by Laura Moore
This wasn’t the time to reply. There was too much to explain. He swiped the screen and saw that he had a voicemail, from Chris of all people. As if he wanted to hear anything that punk had to say.
Finished with his call, Bob lowered his feet and swiveled his chair to face Max. “So, what have you got for me?” he asked with a nod at the file resting on Max’s thighs. “New deal you’re sourcing?”
“No.” Slipping the phone back into his pocket, he half rose and set the file in front of his boss. “I want you to look at this. I hope it will change your mind.”
Bob’s eyes flashed in irritation. Opening the folder, his lips thinned in a line of displeasure.
A heavy silence descended, broken only by the deliberate slap of papers being turned.
Reaching the last page, Bob looked up. A muscle twitched along his jaw. “What the hell are you trying to prove, Max?”
“When I was interviewing at PE firms, Summit was my top choice. I wanted to be here because of the way you ran the group and encouraged your partners to go after deals with everything they had. Bob, I’ve loved working for you and with you. I’m proud of this firm. I’m proud of the deals—big and small—we’ve made. But this thing with Mitrilocin, it’s different. Look at the stats on the drug. Look at the photos of an occluded lung. Do you really want Summit Group to be linked to a decision that will make a drug too expensive for people who already struggle to breathe on a daily basis?
“We have to stop Chris from taking this step. Chiron will already see a substantial increase in earnings from the price he’s set for Zeph3.”
“And that margin will be even greater if we let Chris do his goddamn job.”
“In a few months I’m going to have a little girl, Bob. When she comes into the world, I want—I need—to be able to look her in the face and know that I’ve tried to be a good man.”
Elders’s face flushed red. “What are you saying?”
“It’s your choice, Bob. Him or me.”
“Are you giving me an ultimatum?” Elders asked in astonishment.
“The only reason I am is because I care about our firm and its reputation. I want to make deals and money for you, but not like this.”
Fury replaced astonishment. “Son of a bitch,” he cursed. “I taught you. I looked out for you. I groomed you for this office. You could have had all this.” The wave of his arm encompassed the office. Max knew he believed it stretched further still, to the great beyond. Bob was wrong. Dakota was his all. He realized that now. She and the baby were his everything.
“And this is how you show your gratitude to me?” he concluded.
Max stood. “I hope you change your mind about Chiron and Chris, Bob. He’s slime. Don’t let him dirty you and what you’ve built here. I’ll let the guys know so we can set up a transition team—”
“Like hell you will. I call the shots here. You walk out that door, then just keep walking, Carr. There’s no coming back.”
Roger had nailed it, anticipating exactly how this would play out. Thank God he’d done as Roger suggested and called Mike Gaddis. It looked like he was going to need a really good lawyer.
“Goodbye, Bob.”
Dakota was in the paper products aisle of the Bridgehampton King Kullen, stocking up on supplies for her clients’ homes. With Easter around the corner and the weather warming, her regulars were coming out in larger numbers on the weekends. By June, the madness of the summer in the Hamptons would be in high gear.
She plucked down a triple pack of white Bounty—no matter the brand, her customers all favored white paper towels—dropped it in her cart, grabbed the same in Viva in a six-pack because the Morrisseys had a huge storage area, and resisted looking at her phone.
She’d only sent the text minutes ago, after she’d entered the store, grabbed her shopping cart, and then watched Rae push hers toward the canned-goods aisle. It was ridiculous to expect that Max, as busy as he was when at work, would reply so soon. For all she knew he was still in the meeting with Chris Steffen and Bob Elders.
He’d reply when he could. When he was ready.
She’d made a mistake. The adage went that love made you blind. Here was a new one to add to the list: happiness made you stupid. She was twice doomed.
Love hadn’t necessarily made her blind to Max’s character flaws, but it had made her lose sight of the wounds he carried, wounds that had never fully healed. Her happiness at discovering they were going to have a baby girl had been as heady as the perfume of a bouquet of peonies in full bloom. Lush and exquisite, happiness had turned her head. Made her ignore lessons previously learned.
