by Tawna Fenske
I order myself to take a few breaths before speaking. “Were you going to tell me?” My words come out hoarse and weak, so I straighten my spine and try again. “About the new threat? That it involves my sister now, too?”
He doesn’t say anything right away. Doesn’t deny it or play dumb, which I’d appreciate if I weren’t seriously struggling not to pick up Cooper’s paperweight and throw it at him.
Finally, Dean sighs. “Vanessa, it’s not that big a deal.”
“Not. That. Big. A. Deal.” I say the words slowly, enunciating each one in case I’ve misunderstood. “Really? So if I found a photo of Cooper or Mari or Lana stuck to my front door with a knife through it, you wouldn’t think that’s something I should tell you?”
He winces, and I’m not sure if it’s the mental picture I just painted or the way my voice has risen to an almost-shriek. A door clicks behind me, and I’m guessing Cooper and Amy just slipped out the side door to give us privacy.
I don’t turn and look. I keep my eyes fixed on Dean, hoping he has some explanation. Some good reason for keeping me in the dark. For controlling the narrative in a way that shuts me out completely.
“I’m taking care of it, Vanessa,” he says slowly. “I didn’t want you to panic and do anything crazy.”
My teeth grind together as I stare at him. “Is there something you’ve observed that makes you think I’m prone to panicky, crazy outbursts?” I’m trying for sarcasm, but it comes out sounding like a real question.
That’s when I realize that I really want the answer. I need to know if that’s what he thinks of me.
My mother’s voice rings in my head, drowning out the thud of my heartbeat.
You’re too irrational, Vanessa. You’ll never have a head for business if you can’t stop reacting to things. Just find a husband and settle down. It’s the best thing for you.
Dean’s not answering, so I try again. “Seriously, Dean—if you think I’m not levelheaded enough to handle basic information about me and my family, then I can’t imagine you think I’m levelheaded enough to handle accounting for a multi-million-dollar development.”
A muscle twitches beside his eye, and I realize I’ve hit a nerve. I’m not sure which one, but there’s definitely something else he’s not telling me.
He also hasn’t answered the question.
“That’s not the issue.” He takes a deep breath and flicks a hand down the hall. “Can we please go into my office and discuss this there?”
“No.” My retort snaps out clipped and tense, but I’m tired of being handled. Tired of letting someone else decide where I go, what I do, what I know. “We can talk right here, Dean. I’m not letting you lure me behind closed doors so you can feed me platitudes or throw me off with those goddamn bedroom eyes.”
“Bedroom eyes?” He looks genuinely startled. “See, this is what I was afraid of. You’re blowing things out of proportion. I can handle all of this with a few phone calls. I swear, Vanessa—I have this under control.”
“No, Dean. You don’t.” My hands have started shaking, so I clench them at my sides, fingers curled into my palms. “I’m not a thing to be ‘controlled’ or ‘handled.’ This is my life we’re talking about. My family.”
He sighs like I’m twisting his words around, but he’s the one who keeps saying shit he knows will make my blood boil. He knows about my mother. He knows about every guy I’ve dated who’s treated me like a goddamn doll to be propped up in a corner.
I thought he was different.
“This isn’t about controlling you,” he says. “It’s about protecting you. When I saw you with that knife through your head—that moment before I realized it wasn’t you—I lost it, okay? All I could think about was keeping you safe.”
I know I should be flattered. I should be touched he’s sweet enough to care.
But all that is secondary to the fact that he thinks he has the right to manage and manipulate my reality. My life. “I thought you said it wasn’t a big deal,” I say. “A minute ago, you downplayed it as no big deal. Now it’s about protecting me?”
“Goddamn it.” He thumps a fist against the wall. “I’m trying to tell you that I care about you.”
“By keeping me in the dark?” I shake my head slowly. “I’ve had enough of that kind of caring to last a lifetime, thanks.”
