KNOCKED UP BY THE BAD BOY

by Nicole Fox

  “You okay?” Jas asked, reaching forward to grab the bottle herself and pour the last bit into her glass. “You look kind of spooked, Dane.”

  Of course, he was spooked. This could be it. This could be the moment Emily had been waiting for, before she closed the trap on his miserable ass. “Nah,” he replied with a grin, “I'm perfect. Though, I think I might have to run to the grocery store. We're running low on a few things, and I wanted to get in before the rush.”

  “Grocery store, huh?” Jas asked, before she downed the last of the wine. “Yeah, totally. Let's go! We can pick up another bottle or three while we're there!”

  No, that wasn't going to work. He needed to leave here on his own. Otherwise, he'd probably just make matters worse by dragging Jas along with him. “Uh, I really probably shouldn't be having much more to drink. I'll pick up one of the same bottles we had, though.”

  “Really?” Jas asked, as he started to get up from his chair. “You're going to abandon me?”

  He made his way to the front door, no keys or anything else in hand. His only plan was to get out the front door and head out of the neighborhood on foot. A vagabond. Maybe he could move on foot through the surrounding neighborhood and avoid any kind of police contact.

  Just as his hand touched the handle of the front door, a thought flashed into his mind. He'd left his pistol in the nightstand. Shit! He immediately headed back that way.

  He rounded the corner and turned to head back to the bedroom just as the automatic garage door kicked on, sending its weird rumble through the house.

  Was that her? Was that Emily, returned with the information he so desperately needed? He stopped in his tracks and listened.

  “Dane?” Jas asked. “Thought you were leaving?”

  Out in the garage, a car door opened and closed, then the door in the mudroom opened and shut. “Dane?” Emily called. “Dane, are you here?”

  His heart nearly sang in relief at the sound of her voice, unaccompanied by cops, SWAT, or flash-bang grenades. “Emily?” he called back.

  He met her in the kitchen, her eyes nearly as frantic as he'd felt just a few short moments before. She dropped her briefcase on the floor and looked at him in a near panic. She crossed the kitchen to him and grabbed his arms. “Dane, thank God you didn't do anything stupid,” she said. “We've got a problem.”

  A few minutes later, the trio were gathered in Emily's home office. The clothing was up off the floor, and the furniture had been placed back where it belonged, but Dane swore he could still smell the evidence of their little tryst the night before. If Jas sensed it, though, he couldn't tell.

  “Edward has been running this whole thing,” Emily said after a moment. “He’s been pushing the drug through approval, bribing federal inspectors—the works. This thing is deep, and might involve the top levels of the company, all the way up to the board.”

  “Up to the board?” Jas asked, a shocked look on her face. “You can't be serious.”

  “I am,” Emily said, her voice cool and devoid of emotion. “Look, I've seen the emails, and I even spoke to him. He doesn't want to reexamine any of this. He just views the complaints and legal challenges as a minor inconvenience. The suits and fines are just going to be a small dent in the profit margin for PV, Jas.”

  “What can we do?” Jas asked.

  Dane knew exactly what they could do. With this information, they could burn the whole place to the ground, then sort out the dead. Figuratively, at least. Leaking the information would be far worse than letting the FDA be the one to take action, or individual lawyers. A big reveal was the way to go—something that really grabbed the headlines by the throat and never let go till the corporation was just a bleeding carcass on the ground.

  “I don't know,” Emily admitted, shaking her head as she logged into her PC and began to pull up the files. “I don't trust anyone there, anymore. Except you, of course, Jas.”

  “Aw,” Jas said, clearly a little tipsy. “Thanks, Em.”

  “Here,” Emily said, ushering them both around, so they could better view her computer screen. “This is what I pulled off the servers.”

  Jas leaned forward and peered at the screen, her eyes squinting as she read through the files. Dane considered doing the same, but what was the point? He'd seen these already before. But, a sense of triumph and comeuppance did settle over him. These, after all, were the files he'd been looking for—the ones on which he'd staked his brother's future.

  “Oh my God,” Jas said, as she leaned forward a little. “This is totally fucked up.” She looked at Emily. “We really did this shit?”

  The CEO of BioSphere nodded solemnly. “That's shareholder dollars at work, right there. That's what they paid for.”

  Jas sighed. “What should we do?” she asked, as she looked at Emily.

  Dane loudly cleared his throat loudly enough that both women turned to look at him. “Go to that reporter at the Times. She’s the one who’s been trying to contact you, babe.”

  Emily shook her head as she ran her fingers back through her hair, a look of indecision on her face. “I can't do that, Dane,” she said, her voice heavy with resignation. She looked like a trapped animal suddenly. She was a woman stuck between a rock and a hard place. “Edward and his little fucking cronies are lining me up to take the hit on this. I wouldn't be surprised if they are already figuring out what to say at deposition. They are going to pin it all on me. If I go to Charlene Padilla now, I might end up taking the fall on the whole thing.”

