Scandal in Seattle (Great Exploitations)

by Williams, Nicole

  True story. Although to ensure we knew she loved us both equally, she chewed through every one of Henry’s, too.

  “She still has one of your old sneakers tucked in her bed. It’s so ratty and holey, I keep waiting for it to disintegrate, but I don’t doubt Molly’d take my hand off if I tried to take it away.”

  She still had a piece of me. A piece of me—old, ratty, and about-to-disintegrate as it was—was still in Henry’s life. I couldn’t decide how I felt about that, so I stayed quiet and let Henry pick up the slack in the awkward silence.

  “Are you going to bite my head off if I ask you a question?” he asked.

  I stared at the horizon and lifted a shoulder. “That depends on the question.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  That was a loaded question. I had so many answers to that question, all of them true, that I had to sort through a few responses before I decided on an appropriate one. “Here at the beach at an unholy hour or here in Northern California?” I casually scooted a bit farther away from him. I didn’t know if he’d done it deliberately or not, but he’d sat a little too close.

  “Both heres.”

  Of course both heres.

  “I’m here this morning because I couldn’t sleep and thought a walk along the beach would be nice, and I’m here in Northern California for work.” Both answers were true, although I might have omitted some of the details.

  “Work? Where? How long now?”

  He was just as curious and unabashed as I remembered. It was endearing. It was also enraging.

  Keep things vague, I reminded myself. “I’m contracting for a software development company. It’s about a six-month contract that I just started.”

  “I probably know every little start-up and giant software empire in the state. Who are you working for?”

  Your wife. I lifted an eyebrow in answer.

  He smiled into the sand and gave a nod. “What’s the project?”

  You. I lifted my other eyebrow.

  He chuckled that time. “So secretive. This must be something cutting edge. Or else you’re working for the government.”

  “Or maybe I’m working for one of your competitors,” I said, realizing my slip one second too late.

  Of course, Henry didn’t miss it. The skin between his eyebrows lined. “What makes you think I’ve got competitors in the software industry?”

  Dammit. I’d had no contact with Henry since our junior year of college. Other than knowing he was the kind of computer geek-slash-genius who made Microsoft’s software engineers look like a bunch of bush leaguers, I shouldn’t know anything about Henry’s post-college career. And I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t studied and memorized every little detail in the file his wife had put together for me.

  It was a good thing I’d been trained to be quick on my feet. A small smile lifted into place. “Because you were programming C++ in your sleep when you were in first grade. If you don’t own your own company that other companies can only dream about competing with, then you must have had a lobotomy somewhere along the way.” I had to pause and suck in a breath before I could get out the next part. “The boy I knew was destined for greatness.”

  Those words stung for two reasons. One, because I hated saying them despite knowing any man, every man, craved people believing they were destined for something great. And two, because at one time, I’d believed it wholeheartedly. Henry Callahan was a guy anyone could have a one-minute conversation with and walk away knowing big things were on the horizon for him.

  As expected, his expression softened a bit as his smile lifted higher. The pallor of his skin seemed to brighten as his shoulders lifted an inch or two, like a heavy pack had just been removed. “You’re right about one of those two things. I was programming C++ in first grade. But the whole destined for greatness thing . . . that’s been gone for a while now.”

  The sadness in his voice was unmistakable. The weight returned to his shoulders as the fresh color drained from his face.

  “Why’s that?” I asked, genuinely curious. Nothing in Henry’s file gave away that he’d been brought to his proverbial knees somewhere along the way, so why did he look as though he’d never been lower?

  “Long story,” he said around a sigh. His eyes made their way to me again. I almost shifted under their scrutiny.

  I tried a small laugh to diffuse the intensity. It failed. “And you say I’m the mysterious one?” I laughed another few notes. Not. Working. “What happened to the open book of a guy I remember?” And, obviously, the open bed of a guy policy.