He makes a noise that’s not quite words. More like exasperation. If I’m expecting him to apologize or back down, it’s not happening. “I’m the CEO,” he says. “It’s my job to look out for everyone. To ensure the safety of my staff and community members and family and everyone I care about.”
I can’t decide whether I want to hug him or slug him in the arm. “That’s an awfully big burden to pile on one person’s shoulders.”
“No kidding.”
“So, don’t!” I throw my hands in the air, exasperated all over again. “Let other people in, Dean. You have a team here. Smart, capable people, including me. Let us be part of things, especially when it involves us.”
I’m probably overstepping. This is about him and me, not his siblings and the whole crew. But dammit, I’m tired of having my engine throttled at every turn.
Shaking his head, Dean stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I’ve got it under control, okay? My PI knows a guy in the Paris field office who’s keeping an eye on your sister. And your bodyguard should be here by lunchtime today.”
“My bodyguard?” I blink at him. “Were you planning to tell me? Or were you just going to have some guy trailing me around the compound like a creepy stray dog?”
He doesn’t answer, but I see his jaw clench and unclench. That’s answer enough for me.
“I see.” So, he did plan to keep me in the dark. “Don’t you think that’s the sort of thing to share with me? If I’m under surveillance—if my sister’s under surveillance or possibly in danger—”
“She’s not in danger.”
“You don’t know that!” Fear and fury makes my voice quiver, and I order myself to breathe. To dial it back and focus on facts. “What have you learned?” I ask. “The knife, were there any prints?”
He hesitates. “No prints. Not on the knife, and not on the photograph.”
Big shocker there. Like we’ve said all along, this guy is a master at not getting caught. “What else? What aren’t you telling me?”
Again with the hesitation. He stares at me for ten, fifteen seconds without saying a word. Then he slips a hand into his pocket and pulls out his phone. As I watch, he taps the screen a few times, then hands it over.
“Why are you—oh.” I feel the blood drain from my face as I stare at the screen. My fingers tingle as I stare at the insignia of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
It’s a copy of a complaint. A complaint filed the day after I took the CPA exam. I know the words by heart, but I force myself to read them again anyway.
Suspicion of misconduct.
Candidate accused of concealing notes.
Full investigation to include…
I hand the phone back. I don’t need to read any more. “Where did you get that?”
Dean shoves the phone back in his pocket, never breaking eye contact. “It showed up in my email. Anonymous sender.”
“When?”
He hesitates. “Last night. After you’d gone to bed.”
I stare at him, waiting for him to ask me about it. Waiting for him to tell me he didn’t see the email until just now. Or that he had a good reason for not asking me about it last night. Or this morning when we woke up together or he kissed me goodbye or—
“I’ve already talked with Lana,” he says, and my jaw falls open.
“What?”
“Her specialty is crisis management and image control. She knows how to get on top of this sort of thing before it can do damage. I have a meeting with her at—”
“Wait, what?” I stare at him. “You get an anonymous email suggesting I cheated on the CPA exam, and your first conversation
isn’t with me?”
He closes his eyes for a few seconds. “With a TV show that’s shopping for sponsors, we need to control potential scandals. To get out ahead of it so—”
“I don’t believe this.” I blink hard, surprised to realize my eyes are watering. “You could have asked me about it. Hell, you could have called the AICPA.”
I’d have been pissed about that, too, but Lana? She’s the closest friend I’ve made at Juniper Ridge, and Dean just told her I’m a cheat.
The lump in my throat is now a cannonball. I can’t speak. I can’t even wrap my head around the turn this has taken.
“Cheating’s nothing to mess around with.” Dean’s jaw clenches, and I know he’s not talking about how things play on TV. This is personal, I can see that. “We need to take it seriously.”
“I take it pretty damn seriously myself.” The rancid stew of hurt and fury is bubbling in my gut. “More seriously than you, considering this is my life we’re talking about here.”
