Chapter Twenty-One
Violet
Chase hung around for another few hours, pretending he wasn’t keeping an eye on me as I unpacked my suitcase, got dressed in jeans and an old T-shirt, and grabbed my tablet to start cruising the classifieds for a job.
Typical of my brother, he dropped the whole subject of my failed plan to get his company back and my stupidity in getting involved with Aiden Winters.
Chase wasn’t one to nag. He had his say, and he was done.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t keeping an eye on me.
He’d said more than once, it didn’t matter how old I got, he’d always be my big brother.
When he was satisfied I planned to stay out of trouble, he changed and headed to the gym in our complex, saying, “After I work out, we can go and get some lunch. Maybe buy groceries.”
My stomach was just starting to rumble when a fist pounded on the door. Checking the clock I realized it was about time for Chase to be finished with his workout. He must have forgotten his key. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Leaving my tablet on the coffee table, I went to the front door and swung it open. “I thought you put a key in your gym bag.”
“You should check the peephole before you open the door.”
Standing in the doorframe, his hands in the pockets of his suit pants, was Aiden Winters. And he did not look happy.
He was right, I should have checked the peephole before I opened the door.
What was he doing here?
Answering my question he pulled his phone from his pocket and shoved it in my face. My email was on the screen. “Would you care to explain this, Violet?”
“It’s my resignation letter,” I said, slowly. “I thought that was clear.”
Pushing past me into the condo, Aiden said, “And I thought I was clear. You don’t quit until I fire you. I told you if you tried to run I would find you.”
I closed my eyes and tried to summon the ice queen. I needed to straighten my spine, raise my chin, and give him one of my withering looks.
I couldn’t do it. I was tired somewhere deep inside that had nothing to do with a lack of sleep.
Since the minute I laid eyes on him, Aiden Winters drew me like a magnet.
I’d wanted him, against my better judgment, and every day I worked with him, I wanted him a little bit more.
Over the weekend my defenses had cracked too far to repair.
He’d wormed his way into my heart, and I couldn’t find it in me to shut him out.
Abandoning all pretense, I slumped against the kitchen counter and stared at my brightly polished toes. “What do you want with me, Aiden? I thought we cleared everything up yesterday on the plane.”
Aiden shoved his phone back in his pocket and stood in front of me, so close the tips of his shoes touched my toes. He crossed his arms over his chest and glowered down at me.
“Maybe that conversation cleared something up for you,” he said, “but I’m confused as hell. Why are you mad at me for saying I don’t care that you were spying on me? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
“How can you not get it?” Copying his posture, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him.
“Maybe I lied when I got my job, and maybe I was poking around in your company where I shouldn’t have been.
But you stole from us. I’m not the one who’s wrong here.
And the fact that you don’t even care about what you did?
I can’t let that go. I’m sick that part of me even wants to. ”
Aiden was speechless, so thrown by my accusation he took an involuntary step back. “What are you talking about? What did I steal from you? I never laid eyes on you until that day in the elevator.”
What was I talking about?
What was he talking about?
Hadn’t he said yesterday that he knew exactly why I was there?
Tired of dancing around the subject I said flatly, “I’m talking about CD4 Analytics. I’m talking about you stealing my brother’s company, signing the papers, and then booting him out.”
Aiden’s eyes narrowed on my face and he shook his head slowly. “Who exactly is your brother? Gage oversaw the CD4 Analytics acquisition, but I thought we bought the company from a guy named Harrison.”
“You didn’t buy it from Harrison, you bought it with Harrison. Harrison switched the contracts on Chase, changed some of the language at the last minute, giving him—you—the power to vote Chase out and take his shares. Which you did three days after the contract was signed.”
Aiden shook his head again. “Gage knows more details than I do, but if your brother is the founder of CD4 Analytics, we didn’t fire him. He bailed on us. We tried to track him down in the beginning, and once we found him, he refused to take our calls.”
“No, he didn’t,” I insisted. “He thought the terms of the agreement had him keeping his position. He wasn’t done developing the new tech. You know that because it’s a mess. Your team can’t figure out how to make it work without him.”