She’d seen how he reacted when reminded of his family. He couldn’t handle a little old Christmas tree in his living room, yet she’d expected him to be delighted with the idea of naming their daughter after his deceased twin.
Aglow with her own contentment, she’d missed the signs that Max was far from okay, far from nonchalant following the doctor’s visit. In her happiness, she’d callously disregarded all she knew about the festering pain of family-inflicted wounds.
Had she not had such experience herself, had she grown up cocooned and cherished and unmarked, her ignorance might have served as a plausible excuse.
Piper had done a terrible thing. Dakota wasn’t sure she could ever forgive her for lying all these years. But her mother’s transgression paled to a morning mist compared to the accusation Max’s father had leveled at his devastated son.
It was a testament to Max’s strength that his heart hadn’t withered from the corrosive effects of those words.
She grabbed three separate Brawny rolls because John Warner preferred spending extra money and having everything neatly wrapped and organized, the way everything in his house looked. She dropped them in the cart and made her way down the wide aisle.
She wanted to despise Max’s father for what he’d done to his son. But when she considered how he must have been suffering, how some people in their grief and pain lashed out rather than embraced, she couldn’t bring herself to wish him any further ill. Under the supermarket’s bright fluorescent lights, it was easy to picture the elder Carr: frozen in loneliness, unable to connect with the person he needed most.
That Max so closely resembled this state as well was heart-rending.
She remembered her sadness when he revealed that he’d sent his father money. Max must have been too hurt and too afraid of yet another cutting rejection to approach him in person. The money, while such a sorry solution, would have been a way to show his father his success and prove his sense of responsibility. Just thinking of what the Carrs had suffered made her heart ache.
She stopped her cart by the facial tissues section, grateful for the distraction of matching Kleenex boxes’ patterns and colors to all the bathrooms and spaces in her clients’ homes.
She would not break down and call Max to apologize for her tactlessness. They could name the baby Augusta for all she cared. And if he could never bring himself to forgive his father, she’d be sorry, but she would understand.
The essential thing was that Max make peace with himself.
Rae’s voice broke into her thoughts. “What, are they missing that blue color you like to put in Theo and Freddy’s bathroom?” she asked, pulling her own cart alongside Dakota’s. Hers was filled with olive oils and vinegars, jars of peanut butters, jams, and mayo, cans of tuna, and packages of sugar and flour.
Dakota shook off her preoccupation. “No, just spacing out.”
“I can do the rest if you’re tired.”
Dakota laughed. “I’m fine. The baby’s fine. And if it wouldn’t bring down the wrath of King Kullen’s manager, I’d challenge you to a race down the aisle.”
“That sounds like fun. Let’s—” Rae’s reply was interrupted by the chime of Dakota’s cell.
She held up a finger. “Sorry, just a sec.” She grabbed her phone from her vest pocket.
Sharp disappointment filled her when the message she’d hoped for was
instead from her aunt Mimi—what was she doing, texting her?—but then she read the text: Your husband got bored of you awfully quick. A link followed.
Her thumb was clicking on the link before her intent even registered. A video filled the screen. A man and a woman were naked on a bed. The woman straddled his naked thighs, rising and falling onto his lap as the man stroked her breasts and played with her nipples. Moans and grunts punctuated their thrusts and grinds and then, with a full body shudder, the woman let her head fall back on an ecstatic cry.
“WTF is that?” Rae asked leaning over.
Instinctively Dakota turned off her phone, but the noises coming from Max—it was him in that video; she knew that body, that profile, recognized even the sounds he made—with the woman echoed, pummeling her.
She swayed. Oh God, oh God. She blinked against the bright, mocking orderliness of the aisle. It seemed especially cruel that all the products remained neatly stacked on the shelves when her life was so thoroughly wrecked.
“Dakota? Are you all right?”
