Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
JULIA
J ulia drummed her fingers on the polished mahogany desk as she chewed her lower lip. Her eyes fell on her wedding photo. It was after the intense moments that her heart ached the most.
Soon, they’d no longer share those. It was easy to understand why she’d grown so close to Grant. But it wouldn’t be easy when she said goodbye to him. And that would happen sooner rather than later. The second contract was nearing its end. And she couldn’t imagine another surprise like what had happened at the end of the last one.
Would she even accept if something did come up? How much longer could she work next to him without admitting her feelings?
She winced as she bit her lip too hard, drawing a little blood. Sighing, she slid her eyes closed. She needed to stop fretting and start accepting the inevitable.
A chiming interrupted her thoughts, and she pulled herself from her rumination as she reached a shaky hand toward her phone. She blew out a breath before she rubbed her thumb against the button to light the display.
As long as she didn’t turn on the screen, there was hope. But the minute she read the message, she may find herself disappointed. Ava Collins didn’t owe her anything. She hated that she’d even reached out, requesting a favor after not keeping in touch with the woman. But desperate times…
She finally forced herself to click on the display. She didn’t want to wait too long and lose the opportunity to have a conversation with Ava if she hadn’t flat-out refused the request or dodged it.
She read the message on the screen. Hey Julia! No worries. I haven’t exactly been excellent at keeping in touch either. Your message sounds kind of dire. How can I help?
Julia blew out a sigh of relief—she hadn’t refused her. But that didn’t mean she’d actually agree to anything Julia was about to ask.
She pressed her lips together as she typed another message. Yeah, it sort of is. I can text it all to you, but it may be easier to explain over the phone. But since I’m asking you for a favor, I’ll work however you’d like.
She sent the message and stared at her screen as she awaited a response. No chat bubble appeared. Maybe she’d missed her opportunity, and Ava had left her phone behind for another project.
“Come on, Ava,” she whispered.
A moment later, her phone rang. Her heart lifted before it hammered against her chest as she swiped to accept the call from her friend. “Ava, hi.”
“Hey, Julia. What’s up? You sound really…desperate. Everything okay?”
“Yes, and no. I’m…facing a problem that I can’t fix on my own.”
“Okay?”
She heard the uncertainty in Ava’s voice. The woman probably wondered why, after years of merely liking each other’s social media posts, she’d suddenly texted her as though they were best friends.
“I…” Julia swallowed hard. “I hate to ask this, but…is there any chance you are still in contact with Alex?”
“Yes. Actually, he’s sitting right next to me.”
Julia’s brow furrowed. She hadn’t realized they still hung out together, she had just hoped for contact info. But this was even better. She breathed out a sigh of relief. Another step forward. She hoped the next step she took didn’t end with a brick wall shoved in her face. “Oh, uhh…”
“I’ll put you on speaker, and you can tell us both. Just a second.”
The speaker muffled, and Julia’s pulse raced as she tried to formulate the words she’d say to Alex Stone. She hadn’t anticipated speaking to him now. She thought she’d get contact information and send him a nicely worded email or text.
“Okay, Julia, you’re on with both of us.”
“Hi, Alex. It’s been a while.”
“It definitely has been.”
“I’m not sure if you remember me–”
“Of course, I do, kid. You passed your required computer science course because of me. I fixed your double-linked list.”
Julia grinned at the words. “Yes, you did. In two seconds flat.”
“Ahhh, I think it was more like one-and-a-half seconds, but who’s counting.”
Julia chuckled, recalling the computer whiz’s ego when it came to tech. She hoped it could help them now.
“So, what can I do you for, kid?”
“I’m not exactly a kid anymore,” Julia said.
“Who is?” Ava asked with a laugh.
“You two are still a little younger than me. Anyway, uh, I have an issue, and I don’t know if there’s anything that I can do about it. I need a professional assessment.”
“Shoot,” Alex said.
Julia swallowed hard. “This is a little hard to explain, but the long and short of it is there are some…compromising photos of my stepdaughter that someone has gotten a hold of. They’re using them as leverage to make life pretty uncomfortable. In the age of cloud storage, though, there’s no way to get rid of them, really, right?”
She pressed her lips together as she waited for a response.
“Were they posted on socials or what?” Alex asked.
“No. They’re not public. Not yet. We’re trying to stop that from happening.”
“You paying someone specific?”