“Look, Vanessa.” He takes a step toward me, then stops. “The fact that that this email doesn’t faze me—that I can put the whole thing aside—doesn’t that tell you how I feel about you?”
I gape at him. “You expect me to be flattered by this?”
He closes his eyes again, dragging a hand through his hair. “This is not how this is supposed to go.”
“Because it’s not your narrative to control!” I’m shouting again, and I hate that. My only comfort is that his eyes are still closed, so he can’t see the tear slip down my cheek.
Another one falls, and I dash it away. He hasn’t asked a single question. Hasn’t given me a chance to explain or defend myself or offer one tiny shred of input on my own situation.
I take a step back and Dean opens his eyes. “Where are you going?”
“Leaving.”
“I can see that.” He frowns. “Vanessa, I can fix this.”
“I’m not asking you to fix anything, Dean!” I take another step back. And another, until I’ve put a few feet between us. “I thought you were different.”
Dean’s brow furrows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shake my head slowly as my gut roils with nausea. I take another step back, widening a gap that I know can’t be bridged.
“I won’t tolerate someone who treats me like a situation to be managed.” I manage to keep the quiver out of my voice, surprising myself with the force of my own words. “That’s an absolute for me, Dean.”
He sighs like I’m being unreasonable. “I don’t want you to worry about this. Let me take care of this. Please. I can handle it, I swear.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
As a matter of fact, I asked him not to. It’s the one thing I was clear about. I don’t want his money or his fame or his strong, steady hand maneuvering the chess pieces of my life.
I want his respect.
Clearly, that was too much to ask.
He takes a deep breath. “What do you want me to say?”
I stare at him. There’s so much I want to say, but he hasn’t given me the chance. Looking at him now, I realize he never will.
So, I say the only thing I can say.
“Goodbye, Dean.”
Then I turn and walk away.
Chapter 17
CONFESSIONAL 401
Judson, Dean: (CEO, Juniper Ridge)
When you’ve got a sister who’s a shrink, you learn a lot of self-help jargon. Stuff like ‘growth opportunity’ and ‘problem solving.’ I’ve tried like hell to treat every fuckup like a chance to do better. To be better. I like to think I’ve done that. That I’ve managed to learn from where I’ve screwed up so I don’t do it again.
It's possible I learned the wrong lessons.
I should go after her. That’s what a good boyfriend would do, a good business leader.
But I’m neither of those things, so I watch her walk away. As my eyes trail Vanessa’s lovely, familiar form in a dress the color of champagne, I hate myself with every step she takes.
I don’t know how long I stand there before I hear Cooper’s voice.
“You okay?”
I turn to see he’s slipped back into his office. Lieutenant Lovelin is nowhere to be seen, and I’m glad about that.
I take a step through Coop’s doorway and shove my hands in my pockets. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
He kicks the door closed behind us and leans against the wall. “You don’t look so good.”
I ignore the jab and look down at his desk. It’s covered in a mess of papers and cables, and inexplicably, a pile of Legos. “How much of that conversation did you hear?”
“Enough,” he says. “You were pretty loud.”
Such a Cooper answer. I meet his eyes, my baby brother who’s a half inch taller than me. I hate that.
But not as much as I hate the feeling in my gut right now. “You caught the stuff about cheating?”
Cooper nods. “The CPA exam, huh? Seems like the kind of thing you’d catch in a background check.”
“I don’t understand.” I drag my hands through my hair, trying to figure out where I went wrong. “Mari handled the checks, and I even did a second one to be safe. Got a copy of her CPA license. Called her references. Had the PI do some digging. Nothing ever came up.”
My brother studies me for several long seconds. “May I see it?”
“The email?” I slip out my phone and cue it up to the email, then pass it over without a word.
Coop’s eyes sweep over the screen, his brow furrowing as he takes it in. I can picture the words in my head, and my gut sinks all over again like it did the instant I saw it in my inbox.