No, she really wasn’t. “Actually, Rae, I’m feeling a little off,” she said vaguely. A terrible loneliness filled her as she realized she couldn’t share what had happened with her friend. Not yet, maybe not ever. “Let’s get out of here, okay?” She let go of the cart and walked away from it.
“Dakota—” Rae’s eyes were wide with shock.
“What?”
“You mean to just leave all this stuff here?”
“Yeah.” Because if she didn’t get out of there right away, she was going to start screaming, unleashing her rage and pain, and hurling every damned box of tissues as far as she could throw them.
—
Knowing that Bob would immediately be on the phone with Ed Jackson, Jim Bayles, and Lewis Brant, the three other partners at Summit, informing them of Max’s desertion, he ignored Bob’s fury-injected edict and returned to his office, summoning his two associates, Andy Reynolds and Glenn Howard, to break the news that he was leaving the firm. He kept it short and sweet, stressing that his was an “amicable departure.” The guys were sharp. They knew Chris had been causing trouble. They would draw their own conclusions once the news of Mitrilocin’s price spike became public.
Because sure as shit, there would be an uproar. Bob and Chris were sadly mistaken in thinking that industry watchdogs wouldn’t be sniffing around this very crappy move.
He was unexpectedly moved by his assistant’s shock and dismay at the news. Fred blinked rapidly behind his tortoiseshell glasses. “And—and—your appointments?”
“You’ll have to discuss that with Bob and whoever takes over for me. They’ll either keep them or reschedule.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Fred nodded tightly. “And Mr. Miller?”
Damn, he’d completely forgotten today’s meeting with Alex Miller. Alex wanted his take on a clean-energy start-up. “That’s soon, right?”
“Your appointment is in half an hour. At his office.”
“I’ll keep it.” He’d explain to Alex what had gone down and cut the meeting short. They could talk about the start-up over the weekend. “But Fred, one last thing. Can you call Blade and book a flight for me to East Hampton at two o’clock? And then can you pack up my stuff here and have it sent to my apartment?”
“Of course, Mr. Carr.”
Max smiled. From the very beginning when Fred was assigned to him, he’d tried to break him of the habit of calling him “Mr. Carr,” but the older man had always been adamant. “Thanks. Thanks for everything, Fred. You know, Andy and Glenn are good guys. One of them will most likely be moving in here.” If he had to bet, he thought it would be Andy, who was just a little more aggressive, that much hungrier to close the deal…a true believer. Bob would be looking for that.
He pulled out his wallet and removed the ID card that got him past lobby security and handed it to Fred. Then he took the office keys off his key chain and passed them to him as well.
“It’ll take a couple of weeks for the dust to settle, but you’ve got my number, and you know you can contact me for anything.”
He extended his hand.
Fred shook it. “Thank you, Mr. Carr. It’s been a pleasure working for you.”
—
Max walked down the carpeted hallway, aware of the hushed atmosphere in the office, a blanketing, damning silence in answer to his defection. In a firm this small, his move would be taken personally, and despite how well he and his partners had always gotten along, there’d be a dose of schadenfreude that the heir apparent to Summit Group was toppled; the race to take his place was on.
Sherri, the receptionist, had abandoned her desk, but Max had no doubt that everyone in the office knew the exact moment he opened the door with the engraved plaque on its front and then let it close behind him with a soft click.
Standing in front of the elevators, he fought against the disorientation. He was no longer Max Carr, partner at Summit Group. He’d made the right decision in resigning, but that didn’t prevent him from wishing things were otherwise.
His phone rang. He looked at the number and frowned in surprise. Pressing the green button, he said, “Hey, Roger.”
“Max.” The way Roger said his name put Max on instant alert.
The elevator doors opened, and Max stepped inside. It was blessedly free of occupants. “What’s up?” he asked, pressing the button for the lobby.
“That tape of you and Ashley Nicholls? It’s out.” Roger named one of the Internet sites that vied with TMZ and Gawker for scandal and dirt. “And it’s gone viral.”
His stomach dropped faster than the elevator. “Fuck.”