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Aiden said wryly, “I’m aware of that. The guy who used to be Carlisle’s boss, the guy who originally spearheaded the acquisition, got fired over that. Considering the most appealing part of the company isn’t working, we’re not exactly getting our money’s worth.”
“Good, since neither did Chase.”
“So you think I screwed your brother out of his company, and you got a job at Winters, Inc. to do what? What was your plan?” he demanded.
“I thought if I could find some dirt on you, I could use it to force you to give Chase his company back,” I admitted.
“Violet, that’s ridiculous. First of all, there isn’t anything to find.
And second, I can’t give you the company back.
I can talk to your brother. We can work something out.
We need his help. But Vi, I promise you, we may play rough sometimes, but we have never deliberately screwed someone out of their company.
That’s not how we operate. CD4 Analytics was a lot more valuable with your brother still on board.
Why would Harrison have forced him out before he sold the company to us? ”
“You weren’t working with Harrison?” I asked, stymied.
“No,” he said. “He approached us about the sale months before it happened, and part of the deal was that the lead techs come with the company.”
“So, he bought the company from Chase, switched the contracts to seize Chase’s stock,” I said, putting the pieces together, one by one, “and then sold it to you—”
“—and made a mint off your brother’s shares,” Aiden finished for me. “Fucking hell. That’s underhanded. It’s criminal.”
“Yeah, except we can’t prove it. Chase went after him, but we don’t have a case. Chase signed the contracts he didn’t realize had been switched. It was stupid, and it lost him his company.”
Aiden pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, thinking. “Would your brother be open to an approach from Gage? We’d be prepared to make him a generous offer to come take over and get the acquisition back on track.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He’s been doing consulting. He just finished up a job, but I don’t know what he has on next. I don’t know if he’ll talk to you. He wasn’t happy when he came home and figured out what I’d been doing.”
“He didn’t know?” Answering his own question Aiden said, “Of course, he didn’t know. Did he kick your ass when he found out?”
“How’d you guess?” I asked, both annoyed and amused.
Aiden slanted me a superior look. “Because I have a little sister, and if she came up with such a dumbass plan, I’d kick her ass when I found out.”
“Yeah, well, he also found out I spent the weekend with you, so I wouldn’t joke too much about ass kicking. I had to physically stop him from hunting you down this morning.”
“I’m not going to hide from your brother, sweetheart. If he wants to come after me for getting involved with his little sister, that’s fine. I get it. I’ll deal with him, and he’ll just have to get used to me.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I confessed.
I couldn’t keep up. We’d always assumed Aiden was working with Harrison. The turnover was too fast. One minute Chase was signing the contracts and a few days later Winters, Inc. owned the company. It seemed impossible that Harrison had been working alone.
The real question was, did I believe Aiden? If he was telling the truth, then he hadn’t admitted to playing me.
“Yesterday you said you knew what I was doing at the company and you didn’t care. Since you didn’t know I was Chase’s sister, what did you think I was doing there?”
Aiden shrugged one shoulder, looking uncomfortable. “Exactly what you were doing. Looking for dirt on me. Except I didn’t think you were doing it for your brother, I figured you had a client. When I asked you for the truth, I just wanted you to tell me who the client was.”
“And you didn’t care that I was spying on you?” I asked, disbelieving.
He should have cared.
Then again, he should have fired me the second he found out what I was up to.
“Vi, you were under surveillance since the first time you got into my emails. We have every keystroke on file and you’ve been isolated from anything sensitive since almost the beginning.
At first, I kept you close because I was hoping you’d lead me to whoever sent you in the first place.
Then I kept you close because I didn’t want you to leave. ”
“Aiden,” I said, at a loss for words. “I’m sorry.
It was a stupid plan. I just…I was with Chase from the beginning of CD4.
He worked so hard, and he loved that company.
I couldn’t stand watching him lose everything like that.
I wanted to fix it, and I didn’t think about whether that was fair to you, or anyone else. I just wanted to help my brother.”
“You could have landed yourself in a lot of trouble, Vi,” Aiden said, stepping closer and squeezing my shoulders in his strong hands. The heat of his body radiated between us, drawing me closer. I wanted to lean forward and fall into him.
“I know,” I said. “I’m not usually that reckless. I just, I needed—”