He took the last bracing gulp of his Scotch, and exchanged the empty glass for the shoebox, setting it in his lap.
Just like ripping off a Band-Aid, he told himself, and flicked open the lid.
Inside was a phone and a stack of papers.
He pressed the power button on the phone, and while it started up, he sorted through the rest.
Judging by the dates Emma had handwritten at the top—each of which corresponded to one of the date stamps on the pictures—they’d met quarterly for the last three years. But as he scanned through the photocopied reports on Whitfield Industries letterhead, detailing the progress of the project, his frown deepened.
Max had eaten, slept and breathed SecurePay for so long that it was easy for him to discern how incomplete the information was without comparing these documents to the originals. Large swaths of data were missing, and key dates had been changed, rendering them largely useless.
Emma had actually done a brilliant job of giving his father just enough real info to keep him from realizing how little he was getting. Luckily, Charles Whitfield was a proud Luddite, or Emma might never have gotten away with this.
Still, he thought uncharitably, nothing here proved blackmail. It was a bunch of shoddy reports about SecurePay, and some pictures of the two of them together. Hardly a smoking gun.
Idly, he grabbed the phone and scrolled through the texts. They reached back the full three years that he’d known her. Sparsely worded messages that consisted mostly of times, dates and locations, nothing to prove the identity of either sender, except for Emma’s word. And Emma was gone.
Though he supposed the texts combined with the dated surveillance photos and reports might line up in a way that proved his father was on the other end of the communication. If they could find his phone...
His thumb hovered over the screen as he got to the end of the messages.
The most recent text was dated this morning.
The morning after he’d carried her from the kitchen to the bedroom, and she’d touched and caressed his body with such tenderness that it had almost undone him.
The same morning he’d woken Sully at five to track down Croatian gingerbread, just to see her smile.
Thirty minutes after he’d left for work and realized he’d fallen in love with her.
Grand Park fountain @ noon.
That was it.
Four words and an @ symbol were the catalyst that had changed his world irreparably.
Max closed the text window with every intention of tossing the phone back in the box, but the sight of the voice recording app—the lone icon at the top of the home screen—stayed his hand.
Leaning back against the couch, he opened the program and hit Play.
The sounds of the park were tinny in the speaker—the muted shouts and laughter of people, the rush of the fountain as water slapped against the pavement—and then he heard his father’s voice.
“Emma. I was pleased to get your message this morning.”
Her laugh was bitter. “Well now. I’ve pleased Charles Whitfield. I can die happy.” Though sarcasm dripped through the speaker, Max realized she’d just managed to confirm his father’s identity on the recording.
“I was concerned after our time together yesterday that you might try to...dissolve our working relationship.”
“I considered it, but you’ve made sure I’m trapped.”
“It’s good that you’ve finally realized that.”
The joyous shrieks of children playing took over the audio for a moment before he could hear Emma’s voice again.
“—this ridiculous plan to frame Max for insider trading will never work, don’t you?”
“You underestimate me, my dear. I’ve been manipulating Max for his entire life. I’m quite adept at this point. Just look at you. Your mother’s been dead for six months now, and I’m still holding her over your head.”
Max’s fists tightened at his father’s jab, not the one at him, which was no more than he expected, but at Emma. Especially when she stayed quiet for a few beats after the verbal blow.
When she spoke again, her voice was low and dangerous. “I took your money and gave you information on SecurePay so that my mother would have the best care available, but don’t you ever mention her to me again. You’re not fit to speak of her.”
His chest swelled with pride, not just for her return jab, but her ingenuity, too, as she established the parameters of the blackmail for the record.
But her next words felled him.
“Your son is twice the man you are! And tonight I’m going to tell him everything you’ve done. Everything I’ve done. And I don’t care what you do in return. So go ahead and unleash your debt collectors. I’ll file for bankruptcy if I have to, but I’m not going to let you hurt him anymore.”
“My God. You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
His father’s question beat in Max’s chest, pummeling his ribs from the inside.
“How trite. Maybe I should have chosen Farnsworth as my inside man after all. At least he wouldn’t have been such a handful.
“Here’s something you obviously don’t know about Max. He will never forgive you for your betrayal. You’re so sure he’ll let you pour your guts out to him? The second he realizes you’ve been in contact with me for the last three years, he’ll stop listening. Cut you out of his life with the precision of a master surgeon. You think I ruined his relationship with his sister? With his best friend? I just waited. He did it himself.”
Even sitting, the punch landed with enough force to make him stagger. Max’s hand tightened on the phone until it cut into his palm.
“You might love him, but he is incapable of returning that particular emotion. He’s just like me. And when push comes to shove, he’ll put Whitfield Industries first. Just like I taught him.”
