxic. All-consuming. If she hadn’t gotten out when she had, she would have drowned in them.

  She tore her gaze away and clenched her hands together in her lap. She couldn’t go back to that – not now, when she was just getting her feet underneath her.

  ‘I need to show you something,’ he said, moving to the bar.

  She bit her lip. At least he was getting out of the apartment now. That was a step in the right direction. And he seemed driven again. Back in control. The NYU licensing associates had certainly been dazed when The Ax had strode in to their little closet of an office to start negotiating.

  But had things really changed?

  Her stomach dipped when he pulled out a stack of familiar spiral-bound notebooks from his briefcase.

  There was a spark in his eye as he stood over her, holding the rainbow of paperwork. When he sat next to her, he was so close his shoulder brushed against hers and their thighs nestled together. She felt his muscles clench, and she couldn’t stop her response.

  She squirmed as warmth unfurled deep inside her.

  ‘Did you look at these?’ he asked, tackling the subject head on.

  She wanted to cry. ‘Yes. I was curious, but I didn’t understand them – and I felt so guilty about spying I was sick.’

  His chin dipped. ‘I didn’t feel right looking through your computer files, either.’

  Her wet eyes snapped up to meet his gaze.

  ‘There were too many files,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I didn’t put it together until you did it for me at your dissertation.’

  He opened the blue notebook and held it so she could see. ‘This is the last year and a half of my life.�
��

  She hesitantly touched the narrow-ruled paper. It still made zero sense to her. The pages were filled with gobbledygook. His lips curled when she scrunched her nose, so he pulled out another notebook. At least she could read some of what was in it. The green notebook had comments in what she recognised as his tight, cropped handwriting.

  Something about architecture and action scripts … ‘Were you coding in prison?’ she asked.

  ‘They wouldn’t give me access to a computer, so I had to do it all by hand.’

  She grimaced. There were pages upon pages of chicken scratching. Reams of them. Some lines had been crossed out while others had been circled for emphasis. Were all the notebooks like this? ‘You’ve been transcribing all this?’

  ‘Using it as more of a guide, really. I’ve been refactoring as I go and fixing things as the quality testers send them back.’

  ‘Wolfe Pack is working on this.’ She remembered the meeting in the conference room with all the department heads. And Professor Walters. ‘This is Project Alpha Wolfe.’

  He closed the notebook with care. ‘I should have named it The Siren Project.’

  She frowned. Her brain could only take in so much, and it had already done its work for the day.

  For the month, actually.

  Taking a deep breath, he spread his arm over the sofa behind her. Something twirled in Elena’s chest when he began to play with her hair.

  ‘We’re a lot alike, you know,’ he said.

  Really? She’d never thought that. He was driven and aggressive. She was motivated, but quiet. Studious. But they’d meshed well.

  She locked her ankles together. Very well.

  The muscle in his jaw twitched. ‘That Ponzi scheme that my grandfather and your father developed was an evil concoction. It nearly cut me off at the knees when I found out about it, but there was nothing I could do to protect anyone. The damage had already been done to the investors … to the Wolfe family … to you.’