Chapter 36 Alexander
ALEXANDER
A lingering tension hung thick in the air.
Every time I took a breath, it stuck in my throat and threatened to choke me.
I prowled around my office, spending as much time as I could alone before I was forced to head to the fifth floor.
I’d already checked in with Julian, who sent me to the coffee corner to check the latest shipment, then I took a quick jog up the stairs to take off the edge of adrenaline that came out of nowhere.
I hit the landing on the fourth floor and pushed through the door, straight into the hallway leading to the accounting department. Harper’s name rolled my way, passed from mouth to mouth in a hushed whisper.
I stopped at the corner and tried to pinpoint the location, the people responsible for talking about the woman I loved.
None of them had the right to hold her name in their mouths.
It was the second time I’d heard these low, intense whispers of her name in the office, though no one had talked about her in months.
They should’ve been over any mention of her by now.
Had someone seen her? But how? Yes, we’d taken the chopper back to New York, but our pilot was trustworthy, and we’d gone from the chopper to the car, and from there to Dante’s penthouse.
Cameras? They would have captured the few moments of us going from place to place, but Julian handpicked our security.
If one of them betrayed us, we had bigger issues than we’d ever thought.
The idea that everyone had a price that bought their loyalty hadn’t applied to the men we worked with on a day-to-day basis. Loyalty mattered, and we rewarded them.
“I’m sure that’s Harper.” A low, male voice wrenched me from my thoughts.
I stood at the corner, out of sight but listening.
Several voices joined in, and I gave in to all the rampaging energy sizzling through my veins. Time to do something productive. I kept my pace casual, my posture relaxed, and strolled toward the desk where our best accountant sat.
Five other employees cluttered up the space, all of them bent forward staring at something. One of the men shifted, and a phone came into view.
My pulse spiked with a leap so fast it left my vision blurred. I closed the distance before they realized I’d even rounded the corner.
A woman on the corner of the desk gasped and covered her mouth, then backhanded the man beside her and tried to point in my direction.
The phone fell to his side, still clutched in his hand.
I held out my hand. “What, pray tell, is so important that you would use company time to gossip about it?”
“It’s nothing. A funny meme we wanted to share.” A thin man on the other side of the woman gulped audibly.
“Right. Nothing, sir. We didn’t mean to get carried away. It was funny.” The woman attempted a smile, but it fell when I refused to match it.
I kept my hand out and wiggled my fingers. “Then you won’t mind showing it to me. Now.”
They shared a look of dread, and the man holding the phone tried one last time. “I’m sorry, sir. We shouldn’t have been looking, but the notification came to everyone in the office, and we couldn’t believe it, so we were just talking about it. We never should have done that on company time.”
“You’re right.” I took the phone and flipped it over. Anything else I might have said died with the headline screaming at me in huge black font.
Elevate CEOs in bed with their youngest employee
From there, a long list of our supposed transgression began, along with photos to break up the stretches of text. The first one of me with Harper at the gala was innocent enough.
I mean, sure, I looked at her with heart eyes that held a whole lot of sexual tension. But it could be explained away.
I scrolled further, my stomach wrenching so hard I almost puked when the next picture loaded in slow motion.
The image of a fully clothed Harper sneaking out of the hotel suite the morning after the gala further incriminated us, but again, not too damning if we spun the right kind of story.
Arthur still hadn’t sold us out, because they had no eyewitness statements about why Harper was in our room, or what we’d been doing.
He’d caught us naked and had been given every chance to turn on us.
The kid deserved a promotion. Or a place on our team.
Bile rose into the back of my throat as the next set of images exploded on the screen. Our cabin retreat had not been spared.
Dante’s intimidation had failed, or someone else had access to those photos. These were slightly different from the ones Dante had destroyed. Not as scandalous, but several were intimate. The four of us in bed, sheets covering parts of our bodies but leaving others exposed.
Us kissing Harper and worshipping her the way we knew best. Considering what they could have printed, these were mild. Damning, but mild.
I chewed the inside of my cheek and forced my thumb to move to the next image.
“Sir, it’s really none of our business.” The man who’d handed me the phone interrupted my scrolling. A hand inched toward the phone.
I snarled at him like an animal. “Right. It’s none of your business, but instead of coming to one of us with this information, you decided to stand around talking about it.”
He blanched and dropped his hand.
The urge to fire every fucking one of them rushed up and tightened my grip on the phone. I forced my head down and finished the article, because my heart warned me there was more.
Another flick of my thumb, and my heart squeezed. Just once, I’d like to be wrong.
A picture of Harper standing on the curb at the hospital with her panicked expression and her woebegone posture slammed into me. This was the woman I’d sworn to protect. We’d failed.
Forget our reputations. We’d failed to protect her from this.
Another smaller headline blared from the top of the picture.
Young woman pregnant with the baby of high-profile execs.
It went on to talk about the age difference, how we must have coerced her in some way or she hoped to garner favor with us.
Not one of the sentences in the article had merit or truth.
Except the headlines. Technically they were true, but they were taken completely out of context because that sold.
People bought headlines and scandal. They didn’t buy love and romance.
Unless it was fiction, then it was no holds barred.
But this was not a novel. This was our life, and we were fucked.
Harper might flee again if she saw this before we had a chance to talk to her. She’d blame herself and take off.
Damage control. Now. I threw the phone back at the man, who caught it after a few fumbles.
“If you have a problem with any of this, now’s your chance to leave.
Otherwise, shut your mouths and get back to work.
” My anger overruled my common sense. There was a better way to talk to them and to deal with the problem.
but in this exact moment, I had no thought for anything except keeping Harper safe from the fallout coming her way.
Men in our position were to be held accountable. I understood that. We would be painted as the bad guys. Fine. We’d take the heat.
But they’d better leave Harper well the fuck alone. I ran to the elevator and leaped inside, slamming my palm to the button for Dante’s office.
Seconds ticked too slowly, the elevator moving in tiny increments that made it all worse.
By the time the doors opened, sweat slicked my palms and gathered on the back of my neck. Bethany sat at her desk, legs crossed as she filed her nails. I barely glanced her way but barreled into Dante’s office.
“For fuck’s sake.” Anger boomed with the curse, but he took one look at me and horror took over his expression. “What happened?”
I rounded his desk and typed in the name of the newspaper that had blown our story out of the water. “That happened. And we have to do something right fucking now. Damage control. Immediately. We have to shield Harper.”
The door burst open and Julian kicked it shut before storming our way, a strange smile turning his face into a wicked mask. “Greg traced the phone. He knows who’s been threatening Harper, and you’re never going to believe who it is.”