  Damn it, she was right. There were levels to this that he wasn't seeing, little pieces of the puzzle that someone on the outside, like him, could never possibly grasp. But, that was the thing about some puzzles. When you were trapped inside of them, like Emily was, it was almost impossible to see a way around the issue. The strategy, after all, had been built by someone on the inside, to defeat a person that was also on the inside.

  No, the solution to that kind of problem was to go outside the box, to push the envelope on what was acceptable, and abandon what was expected. He narrowed his eyes as he stared at the screen, nodding to her obvious point. What he needed to do was get the word out. If he didn't do that, the woman he loved was going to be caught in the crosshairs.

  And there was no way Emily was going to go down for this, especially not after everything she'd done for him. He couldn't let the woman he loved take the fall for him. What kind of man would he be?

  # # #

  Emily

  “I don't know about this,” Jas murmured, her words slurred a little by the wine. Thankfully, she'd switched to water to try and give her body a little recovery time. “Dane might think you'll be in the clear, but you know how public opinion is. They might just flip on you because your name's up front, Em.”

  Didn't she know it? Emily chewed on the back of her knuckle, thinking of another way out of this. The problem was, she was in one hell of a trap—one that had been built specifically for her. “I can't see any other way, Jas,” Emily said, after a long while.

  Dane was busy trying to get Charlene Padilla on the line.

  “And what's the deal with that?” Jas asked, jerking her thumb at Dane. “What's going on here? Why does he have that reporter's phone number?”

  Emily sighed and looked away, trying to come up with something she could tell Jas. She certainly couldn't mention that he'd kidnapped her and held her hostage for the last week. But, she could at least tell her part of it, couldn't she? “Remember how Dane showed up at the office last week?”

  “Just before the car accident?” Jas asked, a perplexed look on her face. “Yeah, right, I remember.”

  “Well, he wasn't there for a business meeting. He showed up to bring something to my attention. His brother, Benton, is in prison for a murder he committed while he was taking Hymalete. He wanted my help with bringing out the truth and with getting some evidence about what Pharma knew about the medication, to see if he could somehow exonerate him.”

  “Woah, there,�
� Jas said, as she set her glass of water on the table. “Hold up. You've been working with him to get evidence?”

  Emily shook her head, then sort of shrugged. “Not up until now, really.”

  Dane finally got Charlene on the phone right about then. Both women glanced up at him as he said hello to her, then got up to leave the room. They watched him go, then returned to their conversation.

  “Look,” Emily said, leaning forward, hands clasped in front of her, “I thought it was kind of bullshit at first. Dane had some pretty wild claims that he was making. But, as I started to dig into the files and look at the paperwork, I realized they're valid. I wanted to stay loyal to Pharma—I really did—and see if I could make the changes the company needed from the inside. Then, all this happened, with Edward and the board being in on the whole thing and trying to scapegoat me.”

  Jas collapsed into the chair Dane had just vacated and braced her head against a balled-up fist. “What now, then? Do I need to find another job?”

  Hell, Emily would probably need to find one soon, too. She’d need a lawyer, too, with the way all this was turning out. She shook her head. “I don't know. But it's not looking good, Jas. I mean, I certainly can't go back there. I'm a hard-nosed bitch when I need to be, but I refuse to be part of something this unethical. It's just not right to hurt the people we're trying to help, all while we're bleeding them dry for medications that don't even work.”

  Her assistant sighed.

  “Besides,” Emily continued, “I refuse to go down for something that piece-of-shit Barker did. He deserves to be hung out to dry for this, not me.”

  Both women turned their attention back to Dane as he came back into the room. His face was longer than Secretariat's. More bad news.

  “We've got a problem,” he said, his voice sunken low. “Charlene won't run the story.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Emily

  “BioSphere's been complaining about harassment,” he continued. “Now her editors are telling her to back off, or they'll start pulling ad dollars and getting their industry partners to do the same. Worse than that, they're threatening lawsuits in court if she even makes a peep.”

  “So, that's it, then?” Jas asked, a frown pulling her mouth down at the corners. “More wine anyone?”

  No, this wasn't how it was supposed to work. This wasn't the way that things were supposed to go down. They had the evidence, so why couldn't they just get it out? She'd be damned if she was going to be crucified in the court of public opinion on this. “We can go somewhere else,” Emily suggested. “Some other reporter, maybe? I mean, I'm the CEO, and we have the documents. Why can't I just blow the whistle myself?”

  Jas shook her head. “Think some other board would pick you up then? You might get out of this, but you'd never work for another pharmaceutical company in your life, and you know it. Who would hire a manager that's going to go running to the press the moment things look slightly off?”

  “Then social media,” Emily suggested. “I could release all the work there and hope some bloggers pick it up?”

