20. Noah
20
NOAH
T he last thing I expected when Maxim burst into my office on Tuesday morning was to find him smiling. I’d been waiting for him to storm in, tell me all the various ways I could fuck myself, then announce he was dissolving our partnership. After spending Sunday and Monday ducking me, he could’ve been up to anything. Interviewing lawyers, for starters.
Instead, he beamed from ear to ear, tossing a folder on my desk. “It’s official. We got our guy, and all because you forwarded those photos to me. You’re welcome,” he concluded.
“Are you serious?” I grabbed for the folder the way I would grab for a life preserver in open water. Sending Maxim the photos had been a last-ditch effort to get him to respond. Pitiful, yes, but it seemed to have worked.
“I called up a friend of mine who works in law enforcement. Don’t ask for specifics,” he quickly warned, scowling when I glanced up from the images in the folder. Dropping into a chair in front of the desk, he continued, “I had him run the photos from the event through some kind of software they use to identify suspects at large, then ran that against our employee ID photos. There was a match. Luke Washington. He’s one of our property managers.”
“Slow down.” Sure enough, the printed photos were from the rec center, and I recognized the same man in all of them—medium height, average build, somebody who could easily melt into the background no matter where he happened to be. On Saturday, he’d stood off to the side, alone, while most of the other bystanders stood in clusters.
“I pulled his personnel file,” Maxim announced. “He’s unmarried, no children, and lives in Jersey City.”
“There was no reason for him to be there,” I murmured, trying to put it all together. “Why was he there?”
“He’s sitting at his desk at this very minute if you’d like to ask him.“ Maxim held up a finger, almost like he’d forgotten something. “Oh, did I mention he’s friends on Facebook with a handful of journalists? And he reposted the article about you several times across a handful of platforms.”
“Seems a little odd for somebody to spread ugly gossip about their boss unless they have an ax to grind,” I mused, sliding the photos away from me. I had seen enough of the snake who quite possibly had gone out of his way to tank my career.
“I was considering pulling him into my office and grilling the shit out of him, but…” he smirked, “… would you like to do the honors?”
“What the hell do you think?” I would knife anybody who tried to get between me and the pleasure of firing this prick. First, I would need to hear his explanation—if he had one.
Maxim stood and buttoned his suit jacket before crossing my office and opening the door. From where I sat, I could see him striding down the hall. The confusion and resentment that had festered for weeks began to crystalize now that I had somewhere to direct it.
There he was, trailing behind Maxim. I hadn’t noticed him at the clinic. Fuck, we could’ve had a full conversation, and I wouldn’t have made the connection. I couldn’t possibly know all my employees’ faces and names.
I wouldn’t soon forget his, though. He had the nerve to stride in like he owned the place, smiling like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Was he oblivious, or did he honestly believe he had gotten away with his bullshit?
Maxim perched on the corner of my desk, facing Luke once he came to a stop in front of me. The guy did a decent job of looking pleasant, which was what confirmed my suspicions. He didn’t look nervous about being called into the CEO’s office for the first time.
“Luke.” The name threatened to curdle in my mouth. “I understand you were at the rec center in the Bronx on Saturday. I must have missed you.”
“The Bronx?” He was not a skilled liar, that was for sure. His pathetic attempt at stalling was the sort of thing I did back when I was trying to get out of being punished for staying out all night or denting up my car. Kid stuff.
“Yes, the Bronx. Where I was participating in a sports clinic for kids.”
“An event whose details were posted online by the PR company,” Maxim added in a low voice.
“Drop the act,” I warned when Luke offered a weak shrug. “The photographers caught you more than once. You had no reason to be there. You don’t have kids, no nieces or nephews, you don’t even live in the neighborhood. Tell me. Why were you there?”
He turned his wide-eyed gaze onto Maxim like he was waiting for clarification, but Maxim wouldn’t give an inch. “ Go ahead,” he muttered, inclining his head in my direction. “Mr. Goldsmith asked you a question.”
Luke’s gaze bounced between us, his throat working when he gulped. “I… I mean… it seemed like an interesting day, something I wanted to be a part of.”
“You didn’t participate,” I pointed out as my blood pressure climbed. “I would’ve remembered that.”