  “Everything.” His voice was as strong as it was weak. Everything about Henry was different, yet the same. He was a ghost of the man I remembered.

  But then, I was a ghost of the girl I’d been, too. Life had turned us into shadows.

  Okay, enough with the heavy. “So what have you been up to? Besides being mysterious?”

  “And other than programming C++ in my sleep?”

  He joined me halfway through my laugh. It was an honest-to-goodness one that time, which made me ache all over again. Laughing with Henry brought back so many good memories, it was painful.

  “After college, I started up a little software development company.” He gave a half shrug.

  He was still modest, or humble, or exceptional at keeping up the act. “And that start-up stayed little for how long? A year? Maybe two?”

  Henry smiled into the sand. “We went public eight months after opening.”

  From start-up, to going public, to being worth billions.

  “Underachiever,” I mumbled.

  “What about you? What have you been up to since”—I didn’t miss him casually glancing at my left hand—“that day you seemed to fall off the face of the earth?”

  You mean the same day I found you naked in our bed with a strange woman? Go me for keeping my biting remarks to myself. Progress.

  “I transferred schools, finished my degree, and have been contracting ever since.” All true. My career just didn’t include sitting in front of a computer like I knew Henry believed.

  “Anything you’ve been up to besides work?” Yet another glance at my left hand.

  I don’t know if he was expecting a ring to magically appear, or wondering if one had been there recently, or just remembering the engagement ring he’d gotten me years ago. “I’m not married. Nor have I been, nor do I plan on it anytime in the future.”

  His eyebrows came together. “Why not?”

  I exhaled. “The stars haven’t aligned.” Sarcasm at its finest.

  “Not why aren’t you married.” Henry nudged me lightly. “Why don’t you want to in the future?”

  An image seared into my mind leapt to the forefront. I almost winced. “Because this one guy I used to love turned me off to the whole concept.”

  Henry didn’t hold back his wince. It was so intense, it looked painful. Once he’d recovered, his mouth opened, and then his phone buzzed in his shorts’ pocket. He slid the phone out, glanced at it, and sighed.

  “Bad call?” I guessed.

  Hitting ignore, he slid it back into his pocket. “They all are these days.”

  “Is your company taking a hit due to the economy?” I asked, though I knew it wasn’t. Henry’s company was one of the few IT companies thriving in a floundering market.

  “Not . . . exactly.” Still leading with the obnoxious humble thing. “We’ve been extremely fortunate.”

  “So what’s the deal with all of the bad calls?”

  His face lined like he was searching for just the right way to put it.

  “Mo’ money, mo’ problems?” I suggested.

  He smiled. “Something like that.” To prove it, Henry’s phone buzzed to life again.

  “Looks like you’re busy.” I rose and dusted the sand off of me. “I’ll let you get back to your money and problems.”

  Henry popped up beside me, punching ignore on his phone again. “I could use a sharp tech head on my team, Eve. Whatev
er hourly rate that top secret company you’re contracting for is giving you, I could double.”

  I lifted my hand.

  “Triple—”

  “Thank you,” I said, cutting him off, “and tempting, but . . .” I caught myself right before I tacked on I’d bet your wife wouldn’t love an ex coming to work for you. Technically, I didn’t know that Henry was married, and I didn’t miss the absence of a wedding ring on his left hand. Whether that was because he didn’t like to exercise with it on, or because he’d forgotten it on the nightstand, or because he’d lost it, or because of any one of the dozens of possible explanations, one thing was certain: I needed to get and keep a grip. One slip, and it was all over.

  “Tempting but . . .?” He was waiting.

  I cleared my throat and stepped back. The wind had shifted, and at that proximity, I could smell Henry, the same smells I’d fallen in love with. “Tempting but, you know me. I can’t ditch out on a project early. I have to see it through, or I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “Still stubborn?”

  “Always.”

