Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Lenox was, of course, right about the High Roller. Video footage of us appearing to cuddle and me straddling his lap hit Interntainment first and then went viral. I have no idea how much they paid for that video, but I’m assuming it was a lot.
Security brought us into the hotel through a back way, and I made my apologies to other members of the board about my early departure, but they didn’t care. I’m married. The shares of Monroe Securities are mine now. They’re thrilled.
And honestly, it’s not like I was adding anything extra beyond a face and a smile to this conference.
I didn’t even know what an event actor was—I almost thought it was a barb at me when I first entered the conference room and heard the term.
I frowned, and Lenox snickered before whispering in my ear, “That’s what you cybersecurity people call a hacker who infiltrates a system with the purpose of disruption or theft. ”
Oops.
I didn’t see Alfie or Ezra before I left, nor did they text me again.
Lenox ordered room service—since I hadn’t gotten to eat—and then we packed and went to the airport.
By the time we boarded the plane two hours later, that’s when Lenox showed me the alert on his phone.
Twenty minutes later, our High Roller video was everywhere.
“You didn’t try to stop it,” I note as I sink down onto the buttery-soft leather. I always liked this plane. It’s pretty.
Lenox picks me up and moves me over to the bench seat beside him, his fingers on my wrist, and it takes me a moment to realize he’s checking my pulse.
I snort. “It’s one milligram of Ativan. It just makes me a bit… loopy, I guess it’s the word you’d use. I’m not going to die.”
“It’s the only way I’ll inherit—section four, clause b, line eight.”
I cough out a loud bark, or at least it feels loud in my head. Who barks?
“You do,” he tells me holding me against him, and I might be musing aloud.
“And no, I didn’t try to stop it,” he says, answering my question from like five minutes ago.
“Right now, we appear like a newlywed couple in love. No one can contest that. Not even Alfie and Ezra. It’s why I put you in my lap in the first place. ”
Oh. Smart. Wicked Smaht. Lenox doesn’t have much of a Boston accent, but every now and then certain words catch a hint of it, and I like it. It’s cute. Not that Lenox could ever be construed as cute.
“Then I straddled you because you’ve got a man piercing. Which, incidentally, I enjoyed a lot, though I am a bit disappointed I didn’t get to play with them using my tongue.”
He makes a strangled noise and brushes the hair back from my face, his other hand still on my wrist, and when did my face end up on his lap? Speaking of his man piercing… I squeeze his dick beneath my head, and he hisses out a breath, forcing my hand away.
“Jesus, Lenox, are you ever not hard? Did you take a certain blue pill while I took mine?”
He doesn’t answer, but I don’t really care because the plane starts to pick up speed, and despite the Ativan and my proximity to Lenox’s pierced monster, I stiffen and grip his thigh .
His hand strokes my hair, his fingers gliding through the tresses, and he brushes his fingers over my eyes, forcing them closed. “Just breathe. You’re fine.”
“Don’t be so nice to me,” I murmur.
“Would you rather I bite you?”
I smile, though it’s heavy, weighed down. “Depends on where? My nipples are very sensitive.”
“Go to sleep, Georgia. I’ll wake you when we get there.”
“Why won’t you tell me now? Now is later, and you told me you’d tell me later.”
After Lenox took five minutes to pack, he worked for the remaining two hours we were in the suite before we left for the airport. He’s been quiet— quieter —since. Or maybe just more stoic, keeping his cards close to his vest.
I know he found something in that time. I know it.
“Because you’re drugged.”
“It’ll distract me.” My eyes clench tight as the plane lifts off the ground. “Then you can tell me again when I’m more alert. You said there was stuff to figure out. What else is there to figure out?”
“Plenty,” he tells me, shifting in his seat and tapping his fingers on the armrest. “Alfie’s phone is very precise.”
“I don’t know what that means. Stop using three words when I need you to use at least fifty.”
He sighs. “It means everything on there is very deliberate and closed off. He has no banking apps, the only email account is his work email, all of his apps are very specific, things like airlines and such, but there are no saved passwords on his phone. Any laptop, iPad, or other electronic devices he owns are not linked. He has only a few text message streams, one with Ezra, one with you, a few members of the board, and your father. That’s it.
Nothing is personal, not even with Ezra.
Everything is business. I saw some of this on Ezra’s phone, but he’s sloppy and arrogant, has a strong weakness for money and a vice for expensive things, and that was his downfall.
