Chapter Eight #4
‘Not bad. Necessary. You did what you had to do to survive.’ His face creased. ‘I was so righteous, but I got you so wrong. And I think I knew that right from when we first met. I knew deep down that you weren’t the woman I’d imagined you to be.’
‘You knew that when I was a baby,’ she teased.
But he didn’t smile. ‘I should have stopped it that day in your office when you said you’d resign if I kept your staff. But I’d waited so long, and I was so angry, and I wanted to punish you. Yet you got your revenge. You made it impossible for me to hate you like I wanted to.’
‘You made it hard for me too. Not as hard, obviously.’ She gently butted his shoulder with her head, and some of the tension eased from his face. He leaned in and kissed her.
‘I want to put things right. That’s why I called my lawyer this morning. I was going to, but then…’
He glanced away.
‘What?’ She tugged his arm. ‘What is it? Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’
His eyes found hers. ‘I’ve given you enough problems already. You don’t need mine as well. What you do need is to reassure your staff. I want that, too, so I’m giving you back the shares I bought. That way you can run your business your way, take care of your people and your mum.’
The air in her lungs felt thin and light, almost as if she was standing on top of the mountain and not on its gentler slopes.
‘I can’t afford to buy them back,’ she said slowly.
‘I’m not selling them to you. I’m gifting them.’ His eyes were clear and blue and open to her gaze. ‘I took them to punish you. I thought I was righting a wrong. But I was wrong.’
‘I thought we weren’t using words like right or wrong anymore.’
‘Cassie, please—’
He looked suddenly stricken, and her remorse gave her voice a breathless edge. ‘Of course I want the shares. But only if you tell me what’s really happening. And don’t say it’s just housekeeping. Whatever it is, you don’t have to face it alone. I want to help.’
‘Why would you do that?’
Because I love you.
For a moment, Cassie just stared at Antaeus in silence. Her unspoken answer had robbed her of the power of speech not because she was in denial, but because there was nothing to deny. There was no messy scramble of incomprehension. No debate, no hesitation. It was just a fact to be accepted.
And the truth of it made a startled happiness catch beneath her ribs, because of course she loved him. Had loved him for longer than she had known or understood, because she was still in the cave seeing shadows.
But right now, Antaeus needed her help, not some shocking admission of love. That could wait. She sat up straighter, projecting as much professionalism as was possible sitting on his lap in a bikini. ‘Just start at the beginning,’ she ordered, ‘and when you get to the end, I’ll have questions.’
Antaeus stared at Cassie, stunned into silence.
That she was offering to help him blew his mind.
But then, she had surprised him from the start with her courage and her determination.
After a moment of silent reverence for the woman in his arms, he said slowly, ‘I like the energy of startups. Currently I invest in several, including a crypto-gaming platform called ByteClub.’
As he replayed the conversation he’d had with his lawyer earlier, his chest felt like it was being squeezed by a giant hand.
‘Obviously we did a thorough due diligence test. but clearly not thorough enough. It appears that the developers have been exploiting a backdoor in the code to steal user assets.’
He saw her face still. ‘You wouldn’t be liable for their actions.’
‘Not legally, no. And if it was just a story about the risks of an unregulated crypto-gaming space, the news cycle would probably move on quite quickly, but my father is in prison for wire fraud.’
She understood instantly. ‘Which could make you part of the story. Do you have a strategy in place?’
‘For this? No. We have a playbook for generic situations. But once this gets out, it’s going to have a life of its own.
If I’m being honest, right now, I don’t even know where to start in terms of trying to fix it.
’ He ran his hand over his face. ‘But I need to fix it. Which means I need to get back to New York.’
‘Or I could help you here.’ Cassie’s eyes were green and bright and fierce. ‘This is what I do. What we do at Trojan Princess. We fix the unfixable.’
‘No, that won’t work. I may not have all the answers, but I know I need to be seen. So what I’d like is for you to come back to New York with me.’
He watched her eyes widen, felt his own face still with shock. But the sudden, devastating certainty that he couldn’t take a single step without her by his side had formed that sentence unbidden and torn it from his mouth.
‘Come with you?’ she echoed.
‘Not as my prisoner. Not as my enemy. As my ally. Would you do that? Would you come to New York with me?’
‘I’ll start packing,’ she said slowly. His hand clutched her hip, and he was leaning in, kissing her with relief and an emotion he didn’t recognize, the scrape of his stubble making her body jolt against his.