“You mean you enjoy attending events where you know there will be dozens of kids running around?” Maxim snickered, shaking his head. “You might want to come up with a better excuse because that sounds a little sketchy. If we brought in the police and had them seize your phone, would there be photos of little kids all over it?”
I folded my arms. “Or would there be photos of me? ”
Luke’s shoulders slumped. He knew we had him. “What else was I supposed to do?” he murmured, the energy having drained from his voice. “You ruined my sister’s life. You destroyed my family.”
What a sudden left turn. I was damn close to getting whiplash. “How did I do that?” I gritted out. “I don’t know your sister.”
“Danielle Stevenson. Doesn’t ring a bell?” When I lifted a shoulder, he laughed bitterly. “No, I guess it wouldn’t. Not with all the women you run through like Kleenex. Let me refresh your memory. I brought her to the holiday party last year when my girlfriend got sick. Dani needed a night out, and I wanted to impress her a little, I guess. Ringing any bells yet?”
Last year’s holiday party. How was I supposed to remember that? “You’re saying I slept with your sister?”
His lip curled in a snarl. “I’m saying you slept with my sister, her husband found out, and he left her. She had nothing. She went into a deep depression, wound up… sick.” His vo ice broke, but he pushed past it. “She ended up having to live with our parents again because we’re afraid of what she’ll do to herself if she’s left alone. And that’s on you.”
“I’m sorry about what happened to your sister,” I told him, choosing my words carefully. “But I don’t sleep with married women. That’s a line I don’t cross. She must’ve taken off her ring.”
“Besides…” Maxim interjected. “That wouldn’t be Mr. Goldsmith’s fault. She made a decision, and it’s unfortunate how things turned out. Is that why you orchestrated that article?”
It was a gamble. We didn’t know he was behind the article. Even his presence at the rec center didn’t mean he was the culprit behind the photos.
Except it paid off.
“Not his fault? I should’ve known you’d take his side!” He was shaking, red-faced, sweat now trickling down the sides of his thin face. “Guys like you think you can get away with it. Whatever you want! You throw some money at a problem, and it’s done. You meet a woman, you fuck her, you abandon her, and forget she exists. What’s it matter? You’ll just find somebody new, right? Who cares about what happens to them?”
“Which is why you tried to destroy my reputation.” My fists tightened, hidden from view by my desk. “To get back at me.”
“Hell yes, that’s why.” Lifting his chin, he added, “I did it for Dani.”
What a fucking hero. “So you would’ve destroyed the company that employed you and your coworkers to get back at me for something I didn’t know had happened and couldn’t have changed anyway?”
Realization dawned upon the prick, but it was too fucking late.
“Security will escort you from the building,” I announced as Maxim went to the door and waved someone inside. “Once you’ve taken your personal items from your desk, you’ll turn over any keys to the properties you manage before you leave.”
“You fucking bastard.” Luke snarled, but it was too late for that. Hell, I might have respected him more if he’d been a man about it and dealt with this face-to-face. He was still arguing, shouting, and shaking as two guards came in at Maxim’s signal and took him from the room.
There was a lot of hushed whispering and shocked exclamations out there. I released a deep breath, sinking against the back of my chair.
“Imagine that.” Maxim shook his head as he watched things unfold from my doorway. “Trying to tank your life and the whole company all because his sister decided to cheat on her husband with you.”
“He needed somebody to blame,” I muttered. “It’s over now.”
The truth behind my words hit me like a cannonball. It was all over. Luke had done me a favor in the long run. He had given me a reason to go to that party at Club Caramel to find Sienna there and connect with her. He had also driven us apart, following me to that rec center, selling those photos to the tabloids. He had brought an end to what he had started. It was all over.
I didn’t know where to go next. I didn’t know anyone who could show me a direction to go in.
Or did I? There was one person who wouldn’t bullshit me because he never had. Considering I couldn’t talk to my best friend about his sister, there was only one other man to turn to .
Picking up my phone, I reluctantly sent Dad a text.
Me: Can you meet for a drink at five?
“It’s not that you got involved with Sienna.” My father sipped his scotch, wearing a thoughtful expression. “That’s not what everyone got so upset about. I can speak for your mother when I tell you that.”