  Henry studied me with a small smile for a few seconds. He pulled a wallet from his pocket and slid a business card from it. “If you change your mind, here’s my card. Or, you know, if you ever just want to get together and catch up. That has my private number. Feel free to use it.”

  I took the card and shot him a smile. Less than five minutes into the Greet and I already had a business card with his private phone number. Maybe the Callahan Errand would go quicker than I expected.

  “It was nice seeing you, Evie. I mean . . . Eve.” Henry started heading back down the beach. He patted his legs for Molly, but all she did was rest her head on her paws and close her eyes.

  I had to give her a few nudges before she’d go with him, although she wouldn’t leave until she’d given me one last drooly lick. I probably shouldn’t have watched them continue their jog down the beach, but I did. They were the only part of my past I’d had contact with in years. At one time, they’d been the most important part of my life. Sighing, I finally shifted my gaze away. That was no time for nostalgia.

  He was long out of earshot when I replied. “See you soon, Henry.”

  IT WAS THE first day of spring quarter my freshman year of college. The instructor had told us to pair up with someone we could work with throughout the semester. Being the only female in the class, I knew I had as good a chance of getting asked to be someone’s partner as I did of curing world hunger. At least, being asked to be someone’s partner without the expectation of sleeping with him. I’d learned during the fall semester that men had a general sort of entitlement when it came to IT, and the only role in it appropriate for a woman was a receptionist.

  I was sitting at my lab table, head propped in my hand, partnerless, when someone stopped beside me. But he wasn’t just “someone.” He was Henry Callahan. Everyone on campus knew who he was. He was notorious with the girls because he was easy on the eyes and had more money than God, and he was a favorite with the guys because wherever Henry went, so did the girls.

  We were both majoring in IT but had only shared a few classes. The only times I saw Henry Callahan was in passing or on the other side of the room with the “haves” at a party, while I hovered with the “have nots.”

  “Hey, there,” he said, flashing a smile that made my heart drop.

  “Hey, there,” I replied, qualifying for the worst response in the history of greetings. While I sat there, pondering why Henry Callahan was standing in front of me with a smile, I tried to come up with something to say. Something other than Hey, there.

  “Can I be your partner?” he asked.

  Even at the time, his words had struck me. He wasn’t only open to partnering up with the only female—even though every other male in the class assumed my gender made me an IT moron—he was asking. Asking me if I wanted to be his lab partner, not the other way around.

  “If you don’t mind being saddled with a social pariah for the whole quarter”—I eyed the stool beside me—“by all means.”

  Henry shrugged and sat. “The only reason I’m not a social pariah is because my granddad’s name is on one of the buildings here, so I think this is meant to be.”

  Highly doubtful. Henry didn’t exactly qualify as hottie-of-the-year, but he had an unassuming attractiveness that got a girl’s attention, and he also had one of those personalities that seemed to make friends everywhere he went. Having money certainly wasn’t the only thing that kept social pariah and Henry Callahan apart. The list was long.

  Twisting in his seat, he held out his hand. “I’m Henry—”

  “I know who you are,” I interjected, biting my tongue a few words too late.

  His smile curved into place. “You do, eh?”

  My mind, thankfully, worked quickly even back then. “It’s kind of hard to not know the person singlehandedly responsible for throwing the class’s curve. I’m Eve—”

  “I know who you are,” he repeated, his eyes gleaming. “We’ve had four classes together, you like to sit in the back row, you’re the best JAVA programmer in the department, and you wear red every Friday.”

  To say I’d been shocked Henry knew my name was an understatement. Realizing he actually knew details about me . . . well, that was a bit staggering.

  “You’ve never even said hi to me,” I said.

  “I know,” he replied, “but today, I’m feeling brave.”

  My eyebrows came together. “What does bravery have to do with saying Hey to someone?”

  That was the moment; the first time his eyes locked on mine in a way that floored me. It left me breathless as it made my heart sputter to a stop.

  “When it comes to a girl like you, bravery is always required.”

