by Amelia Wilde
“He doesn’t need your help.” Angelica’s cheeks flood with color. She opens her mouth, closes it, and then opens it again. When she finally raises her gaze from the tablecloth, she looks mortified. “I’m sorry. That was...that was out of line. It’s just that....”
I hold up one hand. “You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to. It just seemed like something that was important to you.”
“My brother is important to me.” She bites her lip. “I told you about...the hard times we had growing up.”
“I remember.”
“Well, we spent a lot of time together. My mom couldn’t afford a babysitter, so from the time I was nine I stayed with him after school. He was just....” Angelica takes a deep breath. “He was a sweet kid. Very sensitive. And the other kids in his grade were pretty ruthless.”
The puzzle pieces start to click together.
“My mom wasn’t around very much right after school, so I was the one who picked up the pieces. She’s always struggled to make ends meet so we had to rely on each other.” She shakes her head a little like her explanation might be inadequate. “I just want to protect him, that’s all.” Her eyes bore into mine, and there’s a tiny quiver in her chin.
“I can understand that.” I don’t know what it’s like, not exactly, not having any siblings of my own, but Angelica brings out that instinct in me.
I try to lighten the mood. “What would you have done if someone was robbing his apartment? Don’t tell me you’re some kind of superhero in disguise and you’ve been hiding it from me all along.”
Angelica lets out a short, barking laugh, and the heaviness of the conversation lifts a little. “Did you want to know anything else? Can I go back to enjoying this incredible meal now?” She stabs a piece of chicken katsu and waves it in front of me, a small smile on her face.
She’s so fucking attractive that I can’t deny her this small request. “I won’t stop you any longer. Is there something else you’d rather talk about?”
“Yeah,” she says, after she swallows another bite, sips more from her wine. “What we’re going to do in bed later.”
That sly vixen.
It’s not until the next day that I realize she never told me what was up with Adam.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Angelica
Time is running out.
It’s been running out for me since the beginning—there’s no way I was ever going to get out of this without some kind of consequence, whether it’s from Charlie or Jett, but with Jett so curious about Adam, the writing is on the wall. In big, bold letters.
My heart races every time I think about confessing the words to Jett. My heart races every time I think of Charlie’s words to me, about my mother and brother.
Just because he hasn’t done anything yet doesn’t mean he won’t...especially if I slip up now.
There’s one thing left that I want to do before all of this comes crashing down on me.
I want to show Jett where I came from.
Not Michigan, of course—I’ll probably never get the chance to take him there—but to where I first lived in New York City.
Maybe it’s selfish, maybe it’s conniving, but I’m hoping that once he sees how hard I’ve worked to get to where I am—how much of nothing I had when I came here, aside from a college degree and a mountain of debt—he’ll be able to see that I’ve always done everything I can to pull myself up by my bootstraps, and my brother along with me.
He’ll be able to see that I’m not after his money, that I didn’t do this to hurt him.
Or maybe it will backfire horribly. Maybe he’ll see me for who I am: the poor girl clinging on to life in a rich city by the skin of her teeth.
Only one way to find out.
On Friday afternoon, when the Town Car glides to a stop beside the curb in front of the Sisterspark building, I seize my opportunity.
“Hey, Stuart,” I say before he can open the door and let me in. “Would you mind taking a little detour before we go back to the penthouse today? There’s a place I want to show Jett.”
Stuart grins at me, eyes twinkling. “Where’s it at, Miss Chandler?”
“Angelica,” I correct him automatically, then give him the address in Washington Heights.
He whistles through his teeth. “That’s a ride.”
“I know. If he complains, we can turn around.” I give Stuart a wink, and he winks back, then pulls open the door.
Jett leans in for a kiss, phone in one hand. “Let me finish up this email, okay?”
“No problem.” I get my own phone out as Stuart steers the car back into traffic. Jett taps away at his phone for a minute, then slides it into his pocket and moves closer, wrapping his arm around me.
“So,” I say, my pulse picking up speed. “Do you mind if we—”
I’m interrupted by the buzz of Jett’s phone in his pocket, and his hand goes toward it like he’s being compelled by some stronger force. “Just a second, sweet thing,” he says, kissing me on the temple and then swiping across the screen to answer the call.
“Jett Brandon.”
I can hear a male voice on the other end of the line, but not much else.
“That’s not the news I was expecting,” he says, and my throat tightens up. “In person would be best. I agree.” There’s another pause. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”
My heart sinks.
Jett ends the call but keeps his phone in his hand. “Stuart, change of plans. We need to make a stop at Cook’s office.”
I keep my expression neutral.
“That was my accountant,” Jett says to me. “He’s got some news about the situation with my accounts. I’d drop you off at the penthouse first, but....”
“It’s no problem,” I say quickly, kissing his jawline. I linger a moment with my face close to his skin, breathing in the clean, spicy scent of him.
This is about to be over, and I’m not ready.
