Love So Dark: Billionaire Romance Duet

by Stasia Black

  In this moment, I hate how intelligent he is. It’s not fair. Why would God create intelligence only to deposit it in this waste of human tissue?

  Gentry’s eyes narrow as he looks back up at me. “Okay. Now where is the firmware that makes it fly? I want to look through the algorithms with a fine-toothed comb and see what he’s done. I’ll know if you’re giving me shit code. You’re a dumb bitch, don’t think you can pull one over on me.”

  I look away if only because I can’t bear to lock eyes with the man who raped and debased me. Even now he’s trying to steal something else that’s become so precious to me—Jackson.

  The only way to get through this is to make myself cold and shut down everything—emotions, thought, physical response. I have to. Gentry can’t see anything on my face. I won’t give him an inch of power. Not one iota.

  I reach for the bag again but Gentry eyes my gloves, then stands up and backs away. “Just put the bag on the desk.” He eyes it like I’ve put a bomb in there or something. “There are contingencies in place. If anything happens to me, the video of you gets sent and you lose your son.”

  I scoff in disgust. “It would serve you right if I had a gun in here, you bastard.” I bang my backpack on the table and step back. “But you think I would let you make me a murderer? You think I’d do that to my son?” I shake my head. “Front pocket.”

  I step back and resume my position, feet planted, arms crossed, and stare him down. Of course, I don’t tell him I thought seriously about trying to stage his death as a self-defense kill.

  If I attacked him, I know the fucker would have no qualms about hitting a woman. Then, as long as I let him get some hits in and rough me up a little, I could just kill the fucker with my bare hands—I know a suffocation hold that would do the trick—and if all else failed, I could use the knife.

  But there are too many ways for it to go wrong. And it’s too close to the custody hearing. I considered it in probably far too much detail. There were entire nights I spent lying awake planning just how I’d do it before I finally let the idea go. My hand clenches and the brass knuckles underneath my gloves dig into my skin.

  Gentry retrieves the USB drive from the bag. Because he’s been inactive from his console for more than five minutes, he has to not only put in his password again, but go through his overly anal biometric security measures to unlock his computer—not just the usual eye scan but also the newest in palm imaging technology. An infrared scanner reads his palm print and also penetrates inside to read and confirm the pattern of veins inside his palm.

  On top of that, he whispers a password for voice recognition. I’m close enough to hear it: “Pandora six gorilla ten.”

  “You don’t think all of that is a little overkill?” I tilt my head at him sideways. I remember always thinking it was so ridiculous when I used to work for him. “Oh, I forgot. You think your secrets are so special.”

  Gentry’s nostrils flare. There he is. The barely civilized animal that he tries to hide in tailored suits. He fools so many people. He fooled me.

  “I would think someone in your position would want to be careful.” He holds up the memory stick he retrieved from the bag. “After all, you’ve already given me your bargaining chip.”

  “No,” I sputter and take a step forward in spite of myself. “We had a deal. I gave you what you wanted. Now give me the video. And you swear it’s the only copy, right?” I hate the desperation in my voice.

  “We’ll see,” is all Gentry says. “First let’s look at these algorithms.” He moves to put the drive into the input slot on his computer and then stops, glancing up at me with a sardonic smirk. “On a computer that is not connected to my network, just in case you thought you could infect me with a virus or something equally stupid.” He pulls out a laptop separate from his main computer.

  I bite my lip and watch him insert the terabyte drive into one of the laptop’s ports. I tap my foot impatiently. He looks surprised when nothing happens except the software loading.

  “I’m not an idiot. I’m not trying to pull anything.” I glare at him. “I only want to be free of you and get my son back home where he belongs.”

  Gentry doesn’t respond. He just starts typing on the laptop and then flipping up and down through the code. His eyes widen at what he’s seeing. Yeah. Because it’s the real fucking deal. Everything he could never come up with on his own. The genius he has to steal from men and women greater than himself.

  That’s how he’s made his entire career. He’s smart, but never smart enough. He’s just a bully that eventually turned into a monster. Or maybe he was a monster all along.

  My stomach drops in disgust.

  Gentry looks up at me. His eyes seem to lose focus for a second. And the bastard fucking grins. “What’s it feel like to sell out your lover? What’s betrayal taste like?”

  “Just shut up and give me what you owe me,” I snap, ready to be done with this.

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  It’s roared from behind me and if I thought I felt nauseous a moment ago, it’s nothing to now. I twirl and standing there in Gentry’s doorway is the man I love.

  Jackson.

  Twenty-Four

  JACKSON

  Callie looks absolutely devastated as her head swings my way. “No,” she gasps. “You don’t understand.”

  “Oh I fucking understand.” I storm into the room. The beast inside me is roaring in fury and for once, I don’t leash him. I look past Callie at Gentry and I let him fucking loose.

  “It’s not what it looks like, I swear,” Callie cries but I ignore her.

  I can’t stand to look at her in this moment.

  She continues pleading and when I brush past her, my shoulder bumping onto hers, she stumbles back and falls to the ground.

  My chest clenches but still I don’t look. I can’t. I just fucking can’t.