Julia fluttered her eyelashes as she considered her response. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“Well, that’s never going to work,” Ava said. “They’ll just keep demanding more. And by the way, when did you get married?”
“Almost two years ago.”
“Aw, that’s great. To Luke?”
“No,” she answered. “Not Luke.”
Thankfully, they let it slide, continuing on with the conversation at hand. “Well, the good news is,” Alex answered, “if they’re not already out in the wild, there may be a chance at containing them. Once they get plastered all over social media, it’s impossible to make sure every trace is scrubbed.”
Her heart lifted a little at his words. Did they have a chance? “They’re not yet, but…how can we be certain we’ve gotten them all?”
“If they’re tied to a specific person, we just need some access to them and a few accounts, then I’ll let my little bots crawl across all their accounts and major spots on the web for image storage and scrub them all. I’ll leave no stone unturned…pun intended, kid.”
Julia sucked in a breath as she bobbed her head up and down. This all sounded promising. But could it be trusted? She’d never known Alex Stone to fail, though. His massive tech ego was backed up by his exceptional skill. “Well, this sounds hopeful, at least. Umm…”
She pinched her eyebrows, trying to come up with a delicate way to ask him for the favor.
“If you’re trying to think of a polite way to ask me to do this, don’t,” Alex said, interrupting her whirling thoughts.
Her heart sank. She’d pushed it too far. He had no interest in stepping away from his billion-dollar tech company to deal with her personal tragedy.
“I’m happy to do it.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, Alex, thank you. How do we go about this? And what can I give you in return?”
“Nothing, kid. A favor for a friend. We should do this right away, though, before this joker decides they’re going to do something stupid. I’ll get the chopper up. I can be in Harbor Cove in a few hours.”
“I’m not in Harbor Cove, actually,” she said. “I’m in New Orleans now.”
“Wow, that’s a big move for a small-town Mainer,” Ava said.
“Yeah, it is,” she answered with a chuckle.
“All right. I’ll take the jet. I’ll leave in the morning, and be there by the afternoon tomorrow. Sound good?”
“That sounds perfect. Alex, Ava, thank you so much. I can’t tell you how much this means to me and will mean to Grant and Sierra.”
“Grant,” Ava repeated. “Your husband?”
“Yes, I…married Grant Harrington.”
“Grant Harrington,” Alex repeated, his voice sounding intrigued. “Energy mogul. I think we sold him some chips a while back, but I never met him. Interesting. This’ll be fun.”
Julia’s heart settled back into a normal rhythm since there was no horrid history between them. “You can come straight to Harrington House when you get here. I’ll send a driver to the airport to pick you up.”
“Cool,” Alex said. “See you tomorrow, kid. And don’t worry. We’ll get this solved. Alex Stone is, after all, the ace of cyberspace.”
Julia chuckled at the nickname that he’d apparently kept since college. “Yes, you are. Thank you. See you tomorrow.”
They said their final goodbyes, and Julia ended the call. She rubbed at her forehead, trying to take solace in the small win. She’d feel better, though, when they’d scrubbed any traces of these pictures from Lydia’s clutches.
She considered passing the news along to Sierra. Maybe it would ease some of her upset, though she was certain it wouldn’t go far to remove the pain of her mother being the one who did this to her.
Before she could force herself to her feet to check on her stepdaughter, a knock sounded at her door. She spun in her chair to find Kyle leaning against the jamb, his features tense.
Her stomach twisted into a knot. Grant had insisted on speaking with him privately. From the look on Kyle’s face, that conversation had not gone well.
“Hey,” she said. “You look upset.”
“I am upset,” he answered as he shuffled inside and pulled a chair closer to her.
He blew out a long sigh as he balanced his elbows on his knees, sinking his head into his hands.
“What happened?” Before she could console one of her stepchildren, she’d need to settle the other.
“My father happened. As usual. On the heels of the major screw-up with Lydia, it’s just the last thing I needed.”
Julia studied him, his behavior obviously agitated. For every step they took forward, they were shoved back ten.
“You haven’t screwed up with Lydia. I have every faith we can fix that. And if we can’t…then we can’t. Maybe it’s for the best. I don’t like what you’re doing anyway.”
He flicked his eyes up to her before he reached for her hand. “Thank you, Julia. You’re always supportive. But I feel like I failed you. Especially after what he said.”
Julia tried to wrangle her thoughts. Grant and Kyle’s relationship was tenuous at best. They often misconstrued the other’s statements. “What did he say?”
