Chapter 3
One shoulder leaned against the doorframe, large hands covered in leather gloves, his expensive camel-colored wool coat half-unbuttoned, Alaric radiated the kind of high-fashion casual that required a lot of work.
He also wore a smile, just a ghost of one, and it curved his generous lips in a way that made it difficult for me to focus on anything else. I did, however, and I discovered his eyes weren’t smiling.
“Malcom land deeds?” Alaric echoed the words I’d just shouted at Renee, his voice all business, devoid of the honeyed edge he used on me a few weeks ago at the hotel bar downtown.
Crap. My stomach sunk. Obviously, he’d overheard me. Why is he here?
Struggling to conceal my spike of alarm, I walked around the desk, not quite halfway to where he hovered just inside my office. “Alaric. What do you want?”
He gave the space a quick inspection that felt clinical. Then he looked me over in the same way, gaze roving down and up. There was nothing personal about it. Today, he was tallying. Not admiring.
“It’s good to see you, too.” His voice rang with hollow sincerity as he stepped fully inside my office, shutting the door behind him. “I’ve been well, thanks for asking.”
He sounded like my teenage niece, and the realization irritated me. For some reason, it also caused a prickle of discomfort in my chest, something akin to guilt.
Crossing my arms to hide my suddenly shaking hands, I lifted my chin, again demanding, “What do you want?”
He smirked. It looked more like a tic of pain than real amusement. “Did you just move in here? Into this office space?”
The direction of his question confused me, but I answered honestly. “No.”
“Is it just you and Renee? Or where are the rest of your team?”
“They work remote.”
“Saving on overhead,” he supplied, nodding, like this made perfect sense, then added, “I suppose they’re all independent contractors?”
I saw no reason to deny it, so I nodded.
He pressed his lips together like he found my answer disappointing but not surprising. “That way you don’t have to pay into Social Security, Medicare, insurance, retirement, healthcare, et cetera. Right?”
I glared at him. He watched me right back. Holding his gaze, I hoped he would be the one to look away.
He didn’t, so I filled the silence. “Why would you ask whether we’d just moved in?”
He shrugged, eyes darting away from me and trailing up to the ceiling tiles. Clearly, his mind was working, calculating, replaying what he’d heard me shout at Renee earlier. This discussion about my office and team was a stalling tactic while he considered what to do next.
I could’ve kicked myself for my thoughtlessness, for shouting at Renee when I knew there was someone else in the office.
If this slipup jeopardized my plans, if Alaric pieced things together and swooped in to save the Duke and the Weston Company and Alenbach before Tuesday, I would never forgive him.
Or myself.
“No reason. It’s just, uh, there’s no art on the walls and there’s not much furniture.” Alaric sounded distracted as his attention remained fixed on the corners, the exposed ductwork, the black cables running like arteries from ceiling to floor.
I found myself seeing the office space anew, as though through his eyes.
Bare, functional, not a single personal effect.
The reception area he’d just walked through was all grays, each shade calculated to hide scuffs and shoe prints, an effort to reduce the need for touch-ups or repainting.
The perimeter seating of the reception area was hard plastic and the coffee table out there was more of the same. Durable. Cheap.
Renee’s metal desk had survived at least three tenants before us, and the only thing that changed about it was the color of the sticky notes lining the lip. Behind her desk, an ancient copier hunched in the corner like a fossilized animal.
The door to my office—a battered slab of hollow-core wood—completed the look, and my office was more of the same.
Utilitarian and devoid of personality, yes.
But I did not feel self-conscious about the lack of unnecessary decoration in my place of work.
This space reflected me, my values, and my approach to business.
However, for some reason, Alaric’s continued inspection compelled me to say, “I don’t like unnecessary distractions.”
He cocked his head, not looking at me. “Distractions from what?”
“Making money. Obviously.”
Once more, he let the silence spread until it thickened, seeming to coat every surface, ratcheting up my unease. Then abruptly, he nodded, as if I’d confirmed something he’d suspected about me.
Finally, he returned his attention to me.
I had to grip the desk as the force of his stare landed.
Alaric crossed the room, halting a good five feet away from me.
The space between us felt strangely cavernous and the flowers in his hand bobbed awkwardly, a peace offering I wasn’t sure he wished to make, not anymore, not after what he’d overheard.
