Brought to His Knees-Tough Guys Laid Low By Love
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“Is this how you run the magazine?”
“How would your dad feel if he was still alive?”
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
They came rapid–fire, one question right after another, none of them making sense.
John got her through the main doors, and two of her security guards were there, barring anyone else entry.
Quiet rushed at her as if it were a linebacker as soon as the doors were closed behind her.
“What the fuck?” she asked with her heart in her throat. Emotion was quickly on its heels and she swallowed it the best she could.
“Are you all right, Ms. Blair?”
“You okay?” asked both of the guys relocking the door.
“I think so. What in the world is going on?”
John cut in, leading her down the hall as the two security guards looked at a loss for words and glanced away.
“Ms. Jackie told me to bring you straight to your office as soon as you arrived.”
“Okay.” What else could she say? She wanted to dig her spiked heels into the carpet and demand answers but John was already red in the face and she didn’t want to embarrass him further.
Why he would be embarrassed she had no clue, but dread settled in the pit of her stomach.
Jackie’s face as soon as she cleared the door told her everything she needed to know.
Oh God.
She’d been caught. Someone must have seen Radigan leaving her place. That must have been it. Nothing like Hollywood rumors to spread like wildfire about what they could have been doing.
“How could someone have done this?” Jackie asked as she walked toward her, holding something in her hands.
“Done what?” Acacia’s voice trembled and she hated feeling weak. She wanted to crawl back into bed. She didn’t want everything to be ruined with Radigan before it had even begun.
Jackie handed her a magazine.
A gossip magazine.
One of the trashy ones that always got under her skin because they did nothing but spread lies and vicious rumors about people she called friends.
Acacia’s hand shook as she tried to focus on the pictures on the cover.
A sharp inhale broke the momentary silence as she stared down at the color image on the cover. The people on it finally came into focus and her stomach turned over and then sank to the floor.
It was her. Naked.
As Radigan, Ed and Javier all crowded around her.
In her living room.
There was no doubt that’s where they stood and there was no doubt what they were about to do.
Oh God.
The most shocking part wasn’t her face, as she knew she was moments from climaxing between the men, nor the decidedly carnal position she was in.
No.
It was the fact the picture came from her security system.
The cameras in her house had been used against her.
The logo of the equipment she used was half obscured by the banner that read, “Magazine heiress? $3 million whore?”
Her surveillance system produced the image she now stared at, and her stomach rolled again as if she might be sick.
“There’s more,” Jackie whispered and pointed at the magazine, quite unwilling to touch it again.
Her hands shook too badly, so she walked to one of the conference tables and laid it down. But she didn’t want to see any more. A tear rolled off her cheek, splashing across the glossy surface of the image that was going to take her company to the ground.
Jackie was next to her, wrapping her arm around her waist, sniffling right along beside her. “We’ll fix this.”
Acacia blinked again, another tear landing on the picture. Her defeated voice hurt her own ears. “How?”
A commotion behind them pulled her temporarily out of her state of shock.
“Now,” a male voice boomed, coming down the hallway.
Only one man’s voice could do to her what that one did. Radigan was coming for her and she was ready for him as soon as he rounded the corner into her office.
“How could you?” Her accusation stopped him in his tracks and she balled her hands into fists.
“Why in the fuck would I do something like that?” He threw another copy of the magazine on top of hers, scattering them both across the table.
“Publicity. Marketing people the world over say, ’There is no bad publicity.’” She sneered at him, wondering how in the hell she’d been so wrong about him.
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” He started pacing back and forth in front of the handful of people now in the office. Who they were, she had no idea. She couldn’t see through the red clouding her vision.
Pissed off male, when it was his fault, really chapped her ass.
“I don’t know jack about you. Obviously.” She motioned toward the pages on the table, and she caught a glimpse of another picture. Radigan carrying her. She remembered how it felt in that moment. How perfect it had been knowing he was about to take her again. Then the insidious reality of the situation tainted all of it.
“Me? What about you? Using me and my guys to what? Increase sales.
Acacia stood there and gave him the what–the–fuck face. “The pics are in another magazine, Einstein. That makes no sense.”
Radigan’s pacing slowed and stopped after a few more angry steps. He faced her and really looked at her.
She stared back, not having a clue what he was looking for.
His eyebrows dipped into a vee and some of his anger bled out. “So if I didn’t do this…”
It sounded a bit like a question, and his uncertainty confused her. “And I didn’t do it…”
Javier’s voice made her jump. “Then who the hell did?”
Acacia looked at him, and his sympathy was palpable. As was Ed’s, who stood beside him, wearing the same no nonsense expression.
He stepped up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently. “I have an idea how to find out who’s behind this and we’re going to need proof. I’ve worked with a system like yours before. Give me access to the system. I’ll find out in less than an hour who’s going to face the music for violating all of our privacy.”