“So much.” He leapt from his seat, pacing the floor. “We’re never going to have a relationship. Ever. It just…it’s not in the cards.”
“Kyle, what did he say?”
Kyle’s fingers curled into fists as his jaw tightened. Julia sucked in a breath. He was quickly spiraling out of control, and she needed to stop it before it led to another issue that they didn’t have the time or bandwidth to handle.
She rose, stopping him from pacing. “You need to sit down and take a breath.”
“I can’t do this anymore, Julia,” he answered.
She wasn’t sure what he was referring to, but they’d have to dig into whatever happened between him and Grant to find out. “Okay, let’s sit down and talk about it.”
He glanced at her, an unknown emotion clouding his eyes before he nodded and slumped into his seat.
Julia eased into the supple leather of her office chair. “Now, what happened?”
Kyle shook his head. “He doesn’t trust me. He said it again. He thinks I’m out to get him, and this whole thing with Lydia is a farce.”
Her mind whirled as she tried to piece together the information. Grant had said the same thing while she’d been there. He may have reiterated it to him in private, but she wondered about what led to it. “Did he say why?”
Kyle stared at the floor, his jaw flexing again.
Julia sucked in a breath as she delicately tried to guide the conversation without pushing him to his boiling point. “What else was said? That’s what he led with?”
“No,” Kyle admitted. “No, he said…”
“He said what?” she prodded.
Kyle flicked his gaze to the night sky outside her window. “He said he wanted to clear the air and discuss what I’d said about not feeling like family. Things got a little…heated. And he repeated what he’d said before.”
Julia took the words as a confirmation of her assumption. Grant hadn’t accused him without some provocation, and as was usual in their relationship, they’d probably both said things that led to those words spilling out. “Things always tend to get a little heated between the two of you.”
“Yep. It’s never going to change. He’s a bastard.”
“That’s not fair.”
He snapped his eyes to hers, his features stern with disagreement. “Isn’t it? What is fair? Accepting his terrible behavior?”
“His behavior isn’t terrible. You just have a really strained relationship with him. It colors everything between the two of you.”
“I can’t stop that. I can’t unsee the stuff he’s done.”
“I know. Which is why I think you’re right.” She heaved a sigh, coming to the hard realization that she hadn’t wanted to admit even to herself.
He lifted his eyebrows, hope crossing his features. “Have you finally seen the light when it comes to Grant Harrington?”
“I don’t see him the way you do, no. But I think this plan of ours has to stop. You shouldn’t be doing this.”
Kyle drew his chin back toward his chest. “No. I want to keep going.”
“Kyle, it’s not a good idea. You don’t believe in him. And putting this kind of pressure on you to have to deal with Lydia when you’re struggling to see anything redeeming in him isn’t a good thing.”
“I can handle it.”
“I don’t want you to. You came in here wound so tight–“
“I can handle it,” he reiterated as he leaned forward to grab her hand.
“You said you couldn’t do it anymore.”
“I’m not going to let you down.”
“You’re not,” she insisted. “If you don’t want to do this anymore, I don’t want you to.”
He heaved a sigh as he interlaced his fingers with hers. “I appreciate your concern. I just felt overwhelmed with his attitude. That’s what I can’t handle. Lydia…I can deal with her. I’ll fix what I broke. I’m not letting you down.”
“Okay, we’ll keep going, but…I don’t want you doing anything with her that puts you in a bad position.”
“Okay,” he agreed.
“And I really think one of two things needs to happen. Either you and Grant need to stay away from each other, at least until this is over, or we need to sit down and have a serious conversation about how you two can communicate effectively without tearing each other apart until we’ve solved this.”
Kyle chewed his lower lip, shaking his head. “He’s never going to be wrong, though. That’s the thing. He just…blames me for everything.”
“Kind of like you do with him?”
He heaved a sigh, refusing to meet her gaze.
“You don’t like hearing things like that either. You two are so much alike–“
“Please,” Kyle said, slumping back in his chair, “don’t say that.”
“It’s not a bad thing. Maybe you ought to take the night off, though, and think about which of those options works best for you.”
“I’m not certain we’ll ever be able to communicate effectively.”
“Then you should just avoid each other. Tensions are running really high right now for everyone.”
“You’re not acting like a jerk, though.”
“I don’t have the history with you that he does,” she answered.