“I bought these for you because I remember peonies were your favorite. I’d wanted . . .” His voice struck me as strange, like he spoke these words to himself.
Something in me winced, braced when he didn’t continue, like a dog expecting to be kicked. I didn’t understand my body’s reaction. Either way, I felt suddenly underdressed and overexposed.
I watched his eyes, searching for any sign of an angle, his intentions. Yes, he’d overheard me, but why had he come to begin with? I shouldn’t have been curious, but I was.
While I studied him, Alaric looked at the flowers, then back to me. “But after seeing your office, I think maybe you don’t like flowers anymore.”
“They’re . . . fine.” My words sounded anemic because my anxiety spiked again, anger and embarrassment weaving together. I refused to ask him what he planned to do now, now that I’d shown my hand.
He gave me a smile that looked tight at the corners, all muscle and no warmth. “So . . . tell me about the Malcom land deeds.”
Unwilling to apologize or explain myself, I let the silence lengthen until it felt like a plank we both had to walk.
“Were you referring to the property that Cyrus’s family owns?” He broke the silence, his tone softer now, almost coaxing. “In Alenbach?”
Cyrus Malcom had grown up with us in Alenbach. He and Alaric had been good friends all through school along with a third boy named Rex McMurtry. Therefore, I’d avoided Cyrus and Rex like the plague.
Rex had just recently retired from playing pro football for the Chicago Squalls and, despite Cyrus being a famous movie star now and Alaric emerging as a venture capitalist extraordinaire, I understood that Cyrus, Rex, and Alaric had remained close.
But this wasn’t about the status of Alaric’s friendships. It was about the land Cyrus Malcom’s family had just sold to my company without realizing they’d actually sold the land to me.
I debated how to respond, or whether to respond at all, as Alaric and I swapped stares. But then he shifted a step closer and the subtle movement spurred me to blurt out, “That’s none of your business.”
“What did you do, Alison?” His eyes seemed to soften. Or maybe it was simply a trick of the light and wishful thinking on my part.
For reasons I didn’t immediately understand, some part of me cared whether or not Alaric hated me.
And yet, if given the choice between Alaric’s good regard and finally taking revenge on Duke Weston and the rest of those petty Alenbach assholes, I’d take my revenge one hundred times over.
So, I checked my watch, the movement as pointed as I could make it. “I’m really busy and don’t have time for a social call. Good afternoon.”
He laughed at my back as I turned, it was a sound without feeling. “You’re busy. Okay. I see that. So, I guess I should be asking, what are you planning to do?”
I sat, made a performance of waking up my computer, but didn’t respond.
I knew his gaze remained fastened to my face, unblinking. “Is this why you left me so suddenly at the conference last month? These plans to take down Duke Weston? Did you think I would stop you?”
That drew a twitch from my lip. I wasn’t going to give him more than that.
In my peripheral vision, I watched him set the flowers down gently on one of the visitor chairs, the gesture oddly respectful, like he’d just placed them on a grave.
“You’re kicking Duke out of his house before Christmas,” he continued, almost an accusation but not quite. I detected a layer of something else beneath the words. Admiration, maybe? Perhaps acceptance?
I told myself it didn’t matter and repeated, “Good afternoon.”
“Fine. But I’ll find out what I want to know. With one call, I can find out everything, Alison.”
I felt my face heat, a stab of renewed frustration and embarrassment, and so I sing-songed, “Good afternooooon,” stretching the words out just enough to make them a mockery.
He actually laughed, and this time there was color to it, a hint of darkness that made the hair rise at the back of my neck even as it drew my attention to his handsome face. My stomach went cold.
“All right. I see how it is.” Alaric backed out of the office, hands raised in exaggerated surrender, but the grim smile on his face felt like a warning shot. I blinked my gaze away, redirecting it to my computer screen.
Everything was blurry. My eyes didn’t want to focus.
He opened the door to my office as though to see himself out. “I guess I’ll be seeing you later this week. In court, then?”
These words made me look up and our stares tangled once more. Alaric Jordan might actually be the only person alive who could stop me from putting my plan into motion. And he knew it.
“It’s too late to save them, Alaric. You might be able to slow me down, but there’s no way to stop this.”
His reply was immediate. “Stop what? And save who?” He let go of the doorknob and ventured a step back into my office. “Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking. Or, at least, tell me why you’re doing this.”