I silently thank the accountant for not giving him all the details over the phone. Once he knows what’s been happening with his bank accounts—and even I’m not sure the extent of it—there’s no way he’ll be able to gloss over the fact that all of this started just after my arrival.
We pull up in front of a three-story brick building twenty minutes later, and Jett taps his foot against the floor of the car while he waits for Stuart to come around and open the door.
When he does, Jett steps out onto the sidewalk and starts to move toward the building. Stuart hesitates, his hand on the handle.
I stay seated, frozen in place.
Jett glances to his side, then seems to realize I’m not with him. He rushes back to the car, sticks his head inside.
“Are you coming?”
I swallow hard. “I don’t—are you sure you want me to be—?”
“Yes,” Jett says impatiently, waving me out of the car. “Come on. This will only take a few minutes, and then we can go back to the penthouse.”
It takes me a moment to unfreeze my limbs, to force my legs to work. Damn it. There’s a tiny part of me that feels light, free, unencumbered now that I’m about to be discovered and I can put the lies and the tricks behind me once and for all.
But the rest of me feels heavy, dragged down toward the center of the earth by the fact that I’m about to lose the man I love, and it’s all my fault.
Adam might have gotten me into this, but I had opportunities to get out long before now and I didn’t, and now I’m going to pay the price. The ultimate price.
It’s just that my body resists. Jett has to reach down and help me stand up. He doesn’t seem to notice the trembling in my legs.
I take in a deep breath of the warm air and steel myself. Then I force my feet to move after Jett, one after the other, toward the inevitable fallout.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Jett
My skin feels like a conduit for electricity as I stride up the stairs to Cook’s second floor office. It’s a
pre-war building with a retrofitted elevator, which is unofficially reserved for those who truly can’t navigate the stairs.
I’m so close to having all this nonsense squared away that I can taste it. This business with my accounts just seems like the last bit of bullshit in a line of events that started with meeting Emerald.
Once I find out what Cook has to say, I’ll be able to move ahead.
The failed acquisition will be in the past. The account trouble will be in the past. And I’ll be free to focus on building my business and being near Angelica as much as possible.
My heart thuds in a quick rhythm while I climb, Angelica’s heels tapping against the wooden stairs behind me. We’re going out to celebrate after this. Anyplace she wants. It’s going to feel so damn good to have my life squared away again.
Whatever’s going on with her brother, we’ll be able to sort it out together.
I stop on the first landing, and Angelica stops just short of running into me. Her cheeks are pink from the trek up the stairs.
I love you.
I want to say the words out loud, but now’s not the time.
Tonight at dinner. That’s when I’ll tell her.
Angelica looks to the side, then back at me. “Are you—okay?”
I kiss her on the cheek. “I will be very shortly.”
We go straight in to Cook’s office. His secretary has been expecting us, and she comes in behind us with two glasses of sparkling water on a tray. The size of the building is misleading—Cook’s firm is one of the most sought-after in the city, but most of their staff works in a different building. It gives clients like myself an extra layer of privacy. There are some people working on the lower level who are never allowed to attach names to the accounts they work on.
“Mr. Brandon,” Cook says, standing up from behind his desk and extending his hand. He’s a silver fox—probably the original silver fox. Every time I see him, I think they should put his picture on the Wikipedia article for accountants.
“What do you have for me, Cook?”
“Ah,” he says, looking mildly uncomfortable.
The secretary sets the small tray with the glasses on the surface of Cook’s desk. “Can I get you anything else, Mr. Brandon?”
“No, thank you.” She’s gone in a flash, closing the door discreetly behind her.
Cook remains standing, then offers his hand to Angelica. “Jackson Cook,” he says as they shake.
“Angelica Chandler.”
“Lovely name.” He gives her a genuine smile as he says it, but when he turns to me his expression is serious. “Jett, I hate to put you in an uncomfortable situation, but....”
I know what he’s asking. “She can stay. It’s all right.”
Cook nods, then takes his seat. Angelica takes the chair on the left—ornate, with leather padding—and I take my usual seat on the right. She doesn’t reach for my hand, but tucks both of hers onto her lap.
“You’ll have to forgive me,” Cook says. “I’m waiting on one final piece of information. I wanted to get in contact with you as soon as possible in case you were a distance across town or wanted to arrange another time to meet—.”
Just then, the handset on his desk rings, loud and shrill. “One moment,” Cook says, excusing himself to take the call. “Cook.” He pulls a legal pad from the center of his desk toward him and picks up a thick ballpoint pen from a groove at the edge. “Yes.” He writes some figure on the pad. “Correct.” Another scribble. “Yes, it’s relevant.” Another piece of writing.
I want to leap up out of my chair and pace around the room just to kill time, but I don’t. I stay seated and glance over at Angelica. Her lips are pressed tightly together, and her face is oddly pale. Dinner sooner rather than later, I think.
“Thank you, Damon,” Cook says and hangs up the handset gently. “I’m sorry about that, Mr. Brandon.”
I wave away the apology. “Quick, Cook. I want to know what’s happened with my accounts.”