“Ashley Nicholls has put out a statement claiming she got hacked. But she hasn’t said anything else.”
Max’s laugh was hollow. “Of course not.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t handle this for you, but I’ve called Mike Gaddis. He’s on it. He’ll get the video taken down.”
The damage was done. Jesus, what if Dakota saw it? Max thought.
“Did you know this Ashley Nicholls is in a reality show? That’s apparently what’s spurring the interest…aside from the obvious.”
Chris had told him about Ashley’s new career back in San Francisco. Suddenly he recalled the crack Chris had made about them looking good together. Preoccupied with discovering Steffen’s plans for Chiron and caught up in Dakota’s distress over her mother’s deception, Max had forgotten the taunt.
“Chris is behind this somehow, Roger. I’m sure of it. I don’t know if he put her up to making the tape in the first place or just decided to take advantage of its existence, but let the guys know to watch their backs around him.”
The elevator reached the ground floor, finally catching up with his stomach. He stepped into the lobby with its polished marble floors and high ceilings.
“I will. You know nobody’s going to care about the tape except for Bob. Smart of you to resign when you did. You took away any ammunition Bob would have used against you. You outmaneuvered them both.”
“Rog,” he said, striding toward the lobby doors and waving to the security guards, “I don’t give a fuck what anybody but my wife thinks about this.” He passed through the revolving door, and then he was out on Park Avenue competing with the lunch-hour crowds and traffic. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Thanks for the heads-up. I owe you.”
“No problem. Call me when you can.”
Hanging up, he immediately called Dakota, cursing when her voicemail picked up. She’d turned off her phone. He didn’t bother leaving a message because he needed to talk to her. A recording of him babbling how damn sorry he was wouldn’t help.
At the curb, he punched in Alex Miller’s number and hailed a taxi with his free hand. A cab pulled up. Max yanked open the door and gave the address for the Blade helipad on East Thirty-Fourth Street as he listened to the rings.
He breathed a sigh of relief when Alex answered. But relief was replaced with shame when Alex immediately said, “Chr
ist, Max. What the hell?”
So Roger hadn’t been exaggerating when he said the tape had gone viral. At least his friend—Dakota’s friend—was still talking to him. “I know. Long story and an old one. The tape was made before I even purchased Windhaven. I’ll tell you about it later, but I’ve got to catch a flight back to East Hampton ASAP. I’m hoping Dakota won’t have seen it.”
“Are you kidding? Mimi Hale has been very busy. Gen got the link in her inbox an hour ago. Rest assured Dakota’s beloved aunt was as generous with her.”
“Crap.” So the video had been uploaded an hour and change ago. Chris must have arranged with the “news” site to have it released shortly after their meeting, which meant he’d anticipated that Max would object to the price hike for Mitrilocin and planned to use the video to rouse Bob’s puritanical damnation—and generally screw Max over. “Alex, I messed up. With Dakota, I mean. We had a fight. It was over some personal stuff and I got angry. I split and I didn’t call her, not even after I cooled down. And now this happens.” He dragged a hand through his hair, staring out the window and wishing there weren’t so many stoplights between him and the East River. “I keep blowing things with her.”
“You love her, right?” Alex asked.
“More than I ever thought possible.” And he hadn’t even told her yet. He’d pay quadruple the fare to get the chopper to leave as soon as he arrived.
“Glad I don’t have to kick your ass. Okay, then. Go make it right with Dakota and see to it that she knows how you feel and how sorry you are. She’s strong and I know she cares for you.”
Max hoped she still did. He certainly hadn’t made it easy for her.
Dakota had let Rae drive.
“So, you going to clue me in on what’s got you so upset? ’Cause if it has to do with the baby, I’m heading west and not east.”
Dakota continued to stare out the window with her lip squeezed between her teeth. The pain was keeping the tears at bay.
“Come on, Dakota,” Rae said quietly. “You’ve always been there for me.”
She released her abused lip. “It’s a sex tape. Of Max and some woman. Mimi sent it to me—”