Tears fell again, in the face of his help and seeming faith in her. He had every right to blame her as well.
Just as Radigan had.
But for some reason Ed hadn’t and for that she would eternally be grateful.
She brushed the tears away, swallowing it all down, and dug in her purse for her phone.
The access info for her system was saved in the remote monitoring software she had loaded in her S5.
She found it without fail and wrote down everything Ed would need to connect to it.
Other than the police, no one else should have had access to the system.
No one had the passwords that she knew of either.
She’d changed them when her father died and she took over the magazine.
She handed it over. “Use Jackie’s office. She’ll show you where it is so you can have some peace to work in.”
“Hang tight. I’ll have answers for you in a jiffy.”
His complete confidence helped allow her to take a breath, and Jackie’s determined face helped too.
It was the longest hour of her life.
She paced, cursed inside her own head, unwilling to utter a single word since she knew she’d start crying like a girl if she did.
Jackie tried to comfort her. Javier did too, but she couldn’t handle it.
Not then.
And not them.
She wanted Radigan but wasn’t brave enough to go to him. He didn’t approach her, would hardly look at her.
Someone invaded her privacy in her own home and took advantage of something wonderful and beautiful and turned it into something devious.
But someone violated their privacy just as drastically.
She tried to remember that as she stole another glance at him standing acr
oss the room, arms folded across his chest, eyes closed. What if he never forgave her?
“Who is Chuck Blair?”
Acacia stopped dead in her tracks as she faced Ed, who’d just walked in and dropped that bomb in her office. All the color drained from her face. She could feel it slowly sinking closer to the floor like the belly of the snake she was going to vilify.
“My. Uncle.”
“The one we escorted out of the party the other night?”
“One and the same.”
“Is this him?” He flipped his iPad around and her uncle’s face was clear as day on the screen.
She nodded, keeping her teeth clenched tight, afraid every cuss word in the human language and a few in Klingon would explode out of her if she opened her mouth.
“Seems he jimmied his way into your server closet, which was caught by the hidden camera this image was taken from. He got in and accessed the menu directly at the DVR, but how he got into it really doesn’t make much difference now. He wrote down all of the connect info and actually had the balls to make himself a new password in the system with full rights. Dumbass.”
“Why was that so dumb?” Jackie asked. “Seems he got what he wanted out of it.”
“Yes he did, and I’m sure he got much, much more.”
Acacia cringed and stared at the floor, unwilling to look at any of the guys, and absolutely not Radigan.
“Sorry. You need to know what you’re dealing with, but that wasn’t the best way I could have told you.”
“Just give it to me straight.” Her voice sounded calm. Confident. She was dying inside but at least she didn’t sound as if she were going to fall apart.
“The bad stuff first. With how long he was connected I’m sure he pulled HD video off the system, not just pictures. And you know where you have cameras in the house, so you know what he had access to.”
He paused, allowing it to sink in or give her time to vomit. She chose the former.
“It seems he’s sold at least the pictures to the dumbass magazine on the table, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t leak the video somehow as well if we don’t move quickly.”
Silence. It ate at her and she wondered if she was supposed to speak, or come up with some kind of plan, because she was way out of her league.
“No worries, pretty girl. I gotcha covered.”
It came from Ed and she finally looked over at him again. “What?”
“You said you were way out of your league. Don’t worry. I’ve got plenty of tricks up my sleeve.”
“How in the world can you fix this?” She massaged her temples. “And why? Why would you want to?”
“I’m awesome. That’s how I can fix it. Not all of it, but most of it. And as for why, I want to spank that pretty ass of yours red for asking that question.”
Acacia surprised herself by smiling and lowering her hands. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Edgar, and I’m obviously unbelievably grateful for the help. I truly have no clue what to do.”
“Why would he have done this?” It was Javier who posed the question.
Acacia answered that one. “Pride. Greed. Lust for fame. The magazine itself and just his state of mind in general. He’s wanted his hands on Fame since before my dad passed. So it seems if he can’t have it he’d rather destroy it.”
“That’s my guess, too,” Ed agreed. “Now for the good news.”
“Thank fuck,” Radigan cursed. “I was beginning to think this conversation was going to just slowly get worse.”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, boss.”
He just raised his eyebrow at his jack–of–all–trades friend and waited.
“He used his own private server at his house to access your system.” He nodded toward Acacia. “This means it’s all traceable. All of the video and pictures he pulled come with a watermark, making them admissible in court. That normally works in the homeowner’s favor if you have to take some dumbass to court that breaks into your house or trips and falls on your driveway. In this case the gathering of the footage itself is a misdemeanor, punishable by probation and a hefty fine.”
“He doesn’t own the magazine, but he’s not hurting for money by any means. A fine isn’t going to be more than just a slap on the wrist.”