“It’s a very odd circumstance, Mr. Brandon. What we’ve uncovered is not, as we first suspected, due in any way to the automated investment system. I’ve had a team of people working on this since we last spoke, and they’ve confirmed that.”
My chest tightens. “What the hell is it, then?”
“It was difficult to pinpoint exactly what was happening, because many of these transactions were being moved between your own accounts. Earlier today, one of the members of my team uncovered the culprit. It’s an outside account disguised to look like one of your own.”
My skin goes hot. “Are you telling me that someone hacked my account?”
“It appears so, Mr. Brandon.” Cook looks me in the eye despite the color coming to his cheeks.
“Your servers are supposed to be secure.”
“That’s just it, Jett.” Cook folds his hands on top of the legal pad. “In all, we’ve accounted for close to a million dollars in moved funds, with two hundred thousand already deposited into that account.”
I grit my teeth together.
No fucking way.
“Rest assured, please,” Cook says, clearly struggling to keep his tone even, reassuring, “that all of this money will be returned to your accounts. We’ve already started the process of—”
I slap my hand down on the surface of the desk. “How the fuck did you let this happen?”
“Well...we didn’t, as a matter of fact.”
“What?”
“Our tech personnel were able to track where the access originated from. Everything that happened was started from your personal computer.”
My mind can’t make sense of this. What in the literal fuck is Cook trying to say?
“I didn’t steal my own money.”
“I’m not suggesting that. But someone had to have access to—”
I stand up, towering over Cook. “Wonderful. Absolutely God damn wonderful, Cook. I assume we’re in the process of launching a full investigation to catch whatever greedy fuck did this?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Brandon. And again, I—”
“Wait.”
Angelica’s interruption is the last thing I expected to happen.
We both turn to look at her.
“What is it, Angelica?”
Her eyes fill with tears.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Angelica
I can’t let him storm out of here. I can’t let this go on another second. So when Jett’s accountant starts to explain the investigation that’s about to happen—the investigation, Jesus—it starts to spill out of me.
“Wait.” My voice is choked, tight. It’s the first thing I’ve said since we entered the office.
Jett looks down at me, eyes narrowed, mouth slightly open. I can feel the accountant’s eyes on me, but I don’t dare look at him, because....
“What is it, Angelica?”
My eyes fill with tears.
Fuck.
“I can...I can help you with your investigation.”
Jett drops back into the chair, forehead furrowed. The accountant clears his throat.
Jesus, this is so much harder than I thought it would be—and I thought it would be terrible to begin with.
I want to erase the confusion from Jett’s face. I want to calm his anger with an explanation that will make everything clear. I want to make the accountant’s job easier.
But I don’t want to lose Jett.
My heart thrums, Don’t do this. Don’t lose him. Don’t do this. You’ll lose him.
I know I will, and I can’t back down.
Not now.
My mind casts around for a solution, any fucking solution, but it comes up blank...because there isn’t one.
I take a deep, shuddering breath and blink back the tears. They’re waiting for me to speak. Tick tock, Angelica.
“I want you to understand that....” It comes out as a pathetic whisper. Jett shakes his head. He couldn’t hear. I swallow the painful lump in my throat and start over.
“I was the one who...who got access to your computer.”
The color drains from Jett’s face. When he leans toward me, it’s with a slow, deliberate movement, as if it’s all he can do to keep his muscles under control.
“You did what?” His voice is deadly soft.
“You know—you know that all of this started...well, almost four weeks ago now. It started then because that’s when they sent me to install a program on your computer.”
“Angelica, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m the one,” I cry, a couple of tears spilling over onto my cheeks. “I’m the one who’s been feeding information to an outside group so they can steal your money. All I know is one name.”
Jett raises his hands to his hair, runs his fingers through it, and stares at me like I’m speaking a foreign language.
“My brother—he was in trouble. He owed money to a man named Charlie. He threatened to—” I shake my head. All this sounds like an invented excuse, and in the end, does it matter why I did what I did? “I did it, Jett. Every week I’ve been downloading information from your computer and giving it to Charlie. He’s got to be in charge of a crime ring of some kind, because he’s got people—”
“Angelica,” he says, the word a razor that goes straight into my heart. “What the hell were you thinking?”
My chin quivers.
I hate myself.
“I was protecting my brother.”
“Is that all?”
Jett’s question hits me like a meteor rocketing through the atmosphere and slamming into the earth’s surface, causing destruction across the planet.
“In the beginning....”
“That’s enough,” he says, holding his hand in the air. “That’s more than enough.”
There’s a heavy silence in the room.
I can hardly breathe.
Then Jett looks at me with disgust in his eyes. “I should have known.”
I lick my lips, try to find the words, but he continues.
“I should have known that you were up to something pathetic that night. Who fucking sneaks out like that in the middle of the night? Jesus, Angelica, are you some rebellious teenage bitch who doesn’t want to own up to what she’s really doing behind the scenes?”