He swallowed hard. “I don’t want to put everything on you. Maybe if we all sit down together, we can work something out. It seems to go much better when you’re involved.”
She offered him a tight-lipped smile as she squeezed his hand. “Okay. We’ll talk. But tomorrow, after you’ve both had some time to think.”
He bobbed his head up and down. “Okay. Did you get anywhere with your plan? You said something about it before you left.”
“I did,” she said, happy for the change of subject. “I think I found someone who can get rid of all traces of those photos so Lydia can’t use them as leverage.”
“Really?”
She bobbed her head with a smile, pleased with the hope they finally had. “He’s coming out tomorrow. With any luck, he’ll be able to get this done quickly.”
“How did you find him?”
“I knew him in college, actually. Not well. His wife…or former wife, I don’t know if they’re still married, was my sorority sister. I called her for help.”
“Nice, Julia.” He grinned at her. “Maybe we’ll have one thing settled.”
“Maybe. And with that in mind, I should go check on Sierra. Maybe if she has a ray of hope about those pictures never getting out, she’ll feel better.”
“Right,” he said, disappointment crossing his features.
“I’m not dismissing you for her. But I do need to check on her. She’s really upset.”
“I get it,” he said as they both rose. “I’m going to head to bed. See you in the morning?”
“Yep. Good night.” She offered him a smile before he pulled her into a hug, then left for his room.
She blew out a long breath, allowing her brain to switch gears from one crisis to the next. She summoned the energy to leave her room and navigate the opulent halls to Sierra’s.
A quiet knock didn’t garner any results, but she doubted it would over the music blasting inside. She pounded again, this time louder. “Sierra!”
With a shake of her head, she tried the knob, finding the door unlocked. She inched it open, peering through the crack before she let it swing wider. “Sierra?”
The woman paraded out of her bathroom in a sequin minidress with sky-high heels. The amount of makeup she wore made it obvious she planned to head out. “Are you going out?”
“Yep,” she said as she wobbled on her heels for a second before she righted herself and crossed to the nightstand.
Julia arched an eyebrow as Sierra lifted a bottle of champagne to her lips and chugged from it. “How much of that have you had to drink?”
Sierra steadied the bottle and lifted it in the air. “Most of it.”
A giggle escaped her before she polished it off and tossed the empty bottle on the bed. “All of it.”
“I hope James is driving you to wherever you’re going, which I don’t think is a good idea.”
“Nope, sorry, Step-mommy. James and I broke up.”
“What?” Julia asked.
“Yep. We’re done. I’m going out to find someone new.”
“What happened?”
“I happened,” Sierra said, suddenly less amused than she had been a moment earlier.
Sierra's hand trembled as she fixed a smudge of lipstick, revealing the turmoil roiling inside her. The emotion in her eyes wasn't a result of champagne; it was a torrent of pain.
She was drinking herself into oblivion to cover it. Julia had no doubt whatever happened between Sierra and James had been Sierra’s own doing. She was taking a blowtorch to her life after the upsetting news.
“Sierra…maybe we should sit down and talk,” Julia tried, keeping her voice soft as she gently laid a hand on her stepdaughter’s arm.
Sierra glanced down at it before she shook her off, glaring at her. “About what?”
“What happened. How you feel about it.”
“I don’t feel anything thanks to that bottle of Dom…and a few other things.”
“Sierra! Did you take something?”
“Just something to take the edge off, okay? I want to have a good time. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m heading out.” Sierra stomped her way past Julia into the hall.
Julia raced after her, trying to keep up. “I do mind. You’ve been drinking. And you mixed it with something else. You could get seriously hurt if you get behind the wheel of a car. Or hurt someone else.”
Sierra pounded down the stairs before she whipped around to face Julia. “Well, that’s par the course. That’s what I do. I hurt people.”
She stormed out the door toward the waiting sports car. Julia hurried after her. “Sierra, don’t do this. Let me drive you.”
“Pass!” the woman shouted as she slid in behind the wheel and revved the engine.
Her mind whirled with fear and desperation as she pressed a trembling hand against her forehead. “Sierra, please!” she pleaded, her voice cracking.
Where was Grant? Had he not overheard their argument? She shook her head. It didn’t matter where he was. He wasn’t here. She had to deal with it.
Julia’s heart raced as panic set in. With no time to weigh her options, she yanked open the passenger door and slid into the seat as the reality of danger crushed her like a tidal wave.