“You’re wrong! Max is nothing like you. He cared about John Beckett. And he still cares about Kaylee. About Aidan. He might have made some mistakes, but he’s spent his entire life trying to make up for them, trying to do the right thing. You think you know him, but you don’t. Not like I do. He’s—”
Max paused the audio. He couldn’t listen anymore. Shame ate at him, And the fact that she would still defend him, after everything he’d told her, after everything he’d done to her.
He’d blackmailed her. Doubted her. Lied to her.
He had no right to sit here and listen to her praise him now. Not when he’d done nothing but live down to his father’s expectations of him. Not when he’d let her walk out of his life without putting up a fight.
Hell, he’d ordered her to leave him.
Max tossed the phone back in the shoebox, but when he started loading the rest of the documents, a Post-it stuck to the cardboard caught his eye.
Her pretty writing wrung his heart.
If you’re reading this, then you got to the bottom of the box, and now you know everything. Well, everything except that I never meant to hurt you.
And Max? You’re not like him. You’re better than him.
Emma
He didn’t believe in second chances. And in the most humbling moment of his life, he found that Emma had all but gift wrapped one for him.
He just had to accept it.
The realization settled into his bones, made him feel solid as he formulated his plan of attack.
Tonight, he was going to finish getting all the way drunk.
And tomorrow, he was going to make a phone call.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FOUR DAYS LATER, the results of that phone call were about to take effect, and Max was not looking forward to any of it.
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you all morning!”
He hadn’t taken three steps into his office before his sister was on him, shoving speech notes in
his hands and talking far too loudly.
“You look like shit. Jesus, Max. Are you hungover? That’s just great. I would tell you how incredibly stupid that is, but it will have to wait until later, because right now you need to straighten your tie and get downstairs for the press conference. We’re thirty minutes out, and we’ve got a thousand details to go over.”
Well, here goes nothing.
“We’re not launching.”
His sister went still at the pronouncement. “You’re joking, right?”
Max gave a curt shake of his head, prepping for the tirade Kaylee was about to unleash on him, judging by the flare of her nostrils and the clench of her jaw. Not that he blamed her. This was the one part of the plan that he’d been dreading above all else.
“And you’re telling me this now? Half an hour before the packed auditorium of tech geeks and journalists are expecting you to blow their collective minds? You, the man who worships on the altar of ‘it’s all about timing,’ are canceling a product launch at the last minute and—”
He lost track of her grievances in the buzz that was building in his head, drowning out the diatribe he knew he deserved. But she was wrong if she thought he hadn’t planned out what was happening right now to the second. In fact, all he’d thought about for the last four days was timing...
That’s what had been bothering him since the spyware had been discovered on Emma’s computer.
This launch was everything, the focus of his business life for the last five years, and the idea that got him out of bed every morning for the last seven. He’d dedicated a large amount of resources to it, and if it flopped, it would be catastrophic.
But despite the reassurances he’d received from his cybersecurity team, Max couldn’t get rid of the doubt that had attached itself to the base of his spine like a parasite.
There was an internal hack. On Emma’s computer. Emma, who had already quit.
When his father wanted to manipulate him, he’d gone old-school—found a plant on the inside. Hacking wouldn’t have even occurred to Charles Whitfield. And it was almost inconceivable that it was strictly by chance that Emma, his father’s spy, would also end up the one targeted to be the fall guy for this hack.
Separately, it was a pain in the ass. But all those aspects converging just as they were preparing to launch struck him as too much of a coincidence.
An echo, AJ had said. Like someone had walked the path before me, you know?
Something was off. Something that, if it got out, could bury SecurePay for good. He should have noticed sooner, but he’d been too focused on proving himself. To his father. To Aidan. To the world.
The fact that all the decrypted code seemed to be worthless didn’t soothe Max’s unease. It just made him feel like he was being lulled into a false sense of security, so he’d continue with his plan to release SecurePay on schedule.
Something bad was coming if he went through with it. He knew it, despite the security reports. Despite AJ’s intel. He felt it in his gut.
Emma was wrong. He was just like his father. He’d blackmailed her into staying at Whitfield Industries against her will and justified it to himself because it was for the good of the company. But if he pushed SecurePay through now, regardless of the breach, it wasn’t just his ego on the line. It was his company’s reputation. He’d covered up his father’s sins for that very reason five years ago.
But Emma was right, too—he didn’t have to be like Charles Whitfield. He could do better. He could do the right thing before it was too late.
“We’re not launching,” he repeated, breaking into his sister’s ongoing polemic when she paused for a breath. “We need to come clean about the security breach. I’m not putting SecurePay on the market until we figure out who’s behind the hack.”
Kaylee shook her head at the proclamation, not in protest, but in resignation. She had always been able to recognize when his mind was made up and nothing was going to sway him anymore. Even back when they were kids.
“This is going to be a PR nightmare, not to mention a financial one,” Kaylee warned.
He knew it. God, did he know it.
“Yeah, well, get ready to earn your money.”
