Flirting with Revenge

by Kristel Ralston

  Michael knew that, even though Sylvia had invited him, if Dereck mentioned it, it was an order. And though he did not like taking orders from anyone, he felt deep gratitude and respect for the managing partner at Salmann & Buckend.”

  “You can count on it, Dereck.”

  He stood for a few seconds, the phone in his hand, the sound of the open line buzzing. Before he put the device back on the charger base, he ran his hand over his neck. He looked for his boxers and put them on, followed by his trousers.

  “Michael,” she called from behind him. “Who was it?”

  Something in her feminine gaze put him on alert. It was a certainty that hit his chest like a ton of bricks. All the pieces came together slowly. Like a movie in slow motion. One is very bad taste, of course, because it was his life.

  He took a few deep breaths and turned around, his hands curled into fists.

  She could not breathe when she encountered the strength in those cold green eyes. She put a hand on her chest. Suddenly she wanted to throw up and run out of there.

  “Michael...” she insisted softly when she saw the ferocious look on his face. She had a bad feeling.

  He moved towards her with the strength of his rage flowing from every pore. Shirtless, his muscles tense, Michael was intimidating. There was no trace of the man that, a few minutes ago, had confessed to a woman that he loved her. Who made love in the most sensual, breathtaking, and intense way. Who kissed her with desire and love.

  “The question should be different. Who are you really? Rachel Galloway or Veronica Marsh?”

  CHAPTER 14

  Rachel’s heart felt like a character by Lewis Carrol in the fuzzy world of Alice. She wanted to run, but she stopped. And when she stopped, she should have kept running. She gulped. A dull ache constrained her ribs. As if she were in a straitjacket.

  “Michael...”

  “I’m waiting for you to answer, instead of repeating my name,” he said, looking at her with disdain.

  Rachel was dressed, but she’d never felt so naked. She wrapped her arms around herself. Nobody was to blame but herself.

  “There’s a very rational explanation,” she answered when she got her brain to react and coordinate with her vocal cords. “Veronica is my middle name. March my mother’s maiden name. Rachel Veronica Galloway,” she whispered.

  Michael’s eyes narrowed.

  “And I’d met you before, right?” he asked rhetorically with scorn. “A young, innocent nineteen-year-old. A virgin. Though my conjectures are probably wrong... or maybe not.” He shrugged his shoulders, and Rachel looked at him with sorrow, remembering that night so many years ago. “You must have been laughing at me when I was telling you about yourself, no less!”

  “No...”

  “I assume that the first time you had a man with you, you could still remember me. Some impressions last forever.” Rachel thought that he must have studied that way of offending someone with his stare because the way he was looking at her was offensive. As if she were a piece of meat for sale. As if she were cheap... “We can stop the lies now, and you’ll let me call you by your name.”

  She swallowed the pain his words caused her.

  “Veronica is also...”

  “Yes, yes, your middle name. In the end, the issue is that you’re a liar.”

  That made Rachel react.

  “You sent my sister to prison!” she yelled. “You destroyed my family. The only one left alive: my sister. My parents died, and the only thing I had was Piper. Now I don’t even have her. You’re defending Gordov, the man that will probably try to find my sister to hurt her because she gave information to the police so they could find evidence and finally put him away. There will always be a police officer who can’t keep his mouth closed and talks more than he should about treatment inside a prison, and is easily bought by a gang.”

  “How the hell do you know who my client is?” he asked his jaw tense.

  “Just like you have your way to find information in order to make solid arguments for your trials or negotiations, well, I have mine. The Galloways are resourceful.”

  He laughed bitterly.

  “Of course, Galloway. I knew I was paying some karma,” he said with a cruel laugh. “At least I was paid in kind.”

  “You don’t need to insult me,” she said firmly, hurt by his barb. “Everything you did was voluntary. Mutual will of the parties.”