The bar was still fairly quiet this early in the evening, which was not something I would complain about. Pouring my guts out to my dad was enough of a pain in the ass without worrying about witnesses. “What is it? Because I need to make things right with a lot of people. Now that I have this work issue put behind me, I can deal with my personal life.”
“It was the sneakiness behind it, for one thing. The fact that you were supposed to be working together to save your reputation and company, but you ended up doing the very thing that got you into trouble in the first place. One day, when you have your own kids, you’ll understand what it’s like to be a parent standing on the sidelines, watching your son do precisely the wrong thing. It’s difficult for a parent to sit back and witness that.”
I could see where he was coming from as I stared into my glass, mulling it over. “Neither of us intended for it to happen,” I admitted. It wasn’t easy opening up to my father this way. While we didn’t have the sort of contentious relationship Colton used to have with Barrett, we weren’t exactly warm. I wasn’t Rose.
“For what it’s worth…” he said. “Sienna could do much worse, and you sure as hell could do worse than Sienna,” he added, rolling his eyes. “God knows. ”
“Well, that’s over now. I’ll have to patch up my reputation on my own while she does the same for herself since I ruined it.”
“Haven’t you figured out by now that people have very short memories? I’d bet the cabin in Vail that if Sienna had her team publish a story about one of your employees going out of his way to ruin you, this would all be wrapped up with no problem.”
A tempting idea, for sure, but… “It’s better if we don’t have anything to do with each other now.” I went out of my way to avoid his penetrative stare.
“Would you mind a little advice from someone older and wiser?” I eyed him warily but nodded. How much worse could it get? He angled his body on the barstool until he faced me straight-on. Aside from the lines at the corners of his eyes and the silver running through his dark hair, I could’ve been looking in a mirror. “I respect everything you did to clear up your image, and I’m sure the money you donated to all those causes will do a lot of good for a lot of people. If nothing else, you’ve got that to hang onto.”
“Why do I feel like there’s a but hanging in the air?”
His lips twitched before he shrugged. “But there’s another way to go about this. I wonder if you’ve considered it.”
“What would that be? I’m all ears.”
Shrugging, he said, “Come clean. Tell the truth.”
“I’m not trying to hide anything from anyone.”
Arching an eyebrow, he countered, “Are you sure? Because from what I can tell, all you’ve done so far is bend over backward to change public perception. Why not come out and say yes, I know I fucked up? Yes, I’m a human being like anyone else. Before you can tell me you aren’t…” he added with a growl. “I’m here to tell you you’re wrong. You’re ju st like anybody else. Just as vulnerable to mistakes. And if it was a mistake, being with Sienna, come out and admit it. That’s all you have to do. No more lies, no more trying to bend public perception to your will.”
“If only it were that simple.” I finished what was left in my glass and placed it on the bar with a thump. Funny, the way it brought to mind the banging of a gavel.
“It doesn’t have to be difficult,” he pointed out. “Come clean. Own up to your mistakes. That’s what a man does.”
The problem was I didn’t see Sienna as a mistake. What we had was not a mistake. How could it be when it hurt so fucking bad to be without her? I couldn’t shrug this off and pretend it was all a matter of an intense physical connection, a chemistry I had become addicted to indulging in. I wouldn’t be that blasé about it now. Too much had changed. It wasn’t her body I missed. I did miss it, of course, but I missed her more.
Her shrewd intelligence, her knack for calling me on my bullshit, her sense of humor. I wasn’t afraid to be seen, to be known by her. Life was pale and sad without her in it. Even my work, which not long ago had been the focal point of my existence, didn’t carry the same weight. Striving for my first billion? It was a goal, but the meaning behind it was gone if there was ever a meaning in the first place.
Dad waited for me to think this through before clapping a hand over my shoulder. “Listen. If you could build a nearly billion-dollar business from the ground up before you’ve hit thirty, you can do this. I have faith in you.”
Of all times for him to tell me that. “You’re right,” I decided, bolstered by his long-overdue praise. All I had to do was figure out how to make it work.
If I couldn’t make things right with the woman I suspected I loved, what was the point of anything?