It made him careless, unlike his father. ”
“Okay…” I draw out the word. “I appreciate that you used a lot of words, but I still don’t get it. What are you saying? ”
“I’m saying it’s not simply Alfie’s business phone, Georgia.
I’m saying he runs it the way a hacker would.
The way a man who doesn’t ever want it to be used against him in a court of law or infiltrated by an enemy does.
He has other devices, I’m positive of it, but this is a closed circuit with no access because he’s made sure it is.
It makes sense why Ezra has a gatekeeper. His father is a hacker.”
Suddenly I’m dizzy and loopy all over again, and it has nothing to do with the Ativan or the ascending plane that dips and shudders, making me gasp.
“Is he evil or someone who uses his powers to fight evil?”
“Fight evil?” He raises an eyebrow at me.
“Like Batman, though you’re my Batman already. More like you have to be one to properly fight one.”
“I don’t know how he uses his skillset or how in-depth his skillset actually is yet. Does that answer your question?”
“Yes, but that was not nearly as fun as I was hoping for. I was hoping you’d give me some Jedi to Anakin Skywalker reference.”
“Now you’re mixing comic books and Star Wars.”
I yawn, twisting on his lap so he can get more of my hair because what he’s doing feels soooo good. “I don’t care. I like both. So what now?”
He smirks, a sparkle of challenge lighting his eyes. “Now I start to play, and you sleep, and if you don’t remember this conversation when you wake up, I’ll remind you.”
I let out a heavy breath, succumbing to the ministrations of his hand in my hair, allowing it to lull me into a half-awake, half-asleep stupor, and mumble, “Thank you.”
My cousin Zax doesn’t fuck around. When we land and deboard the plane, his driver, Ashley, is waiting for us. I make a beeline for him and throw my arms around his large shoulders.
“Ashley! Oh, Ashley.”
He laughs at my Gone with the Wind reference and squeezes me back. “The great state of Georgia. How are you, honey? ”
“Better now that I’m off the plane and seeing you.”
“Glad to hear it. Come with me. We’re not going to Zax’s.”
“Oh.” That surprises me, and I turn to Lenox, who is his normal, stoic self, his face back on the screen of his phone after he gave Ashley a what’s up head nod.
I slip inside the car, anxious to get out of the frigid November air.
Lenox follows me in, typing on his phone. “Do you know where we’re going?”
“Rebels Field.”
My eyebrows pinch together. “Rebels Field?”
“Asher is playing on Sunday Night Football.”
I shake my head, still not understanding.
“Sunday Night Football is a nationally televised game.”
“Lenox, once again, I’m asking if you can just spit it all out at once instead of spoon-feeding it to me in pieces.”
He drags his gaze away from his phone, finally giving me his attention as we start to pull away from Logan Airport.
“It means we’re going to be in the luxury booth together as a couple, along with your cousins and their significant others.
Cameras will train in on us, and we’ll be on national television looking happy and in love. ”
“Didn’t we already do that this morning on the High Roller?”
“Yes, but this is with my best friends and former bandmates, as well as your cousins. It’s showing family approval and us at a public event together—not some stolen surveillance camera.
And since Ezra and Alfie have hired an attorney and investigator to look into the validity of our marriage as well as into my person, this will go a long way. ”
I groan, my head falling back against the leather seat. “They hired a freaking lawyer and a PI?”
“Yes.”
“That’s so lame. Why are they doing this? It’s not like they’re getting the shares or that I’m going to marry Ezra after and give them the shares if they disprove the validity of our marriage. Like… grow up and get over it already.”
“I don’t think that’s their plan. ”
“Fabulous.” I turn to him. “What about you? They’re investigating you?”
He’s not the least bit ruffled. “They won’t get anything on me other than I own a tattoo shop, a house in Cambridge, and an apartment in Maine, which is already public knowledge.”
“I didn’t know you had an apartment in Maine.”
“It’s my technical residence, though it’s used for little more than storage. Neither my house nor the land and properties I own are searchable.”
I’d question that, but why bother? This is Lenox we’re talking about.
“I ruined your privacy.”
He smirks at me. “Did you think I wasn’t aware that was going to happen when I said yes to this?”
“It doesn’t seem right. I’m asking so much of you, and you get nothing out of this.”