  The cruel peal of laughter than emanated from Michael’s throat froze Rachel’s blood. Without thinking about it, she stepped back and her knees hit the edge of the mattress.

  She fell backward, and he pounced on her. Rachel propped herself up on her elbows and tried to get up, but Michael did not let her. She could not move. And from the position she was in, he was even more intimidating.

  “And your first excursion into the terrain was playing the young innocent girl in Maine, right?” he asked ferociously. He was so disappointed. Hurt. Furious. Frustrated. He’d been blind. Too busy believing she was different.

  “I did not know who you were until I got back home and saw your photo in the paper, Michael. Lara and your brother’s engagement...”

  “Why to wait a decade?” he inquired, his mouth close to hers.

  “I was busy trying to build a life for myself and finding my place in the business world. Not everyone is born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”

  “Until, conveniently, you appeared at the wrong party one night? You offered yourself to me the minute you saw an opportunity, so you could find a way to hurt me? What a stupid, childish plan!”

  She closed her fists.

  “I did not plan for Delaney to mix up the addresses... My sister was sentenced for a crime she did not commit. She spent years far away from me. I lost three years of my life, far away from Chicago, Far away from my friends. From everything in my life that was familiar, in order to move to a different state. My aunt Ariel gave me unconditional support. But the rage inside me was too big. Piper never let me go to the trial. I was only eleven, Michael, and by then my aunt Ariel had come back to Chicago to be with us. She made sure I did not have access to anything related to what the media was showing... She protected me. Until it was impossible for an eleven-year-old girl to not find the thing she wanted.” She tried to push him with her hands, but it was like trying to move a boulder. “My sister had been sentenced. By you! By you, damn you!” she yelled at him with unshed tears in her eyes. “Everyone fell like vultures on the easiest prey. A person who had no resources to pay for a good lawyer. Then, you and that whole circus decided to execute her. You publicly humiliated her in the media. She was on the front page of all the major papers. They destroyed her good name. And why? Only because she had bad luck, and the children of some important politicians were involved? Because they were her friends? Because those rich kids did not want to get in trouble, but nobody gave a red cent for a girl with no influences or full coffers?” she continued with all the pain and resentment she carried from her past.

  “Michael grabbed Rachel’s wrists and held them on the mattress. One on each side of that head with the reddish hair.

  “No, Rachel. Because your sister was guilty,” he answered fiercely. Damn the moment he’d let himself be fooled by that girl. A redhead. And those blue eyes he thought he’d forgotten; now he understood why he felt like he knew Veronica... Rachel or whatever her name was. “And she could have had a better defense lawyer, but getting her one was not my responsibility. My job was to win the case my grandfather had started.”

  “Your grandfather...?” asked Rachel, breathing hard. She could not get away from Michael. He had her firmly trapped against the mattress. His scent, his skin, and his voice were a lethal combination, especially because that combination had once made her ache with desire, but now it made her feel sorrow.

  “He took ill and had to abandon our client’s case, the one who accused your sister at the last minute. So, since my father was working with a different client, I had to jump in and immerse
myself in the case my grandfather left in record time, ten days. The final leg of the trial. When everything seemed the craziest,” he replied firmly, still remembering how stressed he’d been at the time. Ingrid’s betrayal. His divorce. And one unexpected night, Rachel... “So then I investigated your sister’s life in-depth, so I could argue in favor of my client. I only finished the job my grandfather could not because of his medical condition.”

  “That doesn’t excuse you from having been the one who sent my sister to prison...” she muttered under her breath, looking at him defiantly.

  “You judged a person without finding out the truth. You’ve judged all these years, with assumptions in your head, but you never bothered to find out the truth. To investigate further. You took the first thing you found in the media. Did you even read it carefully?”

  “The lawyer who ruined my sister was Michael Whitmore. That’s what I read in the media!” she exclaimed, without accepting that, yes, she’d let herself be led by the morsels that fed her rage. “I don’t know any other who’s a lawyer. Who has green eyes? Black hair. Conceited. Arrogant. Unjust.”