I’d kissed her goodnight, long, and slow, and sweet. And then, because we’re both Type-A workaholics, both of us spent a couple minutes on our phones, setting alarms and scoring one last hit of data. All the usual bullshit.
There it was, an email sent from [email protected]. A fake account, but a very real message. I read the words with Vanessa’s thigh against mine, her head on my chest.
Cheating.
On the CPA exam.
I could have said something then. She was still awake, her breath gently fanning my chest. I wondered if she could hear my heart pounding, sense my visceral reaction to that word.
Cheating.
“Wait.” Cooper frowns at me. “You don’t think she actually did this, right?”
I stare at him. To be honest, I never asked myself this question. That sounds stupid now, but my first thought was about protection. Protecting Vanessa from embarrassment. Protecting our show from scandal. Protecting all of us from the hot, flaming mess that I know these things become.
My thoughts are whirling and none of them are coming out of my mouth, so Cooper tries again. “It says there was an investigation,” he says with a lot more gentleness than I probably deserve. “What were the findings?”
“I don’t know.” I realize I’m grinding my teeth and order myself to stop. “I haven’t called the AICPA yet. I wanted to meet with Lana first. See if we need to get lawyers involved before we go that route.”
Cooper shakes his head slowly but doesn’t say anything.
“What?”
“Let me ask you again,” he says slowly. “You think she did this?”
I think about Vanessa. How kind and good and brave she is. How she rescued a scared dog and handled that banker’s meltdown with grace and compassion. How she loves her sister and endures her mother and, above all, remains the most caring person I’ve ever met.
“No,” I say slowly. “No. I guess not.”
“You guess not?” Cooper shakes his head slowly. “There’s a fucking vote of confidence.”
I throw up my hands. “What do you want me to say? It’s irrelevant what I think. The important thing is to protect her from bullshit like this.”
“That is not the important thing.” Cooper sinks into the cushy leather chair in the corner and shakes his head. “Jesus, Dean.
”
“What?” I know I sound dumb, but I honestly don’t get it. “How many times have we seen shit like this pop up? Someone blackmailing you over a DUI or going public with my text breakup or saying they’ve hacked Lauren’s phone for nude photos?”
I’m still furious over that last one. Over all of it, really. Celebrities are prime targets for threats like this, and if there’s one thing that makes me rage, it’s assholes terrorizing the people I love.
And I do love Vanessa. More than anything, I wish I’d told her that. Maybe it would make a difference.
Or maybe not, based on how Cooper’s glaring at me. “Can you take just a second to pull your head out of your ass and think about how this looks from Vanessa’s perspective?”
“What do you mean?”
He sighs and tips back in his chair. “You get this anonymous email. This message saying she did some horrible thing that’s obviously going to push all your buttons. Cheating, for Christ’s sake, right?”
“Right,” I say slowly, still not grasping what he’s driving at.
Cooper softens his tone. “Anyone who knows you has a damn good idea that cheating is a deal breaker for you. That’s the best way to rile you, to leave you questioning the woman you love.”
I nod slowly, unsurprised Cooper guessed how I feel before I figured it out myself. “She didn’t do it.” The fierceness in my words takes me by surprise. “Of course she didn’t cheat.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” He grabs up a Rubik’s cube off his shelf, twisting it to mix up the colors. “Did you tell her that? Did you say ‘Vanessa, I trust you, I don’t believe this bullshit, let’s solve this together?’”
“No.” Though now that he’s saying it, I can see how that might have been a smart approach. “I wanted to shield her from shit like this. I honestly didn’t think about the allegation at all. It seemed smarter to gather our resources. Talk to lawyers, get Lana ready to fight this. Nip the whole thing in the bud before it has a chance to hurt her.”
Cooper shakes his head a little sadly, twisting the rows of Rubik’s cube colors without looking. “You’re thinking like a jaded Hollywood asshole.” He gives a wry grin. “I know that since I am one. But that’s not how Vanessa thinks.”