  “They'll just think you're crazy,” Jas said. “PV would spin it so hard it'd look like a vinyl record. Besides, it'd still be career suicide, Em. You'd be throwing your whole life away. And who would believe you, anyway? Stop being so arrogant!”

  Emily sat back in surprise at her assistant's words. They were like a slap in the face. Arrogant? Was she really acting that way? She quickly thought back over her actions for the last week, starting with her board meeting with Edward. She'd thought her position as CEO was the final word, and that Barker would bend to her will without question. Look where that had gotten her, though.

  She'd believed she could just brush Dane away like a crumb from her jacket, a piece of lint that would just disappear with a flick or her finger. Boy, had she been wrong about that one!

  She had thought she'd be quickly rescued from his clutches. Instead, here she was, sitting with him and her assistant, having deeper and more confused feelings than she'd ever had for any man.

  Finally, she'd believed her spot was so secure at BioSphere and that they'd brought her in because they desperately needed someone with her talents. She'd convinced herself that she was too invaluable to lose. She was irreplaceable.

  Jas was right. Emily was being an arrogant bitch. And, if she wasn't careful, she'd bring them all down with her.

  Her assistant spoke up when Emily didn't say anything for a long moment. “Em? I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way.”

  Emily shook her head. “You know what?” she asked. “You're right. You're completely right. I have been arrogant about all this, and I'm letting it get in the way of my decision making.”

  Her friend smiled hesitantly at first, then more broadly. “I'm glad I didn't hurt your feelings.”

  “No,” Emily said, laughing a little, “you did. But sometimes we have to hurt if we want to grow.”

  # # #

  Dane

  Dane walked into the room, his head full of half-cooked, crazy plans. Emily was still his hostage, after all, wasn't she? Maybe he could use that to their advantage in this whole thing. Or not. He didn't know for sure, considering how everything was happening so quickly.

  “Jas?” Dane asked. “Do you mind if we're alone for a little while? We need to figure out our next move, and it'd probably be better if you weren't involved. If we do decide to do something, we don't want it to reflect poorly on you.”

  “Yes,” Emily agreed. “It would probably be best if you weren't involved from here on out.”

  Jas looked back and forth between the two of them, shocked. “You guys can't just boot me out of the club now!”

  Dane held up a hand. “We're not booting you out. We’re just protecting you.”

  “Right,” Emily said. “Look, Jas, I've got money set aside. I can take of myself, but you need this job and a good work history. If you get mixed up in all this, it won't look good for you. Like you said, no one's going to hire a whistle blower CEO. Same goes for a CEO's assistant, don't you think?”

  Jas sighed and looked away, then turned back to her water and finished it. “Fine, I'll go. But, just so you know, it's under protest. And, if you guys are going to completely destroy the company or something, could you at least give me a heads-up?”

  Dane nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

  “Jas,” Emily said, “I wouldn't leave you out in the cold. You know that.”

  She nodded. “Yeah,” she said, a little downcast. “I know.”

  That done, Dane followed her back into the living room so she could get her purse, then he and Emily escorted her back to the front door to say their goodbyes.

  When she was safely out the front door, Emily turned back to Dane. “What now?” she asked.

  Dane's thoughts turned inwards, to the plans he'd been making as they were convincing Jas she needed to leave. With Emily still in his hands, he had leverage. Lots of leverage, and more than one way to get the information out.

  He could ask for the ransom money, just like he'd planned earlier.

  No, that had been a dark path, one that he'd pushed aside in favor of working with her. And, up until now, that had seemed to be working. He thought back to her threat from the first day, about how he'd end up in a cell with Benton at the end of all this. If he kept going down this ill-conceived road of self-destruction, beside Benton was right where he'd end up.

  But, on the other hand, this was the closest he'd come to helping his brother since the murders. His pursuit of vengeance, while not necessarily healthy, had gotten him this far. Hadn't it? He had the evidence in hand—proof of BioSphere's conspiracies.

  At what cost, though? Besides just having a date with prison, what kind of man was he becoming? The drinking, the violence, the things he'd almost been willing to do to Jas. All because of what? His desire for revenge?

  He shook his head and, without saying a word, went back into Emily's study.

  “Dane?” Emily asked in
a concerned voice, as she followed behind him. “Are you okay?”

  If he dropped this quest for justice, no matter how sick it was, it would be like he was abandoning Benton. Sure, Dane could probably walk away from this a free man. But what about his brother? He'd rot for another few years, until his appeals ran out, then he'd be in the gas chamber, or at the end of a needle.

  He couldn't abandon him. Not his brother! He was the only one who'd ever stood by Dane through all these years. How could he even consider that?

  No, he needed to hold onto Emily. And he needed to hold onto the evidence. If he had one, and not the other, he was just going to end up with a losing hand at the end of this bizarre game.