  I WAS RACKING up some frequent flyer miles. I felt like I’d spent as much time in the air as I had on the ground that week. After receiving a clipped call from G to let me know that Henry had to leave on a last-minute business trip (yet again), I was on a plane back to Seattle. I had to close the Hendrik Errand tres vite. G’s expression, not mine.

  Given Ian Hendrik was a special brand of douche, getting him into bed would be easier than the Silva Errand. Knowing that was a blessing. And a curse. Seattle was waiting for me just the way I’d left it: bleak and gray. The more time I spent there, the more I understood why so few faces had smiles. The weather really didn’t bolster smiling.

  As soon as I stepped foot off of the plane, I hightailed it for the parking garage. I’d been in a rush since my last night in Miami. My heart had been thudding at warp-speed ever since. I knew exactly where Ian Hendrik would be, and in order to get the case closed quickly, I needed to be there, too. If all went as planned, I’d contact Mrs. Hendrik that evening with the ceremonious S so she could get her Contact ready for the where and when yet TBD tomorrow night.

  Once I slipped inside of the Acura, I tore through the garage and headed south. Ian wasn’t only a fashion photographer, a philandering monkey, and the cockiest coward I’d met, he also liked to try his hand at the amateur race track in the Sound. So what did that piece of information mean to me?

  It meant I was the newest member at Speedway Sound Track and a late entrant to that night’s twilight race. If I’d known going into the Errand that I’d be racing the Target, I would have requested something with more horsepower and faster get-up-and-go. The Acura was fast, but I wasn’t just racing—I needed to win. In order to get under Ian’s skin in a way that would drive him positively nuts, I had to not only “coincidentally” be interested in his hobbies, I had to kick his ass. Men hated that as much as they loved it. A woman beating them at their own game was something they couldn’t quite decide how they felt about. While Ian was trying to figure it out, I was going to help him make up his mind.

  It was almost twilight when I zipped through Speedway Sound’s front entrance. There were about a dozen cars lined up at the start line, and a good chunk of the grandstands were occupied with loud fa
ns.

  Ian’s car wasn’t hard to miss. It was the biggest and flashiest, plus it had a throng of scantily and scandalously clad women around it. Could the guy get any more cliché?

  The answer to that question was always yes.

  A shrill siren sounded, and one by one, the car fanatics and the driver groupies made their way toward the stands. Including my Acura, a total of ten cars were racing that heat. All of the other drivers were men. A few of them shot smiles full of schmuckery at me, like it was cute I would even consider myself worthy to race against those giants of men. The ironic thing? Those racing “gods” had been tossed into a middle heat in an amateur racing league on the outskirts of Seattle.

  We weren’t in Daytona, people.

  I studied the track, rolled my eyes, and decided to have a little fun with them. As the line of cars revved their engines at the start line, I stalled mine. I didn’t just stall the engine; I practically gave myself whiplash from the force of it.

  In addition to the drivers thinking I was about five rungs out of my league, most everyone in the stands who’d witnessed my rookie mistake was chuckling and shaking their head.

  Ian was several cars over from me, so I didn’t know if he’d seen what had happened or who’d been behind the wheel. If he hadn’t already spotted me, he was about to when he crossed the finish line several seconds behind me.

  G saw to it that her Eves had some defensive, as well as offensive, driving skills, but I’d learned how to race cars back home. G never hesitated to use my driving skills to her advantage. It was just a hobby, never a passion. That’s why it really ticked off my gearhead guy friends when I’d beat them every single time. Losing to a girl didn’t piss them off as much as losing to someone who didn’t live, sleep, and breathe RPMs and black and white checkered flags.

  You could say it was one of those God-given gifts that had seemed like a big waste until I became an Eve. The skill to drive as if all of hell’s demons had just been set loose upon me was going to help me get that Errand done. It would help me walk away and try for the rest of my life to forget Ian Hendrik.