  He flashed her half a smile. It did not contain a sliver of joy.

  “You know, Rachel Galloway? Just because in the past, that girl with blue eyes was a haven in the middle of the stormy waters of my life, I’ll tell you something that will put things in perspective for you.”

  She stuck out her chin, defiant. She knew the battle was lost. She’d done everything wrong. And he had reason enough to be angry.

  “My grandfather, the lawyer you say put your sister in prison, the one who researched all the arguments, the evidence, went over the agreements and the final defense, was called Michael Joseph Whitmore. You might want to verify that with the journalist friend of yours who got a copy of the letter received by Dereck Salmann.” Rachel tried to open her mouth to tell him that her friend was home, and before things got any worse, she had decided not to send it. Michael continued: “You’re tangled in your own game.”

  “I don’t know what you mean...” she whispered, her voice broken.

  “You just did to me the exact same thing that caused you so much rage and pain in the past: you judged unfairly and acted on that judgment. You found an opportunity, but you did not stop to think about the situation. And for all those damned weeks, you’ve been lying to me. And all because you let yourself get caught up in an anachronistic battle that was Piper’s to fight, not yours. And not even hers, because she’s out. You tried to play me, but you made a terrible mistake.

  “You’re defending Gordov...”

  “Wrong again. But I have no need to discuss matters from my law firm with a woman who means nothing to me.”

  “Michael...”

  “A girl may be in danger of getting taken off the transplant list, and you’ll be guilty if your little friend from Legal Strength publishes the lies you spread!”

  “I heard you,” she said softly. “You’re a donor for the hospital.”

  Michael’s hands shook hers, urging her to shut up.

  “And you heard what you wanted and made up the rest,” he replied with a snort. “Again.”

  “It just happened.”

  “It seems that in your case, coincidences abound,” he mocked.

  “I was wrong. I admit it. I’m sorry,” she murmured, lost in that blue sea that was stormy and heaving.”

  Michael interlocked his fingers with hers. It wasn’t a loving gesture. Or seduction. It was just a way to let her know how united they’d been a short while ago, and also how a gesture that had once been passionate now represented control. He controlled the situation and she’d suffered a monumental loss.

  “Ms. Galloway, there’s something called an anonymous donor. So your friend at the magazine will earn himself a lawsuit if he tries to use you as a source of information. If Vannia Latzovski is taken off the transplant list, believe me, I won’t hesitate to go after you.”

  “I never mentioned the girl in the letter, Michael...”

  “It’s not about that, damn it! It’s about you having done exactly the same thing Ingrid did. You repeated her pattern.”

  “I’m nothing like your ex-wife,” she said with ire. “Don’t compare me to her.”

  “You’re both the same. Liars. It’s all the same lie, the only thing that changes is its magnitude. You took it further. You betrayed my trust. My friends’ trust and their home. You’ve committed too many infractions.”

  “You’re not a jailer, and I’m not your prisoner. I’m not in a courtroom. So stop trying to lecture me. I told you I’m sorry. I was wrong, and I admit it.”

  “No, you’re not a prisoner of anyone except yourself and your past,” he said, tightening his fingers around her. As if he was afraid she’d escape right then... and as if, somehow, he wanted her to vanish between his fingers so he would not have to see her flushed face, her pale lips and the confused, regretful look on her face.”

  “Michael, I did not send that letter... I just...” she muttered. She could not take it anymore... She could not defend what she could not win. Michael was right. It pained her to know that her stupidity had consequences. She hadn’t even gotten her revenge. The wrong revenge. An absolutely idiotic action that had just torn away from the chance to be with the only man her heart desired, but who would never want her by his side. “I did not send the letter...” she insisted.

  “My boss trusts me. I can’t say the same thing about me, towards you.” He let her go and turned away. “I hope you enjoyed your little act. Thanks for the sex, at least it was fun.”