  “No. Jackson.” Tears choke her words. “Please, you have to listen to me.”

  “Always with your games,” I spit at Gentry, stalking toward his desk. The beast is one with me and we both want blood. Gentry stands up and backs away from his desk.

  “Look old friend,” Gentry lifts his hands and smiles, “I don’t know how you got past security, but you can’t do anything to me. Our gentleman’s bargain still stands. Anything happens to me and I release the tape of you raping that poor girl.”

  Callie gasps behind me through her choking sobs and that’s it. There was little chance I’d ever have mercy on this fucker but now there’s none.

  I follow him, a lion on the hunt. Gentry always relied on manipulation and trickery to get his way, never brute strength. I tower over him in both height and mass. Manipulation can’t save him now.

  “Guess what, motherfucker?” I growl, my voice dripping with every ounce of menace I feel. This bastard wants to take everything from me? Time for him to know what that feels like. “It’s called the statute of motherfucking limitations. You have nothing to hold over me anymore.”

  Gentry’s eyes widen as if realizing that for the first time in his life he just might have to pay for his actions. I grin what I’m sure is an evil motherfucking grin as I lift my arm and swing with the force of a decade and a half of fury.

  The beast roars in satisfaction as my fist makes contact with Gentry’s nose. There’s the crunch of cartilage and a high-pitched scream of pain from Gentry before he slumps to the floor.

  I stare down at him a long moment, breathing hard.

  Wait. He’s unconscious? I only got one motherfucking blow and he’s out?

  I turn around to Callie. “Well that was disappointing,” I deadpan. “Pussy went down with just one punch.”

  She grins as I hurry over and reach a hand down to help her off the floor. I don’t stop when she’s on her feet. I pull her into my arms, lifting her off the ground and swinging her in a circle. Then I kiss the hell out of her.

  “Jesus, I was so worried letting you come up here alone with that psycho
,” I say between kisses.

  “I was fine. I told you I had this.”

  I can’t help kissing her again. “It about killed me, not going to you when you were crying. And when you fell.”

  She laughs, holding my face in her hands. “I did it just like we practiced. Nothing to worry about.”

  I shake my head in wonder. “God I love you.”

  She squeezes me to her. “Love you too.”

  I could hold her forever but she’s quickly squirming out of my arms. “Okay, let me down, let me down. We gotta get to work. Let’s nail this bastard to the wall.”

  I pull back and grin at her. “I like the way you think, babe.” I let her down but not without a smack on her ass as I head around Gentry’s desk to his computer.

  Yeah, so that night back in my office when I caught Callie in there late when there was no godly reason for her to be there?

  I’m not an idiot.

  She tried spinning some BS about not being able to sleep and wanting to work on the code. Of course I knew better.

  I suspected from the very first meeting that Gentry would try to use her to commit corporate espionage. It didn’t take long for me to stop caring. I wanted her more and I knew that even if she went through with it, it wouldn’t be of her own free will.

  Because I know exactly how Bryce Gentry works.

  Still, that didn’t mean I was going to just give that bastard my life’s work. No, I’d save her and my company.

  So fucking arrogant.

  Because I didn’t save her at all, did I?

  Remembering the night she revealed it all will haunt me forever.

  “What are you doing in here, Callie?”

  “I’m… I’m just… Um. I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t stop thinking about the code.”

  She slips a small USB drive in her pocket at the same time she shifts the monitor for me to look at what she’s been supposedly working on. An obvious attempt at distraction.

  Oh Callie. I rest my eyes back on her. “Are you sure that’s all that’s going on here? You could have talked to me about this on Monday.” Please, Callie. How many chances do I need to give you before you tell me the truth?

  I couldn’t give her many more. My security liaison had made that clear this afternoon. He was losing patience with this farce.

  He wanted to fire her the second he caught her on the camera in the machine shop stealing one of the old prototypes. I’ve been able to hold him off but I’ve got only one more week at most and then I’ll have to call her out.

  And risk losing her forever.

  Because maybe being with me has only ever been about the blackmail. I don’t know what Gentry had on her but I was sure it was something.

  Blackmail is his M.O. He did it to me and countless others. I only knew about a handful but for as powerful and successful as his company has become, I knew he had to have a huge interconnected network of secrets he was holding over the most powerful players in the country, hell, in the world.

  “Maybe I was hoping to catch you here because I know how much your head is on this project too.” She smiles seductively but I see the apprehension in the lines around her eyes even as she kisses me and wraps her legs around me.

  And I tell her the truth. No more bullshit. “I need you so much, you know that, don’t you Callie? You’re a part of my life now. I can’t imagine it without you in it. I hope you feel the same.”

  “I do,” she whispers and breaks the kiss to bury her face in my neck. She’s usually liquid in my arms but right now her entire body is strung tight with tension.

  Because she hates betraying me? Or because she’s worried I’ll catch her at it? I hold her even tighter.

  I’d forgive her either way. I’d forgive her anything.

  She stays like that a long time, face buried, and I hate it. Hate that she doesn’t trust me. Hate that I don’t know if she loves me back or if she ever could.