She frowned. “It’s not me I’m worried about. As it happens, I’m really good at my job, Max. You’re the one who has to stand in the middle of the lion’s den and throw the red meat.”
Okay, he amended. Maybe this part of the plan was going to be worse.
Concealing his flinch, he shook his head. “Actually, I’ve got a meeting that I need to get to, so I’m going to need you to handle this.”
He took in Kaylee’s shell-shocked expression.
And in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to confide in his sister. Hug her. Something.
But he couldn’t. Because if the purpose of his meeting leaked ahead of time, the last four days, the last five years, everything he’d risked on this project, would be for nothing. So he hid behind his usual brusque autocracy, hoping he hadn’t already tipped her off with the out-of-character display.
“You’re fully capable of making up a statement for the media and pretending I told you to say it. You’ve done it plenty of times before. And make sure you push home the fact that SecurePay isn’t dead. It’s just postponed until we get to the bottom of the hack.”
Besides, he added silently. By this afternoon, no one’s going to be dwelling on the SecurePay postponement anyway.
“You asshole!” The epithet ricocheted through the quiet of his office. He’d never seen Kaylee so worked up. “You expect me to believe that not only are you euthanizing your life’s work on a whim, but you’ve managed to double-book yourself for the funeral, too?”
His voice was resigned. “If there was any other way, I swear to you I’d take it, Kale.”
The childhood nickname felt rusty on his tongue. He’d stopped calling her that when he was twelve years old. When he’d cut her out, just like his father had wanted him to. Hearing it now brought color to her cheeks.
“Don’t you dare call me that!” she hissed.
She grabbed the forgotten speech notes from his hand and looked him straight in the eye. “I quit.”
Max frowned. “You don’t mean that.”
“Consider this my three-weeks’ notice. Right now, I’m going to go out there and handle this for you, because that’s my job. But I’m done giving everything to the family business, when most of the time, I don’t even feel like part of the family.
“I have spent the last five years working my ass off for you, big brother. Trying to prove myself to you, and after all this time, you don’t even have enough respect for me to tell me what the hell is going on?”
Max flinched at the assessment. “Kaylee...”
“Don’t. I don’t want to hear it. When I’m done kicking ass in the lions’ den, I’ll type up my resignation letter and leave it on your desk. Now, get out of my way.”
And with that, his little sister turned and walked out the door, toward the press conference he’d just blown up on purpose.
Max considered going after her. He wanted to, even though he knew there was nothing he could do right now. Nothing he could say.
Besides, he’d watched enough flare-ups between her and his mother to know that when things got bad, Kaylee needed some time to cool off.
He’d call her tomorrow and set things right. When he could tell her everything.
Rounding his desk, Max opened the locked drawer and retrieved the phone from his safe. As he tucked it in his pocket his eyes lighted on the steel statue he kept on the edge of his desk. He reached out and traced the sharp edges of the flames that made up the horse’s mane.
“I’m sorry, John. I’m going to make this up to you.” The apology was no more than a whisper.
Then he set his jaw and walked out of his office. There would be
time for self-recrimination later, but right now, he had somewhere to be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MAX’S HEAD ACHED, but he couldn’t be sure if it was the result of his overindulgence for the last four nights, the way his fight with Kaylee was still ringing in his ears, or the fact that Sully was pulling up to the cold stone fortress that was Max’s childhood home.
He hated coming back here under any circumstances, but this visit was going to be particularly rough. With a curt knock on the door, Max braced himself for what lay ahead.
The dignified, balding man dressed smartly in a navy suit who opened the door was just one more ridiculous way his mother tried to prove that the Whitfields were both rich and dignified. The farce was almost too much to bear. Especially today.
“Where is my father, Newsome?”
“In his study.”
Max stepped past him. “No need to escort me. I remember the way.”
He barely looked at the posh interior, with its intricate pillars and its eighteen-foot ceilings. The familiar luxury was beneath his notice, as was the cream decor with blue accents favored by his mother that went through a multitude of tweaks each season. He’d long ago given up trying to keep abreast of his mother’s penchant for redesign whenever the mood struck.
“Max? What a surprise.”
As though he’d summoned her with his thoughts, his mother appeared at the top of the staircase in pearls and a Chanel suit, her plastic smile radiating tolerance tinged with reproach. He waited dutifully as she descended the steps.
“We weren’t expecting you.”
He accepted his mother’s air kiss.
“But I suppose at least one of my children makes an effort.”
Max had long ago accepted the fact that Charles and Sylvia Whitfield were flawed, power-hungry people who cared nothing for anyone beyond themselves. But for God’s sake, Kaylee wasn’t even here, and still his mother couldn’t resist taking a swipe.
“I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m up to my neck in fabric swatches, and I have a million decisions to make before the interior designer arrives. Next time you’re coming, be a dear and make an appointment with my assistant so that we can have a real conversation.”
Forbidden Pleasure Page 15