  “Michael, don’t say something you may regret. I understand that you’re angry. And I have a lot to take in... but...”

  “Out of my house. Out of my life. I don’t want to hear from you again, Rachel Galloway. Or whatever you call yourself or want to be called.”

  He used her name as an insult. The damn letter had arrived early, she thought. What a moment for the national postal service to become more efficient.

  Rachel got up slowly. God. The pain she felt was almost physical. As if a giant hand was squeezing her lungs and tearing out her heart. She bit her lower lip, trying to hold in her sobs. She’d lost him. And it was all her fault... Why did Michael say that Piper was guilty?

  “Michael...” she said in a barely audible voice. She needed to ask him about Piper, but she knew she’d have to find the answers herself. This time without only looking at it from her point of view.

  He looked at her coldly, but he had to make an effort to avoid taking her into his arms and kissing her until everything disappeared. Until it was just them again. Damn it! He would have preferred to never have answered Dereck’s call.

  “My mother taught me to always be a gentleman with women,” he said, interrupting her. “So I’ll try to honor what she taught me. Try not to push me to the limit anymore. I have work tomorrow and more important things to do,” he insisted when he saw her hesitate.

  She approached him. Not thinking about what she was doing, she shyly came closer and closer. He looked like an impenetrable wall of ice. Rachel whapped her arms around his waist, but Michael remained motionless.

  “Michael...” she looked up at him. “I’m so sorry about everything that happened. I would have liked to tell you, but I never found the right moment to do it... and when I did, I realized it was too late... Could you ever forgive me?

  “Could you have done so if it hadn’t come to this?

  “Only after I knew I was in love with you... and that I love you. I realized that hating you was hating myself, that trying to hurt you would have an effect that would echo back onto me,” she said finally. If she had nothing to gain, she also had nothing to lose by confessing what she felt deep in her soul.

  He pushed her away softly, but firmly.

  “Rachel, when did that miracle happen?” he mocked her.

  She could not hold back the tears that welled in her eyes. They rolled down her soft cheeks.

  “I’m sorry I
realized it too late. I’m sorry I was wrong and betrayed your trust. I’m sorry for the ridiculous plan I unsuccessfully set in motion, and I’m sorry for having used the chance to get to know you to not really do that, and instead look for reasons to hurt you or harm you, when I should have been looking for excuses to get to know you better. Even though what I do know about you made me love you. Even though I may never see you again, I’m not sorry I fell in love with you. It’s the only thing I don’t regret.” She took two steps back and headed towards the bedroom door, then turned towards him and gazed at his sadly. “Try not to hate me so much, Michel,” she whispered.

  He clenched his jaw.

  “Why would I hate someone I never loved?”

  That felt like a slap to Rachel.

  Michael hated himself, but he could not control the heartache she’d caused him. Ire coursed through his veins. This whole time, Rachel had been the same girl from long ago. He only had a blurred memory, and perhaps it never would have cleared up if he hadn’t received that call from Dereck. What a fool he’d been this whole time. How could he let himself be blinded by the same woman twice?

  It wasn’t even Rachel’s attempt to embarrass him in front of others. He could defend himself easily with solid arguments, and he’d do just that with the public relations team at the firm where he was a partner. In this case, what he despised was the betrayal of his trust. The possibility of having hurt his innermost circle, the people he guarded ferociously: his friends and his family.

  “You just told me moments ago that...”

  He crossed his arms and looked her up and down in a way that seemed grotesque. ‘Could gestures pierce through a body as if they were poisoned spears?’ she asked herself. She could hardly breathe. She needed to get away before she did something terrible, like begging him to try to stay together and fix everything. But what had been broken could never return to its original state, no matter how good the glue. She knew that.

  “Perhaps it’s just something men say after a good lay... or when we want another round,” he explained. “You know, Rachel, it’s one woman per season. The novelty’s worn off, and next season, it’ll be another candidate.”