“True. But he knowingly distributed your intellectual property and, what’s even better, the magazine that bought it? They’re liable, too. Plus. Get this.” He elbowed Javier, unable to contain his enthusiasm. “Since it’s pornographic in nature, it kicks that offense from a misdemeanor to a felony. We’re talking jail time, baby.”
“How do you know so much about this?”
“Let’s just say I dabbled a bit in law enforcement in my earlier days. And possibly DHS but you didn’t hear that from me.”
“Homeland Security? Really?”
He looked her dead in the face. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Remind me never to play poker with you.”
He winked at her, right before John appeared in the doorway. “Ms. Blair, there’s a police officer here to talk to you. And Mr. Radigan, we can get you guys out the back now whenever you’re ready to leave. We know you need to catch an international flight.”
His trip overseas. She’d forgotten he was supposed to leave. One more thing for her to feel guilty about.
“Let me talk to the detective first, since I called him specifically,” Ed countered. “It’s one of my old buddies. I’m calling in a few favors on this one. Don’t believe you’ll have to deal with your uncle for a while, nor any more pictures surfacing. Another friend of mine is already on the way to your uncle’s house. If he accidentally cuts the mainline power to his house to make sure all electronics can’t be wiped, some sacrifices have to be made.”
“And you did all of this? In an hour?”
“Fifty–six minutes, but I wasn’t counting or anything.”
“Thank you just isn’t enough. I know it’s not, but it’s all I have to offer right now.”
“And a spanking. Don’t forget that, cause I sure as hell won’t.” He wagged his eyebrows at her, then walked out. Javier walked with him, followed closely by John, and Jackie excused herself within seconds of the tension in the room growing to palpable proportions.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry.” They both spoke at the same time but it felt staged. As if it were something they were supposed to say, not because they really meant it.
He took several steps toward her, but didn’t completely close the distance, nor did he reach for her.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “I can’t believe people saw that magazine. I’m naked, and–”
“Don’t say anything negative. Please. If you say anything bad about it I’m going to find your uncle and absolutely go ape–shit all over him.”
Acacia swallowed what she was going to say and bit her lip.
“You’re beautiful in those pictures. If I’d seen them out of this context, I would have asked for a copy for myself to jack off to like a teenager. They’re beautiful, truly.”
She tried to smile but just couldn’t. “But not everyone is going to think so. This will hurt my company, my employees might suffer, and my reputation–”
“Is still intact.”
She jerked her head up from the floor to look into his face. “How do you figure that? Seriously?”
“All three of us are single, over eighteen and just because we had the first handshake of a ménage, that doesn’t make it wrong or something you have to be ashamed of.”
She shook her head and gripped the back of her neck. “You make it sound so easy. You’re so naïve.”
He stared at her, narrowing his eyes. “It is.” He paused for a second and took another step forward. “You have to give consent to allow other people to hurt you. Hateful words hurt. They do, but the face you show the world? You hold your head up, you own it, and you show them nobody’s going to take you down. Hollywood is seventy–five percent
show, and twenty–five percent tell. And you still choose whom to share with.”
“I have no idea how not to let something hurt me.”
He was quiet for a second and she knew the facial expression that went along with his deep concentration. He opened his mouth, something poised on the tip of his tongue–
“They’re ready for you, Acacia.” Jackie peeked her head back in and then she was gone again.
She took a step away, immediately feeling chilled down to the bone. “I have no clue how this is going to turn out. I’ve never had to apologize for my actions before.”
“Nor do you have to start now.”
She shook her head again and tried to relax her muscles, straightening her spine, readying herself for battle. “Yes. I do.”
His jaw clenched and he flexed his forearms by making a fist. “All of this will be smoothed over in a few weeks.”
At the mention of weeks, Acacia wanted to cry again.
They were supposed to have a shoot in two weeks. But now…
“Maybe we should put the shoot on hold.” As if he read her mind.
“Maybe we should.” The words tasted like cardboard in her mouth. They were both going to have their hands full with the PR nightmare it was going to produce, and it was the smart thing to do. The prudent thing, protecting her heart and all that. But inside she was screaming. No. Don’t go. Don’t leave me. I’ll never see you again.
They walked into the hallway. She looked one direction where Jackie and the officer were waiting. Radigan looked the other way where his guys and John were waiting to take him out the back, away from all of the paparazzi.
He looked back at her and stared. He brushed a piece of hair off her cheek. “This isn’t how I wanted to part ways.”
His goodbye sank into her flesh, chilling her even further.
It was for the best.
It was.
Before she could think better of it she wrapped him in a hug, holding him so tight because she knew she had to let him go.
He hesitated for a second and then held her close.
No words were spoken as they stood there.
As tears filled her eyes she let go and stepped back. “Bye.”
He nodded once and walked away.