  “Callie.” I pull her back from me and shake her lightly. “Callie. Stop. Whatever’s running around in your head, just stop. Be with me in this moment.”

  Because if this is all we have, then I want her here with me.

  Her and me.

  The love of my life.

  Because even if I’m not hers, she’ll always be mine.

  And finally, finally, she relaxes into me.

  “Do you trust me?” I ask, trying to look her in the eye but hers are on the floor.

  Such a simple question but so devastating. It’s an echo of the question I asked that night when I held her very breath. I’ve hoped that her giving herself over completely to me that night meant that she was mine, forever and truly mine. But if she can’t give me the truth now, the complete truth, maybe it means she never will.

  Please Callie. Jesus, please. Believe in me. Believe in us.

  And then she squeezes her eyes shut and murmurs, so quietly I barely hear it, “I won’t let him make me a monster, too.”

  Then she stands up straight and meets my gaze firmly for the first time all night.

  “I trust you so much, Jackson, that I’m going to trust you with my son. And he’s my everything.”

  She swallows like she’s fighting through a closed up throat to get out the words. “I’m trusting you with everything.”

  And then she tells me. She tells me about Gentry blackmailing her in order to force her to hand over the prototype we’ve been working on. She tells me Gentry has a video of her and that it would destroy her in court if it came to light.

  She stops there, glossing over exactly what’s on this damaging video. “But I hated it. Hated it the whole time. Jackson, please, you have to believe I never wanted to betray you. I—.”

  Her eyes drop again and I grab her hands and kiss her knuckles, bowled over at the fact she’s finally trusted me even when the stakes were so high.

  She breathes out a huge breath of relief, tears cresting in her eyes like she was afraid I’d reject her if she told me. She’s so fucking brave. I pull her into my chest.

  “I hate all of this,” she says, swiping angrily at the tears falling down her cheeks before pressing her head back into my chest. “You must hate me.”

  “Of course not.” Is she nuts? I stroke her hair. “Remember, I know better than anyone what Gentry is like. How he backs you into a corner. And this was about your son.” Jesus if I think too long about Gentry blackmailing her with custody of her son I’ll lose my shit so I focus on Callie. Just her.

  “Still,” she looks up at me, incredulous. “How are you just automatically being so cool about this?”

  Oh, right. She thinks this is some huge revelation. I wipe a hand down my face and she pulls back from me.

  “What?” I see the alarm that sweeps through her.

  I offer a bleak smile. “I told you. I know how Gentry works. From the first meeting, I guessed Gentry wanted my prototype. Corporate espionage is almost a given with him.”

  “Guess you never expected the spy would be me, huh?” She gives a bitter laugh, swiping at another tear.

  Then she must see it on my face.

  “Oh my God.” She yanks back from me. “You did. You knew all along it would be me. Is that why you hired me? So you could control who he used to spy?” She runs her hands through her hair.

  “Christ, no!” My face twists in disgust. “Why do you always assume the worst? Even after all we’ve been through?”

  Her eyebrows furrow and I feel bad for my strong words. Hypocritical too, because haven’t I been tortured by similar thoughts? Jesus, why couldn’t we just trust in each other? Well, she did. She came clean. She trusted me with her son.

  I close the space between us and take her hands again. “I hired you because of your skill and because I wanted you away from that monster.” Her body sags and I catch her in my arms again. This time I guide her over to one of the plush leather chairs by my desk and pull her into my lap, cradling her so that our faces are only inches apart.

  “But after you resign
ed,” I shake my head, the familiar pain lancing through my chest, “you were so different. I knew he’d done something.” My eyes search hers. Will she trust me with this? With all of it? Whatever’s on that tape? I know Gentry often creates the scenarios he uses for blackmail.

  “I know he destroys people and then manipulates them to do what he wants them to. It’s his M.O.” I run a thumb tenderly over her cheek. “And there are cameras in the machine shop. My security tech saw you.”

  Her eyes shoot to me, face full of shame but I hurry to silence whatever she’s thinking with a kiss. “I know you.” I hold her face in my hands and force her to look at me instead of dropping her head. There’s no shame here. Not any more. “I know you wouldn’t willingly steal from me if you had any other choice. He was obviously forcing you somehow.”

  Her eyes search mine, the pain in them so deep. Pain she’s finally not masking from me. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “Hush,” I say, brushing her hair back from her forehead.

  She smiles, her eyes falling shut. “I do that for Charlie. Brush his hair out of his eyes like that.”

  “It’s what you do when you love someone. You take care of them.”

  Her eyes spring back open.

  Shit. I haven’t said it since that first night I confessed after her parent’s house and I didn’t mean to on a night like this. Especially when I have to ask what I do next.

  “Tell me what’s on the video he’s using to blackmail you.”

  Her body stiffens and I hold her closer before she bolts.

  “You can tell me,” I coax, running a hand over her hair and undoing the pins, then combing my fingers through the length of it, scalp to tips. Jesus, every part of her is so soft. “You trusted me with your son. Trust me with this.”

  Her face crumbles and she looks away.

  “Callie look at me and tell me,” I demand.