Chapter 32
Mason: We need to talk.
ZEKE
A sharp rap draws my attention from the report I’m reading, and I jerk my gaze to the door of my office. Jacob stands apprehensively, his mouth pinched down. “I’m sorry, Mr. Guerra. There is an Anthony Sweeney here, insisting he see you.”
I lean back in my chair, steepling my fingers in front of my chest as I contemplate.
Now this, I didn’t expect. There is no way Sweeney knows I’m behind his recent fall from grace, so this has to be about something else.
I take a second to consider my move. “Send him in,” I reply curtly, turning my attention back to the report.
I pluck a Mont Blanc pen off the side and circle a figure I want to come back to. The door closes softly and then reopens again a few seconds later. “I’m busy Sweeney, what is it?” I drawl without looking up, underlining a percentage that could be better.
“My apologies, Zeke. I felt it best to come here and have this discussion with you face to face. Man to man.”
The oily tone grabs my attention and not in a good way. Looking up, I see he’s got a stoically contrite expression, but his steel-colored eyes are lit up like someone who has the upper hand.
“I’m listening.” Abandoning the report, the leather in my chair groans softly as I relax back into it.
Sweeney holds up a paper file in his hand and folds himself down into one of the deep-seated cream chairs on the other side of my desk.
This puts him a good head lower than me, which makes me smirk inside.
“I’m sorry to tell you that your fiancée is up to her old ways again.
” He sighs, an apologetic look on his sharp features.
I go very still, my mind racing at a thousand miles per hour.
Mention of Chloe is not at all what I expected, and I have to work hard to school my outward expression of bored indifference.
I stare at him blankly. He wants me to ask what he’s talking about, but I don’t give him that satisfaction.
“I’m sure you know by now that Chloe and I were involved while she worked for my company—”
“What?” I snap, too caught unawares to berate myself for folding.
Sweeney pauses, one shit-colored eyebrow rising in mock surprise.
Anger rears hot and fast as I process this information at rapid fire.
Chloe and Sweeney. Sweeney and Chloe. My gut roils and the pen buckles beneath my palm.
I feel the subtle snap of metal, but mask it by lowering my clenched fist beneath the desk.
“Ah, you didn’t know,” he purrs with a flourish, doing his best to look contrite.
“Well, then let me enlighten you. Chloe and I were in a relationship for three years, until things became, ah, untenable between us.” He lets the sentence linger there for a moment, and I stare at him, debating if I should give in to the urge to leap across the desk and punch that sly half smile off his face.
“She became…unstable. I called it off and asked her not to contact me anymore. She didn’t listen.
In the end, I had to take matters further and get lawyers involved. ”
My teeth grind together audibly, every word burrowing into my flesh and tearing at it.
Even through the red mist, a small voice at the back of my mind urges caution.
Reminding me who I am hearing this from.
“Why are you telling me this now?” My mind snaps back to the fundraiser, where Chloe came face to face with her ex right fucking in front of me and pretended she barely knew him.
“I’ve got a new number, but she must have gotten ahold of it somehow because the calls started again a few weeks ago. She turned up at my place and I’ll admit, I let her in and we talked. I was concerned that the professional help she’s getting isn’t enough. You do know she’s in therapy?”
Fuck. Court-mandated therapy. She told me herself, but somehow, I hadn’t put much weight into it.
“And if I said I didn’t believe you, I presume that is your proof?
” I slide open a drawer beside me and discard the broken pen before indicating the file balanced on his knee with a stiff hand.
He nods, casting it roughly onto the top of my desk so it slides across the varnished mahogany.
I swipe up the file with leaden hands and flick it open.
Phone records with Chloe’s number splashed over them periodically dated within the last few weeks slide out.
Beneath them is a sealed court record that outlines exactly what Sweeney just fucking told me.
Fury incinerates my control and I rise from my chair, taking the file with me and striding over to the windows while I scan the text like someone unable to tear their eyes away from a slow-motion car crash.
She stalked him. Something deep and visceral, something I don’t recognize, stamps its foot in my chest.
“It’s all in there. She admits to everything and takes a plea deal.”
With my face hidden from view, it crumples into a heavy scowl. “These could be doctored,” I growl, clutching at straws. Anything to avoid accepting this. That the woman I…care for in a way I don’t understand would be hiding this whole other, messy side of her life.
“So have your people confirm it independently,” Sweeney replies calmly.
“Thank you for stopping by, Sweeney. I'll handle it from here.” I straighten my shoulders and turn, arranging my face into a perfect mask of indifference. Needing him to get the fuck out.
“That’s not all.” He twists one corner of his lips up.
A heavy boulder weighs down in my gut, and I wait.
“There are also timestamped CCTV pictures in there of Chloe arriving at my apartment. When I explained that I wasn’t interested in rekindling our relationship, she gave me a parting gift.
I can only presume she thought it would curry favor. ”
My eyes fall back to the file, and I flick quickly through to see two blown-up images.
A lick of flame red hair and her unmistakably beautiful face as she stands in front of an apartment door.
The second image shows Sweeney in the picture too, placing a kiss on her cheek. They’re dated eighteen days ago.
“Which was?” My voice is barely above a grumble as I stare at his lips on her alabaster skin, my stomach coiling.
“She knew I was developing a new software to compete with yours and offered me some code that she thought would help. It’s since been brought to my attention that she stole this from you.
” My eyes flare, tearing away from the photo to look at him.
It’s the final nail in the coffin. The perfect explanation as to how he got my coding, right here in my hands.
“Get the fuck out of my office.” His eyes round fractionally and he lets out an awkward chuckle as though he thinks I might be joking.
My legs stride forward, the file cascading onto my desk as I pass, marching right up to him.
Fisting my hand in the lapels of his Brioni suit, I heave him up off the chair and begin dragging him to the door.
He yells and splutters, grappling at my grip like a toddler. “I said, get the fuck out of my office!” I bark, flinging open the door and casting him onto the Italian marble. Seething, I turn on a wide-eyed Jacob. “Get Chloe up here. Now.”
“I’m trying to fucking help you, Guerra!” Sweeney barks, pulling himself up off the floor.
I glower at him, taking in his crumpled suit and mussed hair as he scowls at me. “What on God’s green earth made you think I need your fucking help?”
His scowl deepens, red splotches appearing on his clean-shaven cheeks. “Suit yourself, but when she denies it, just ask what she needed your money for.”
I’m already halfway turned around when he finishes, and I turn slowly to glare at him, every muscle in my body vibrating. “What did you just say?”
“Weren’t you curious? One hundred and eleven thousand dollars and seventy-three cents? Awfully specific.”
Yes. It is. “Leave now before I have security remove you.” I turn and walk back into my office, snapping the door shut behind me.
The space is quiet and familiar, but suddenly I want to tear it apart.
I suck in a breath through my nostrils for four seconds and then blow it out through my mouth.
Repeating again, I close my eyes and try to hear outside of my own heartbeat whooshing in my ears.
On the sixth rotation, I give up. Snapping my eyes open, I grab the closest thing on hand and hurl it across the room.
The thick glass Innovation Award thuds heavily against the opposite wall, breaking apart from the base and toppling heavily to the floor.
I stare at the large buckle in the plaster as my chest rises and falls in rapid succession.
Chloe and Sweeney. Stalking. My mind reels with what feels like mental whiplash.
The door cracks open behind me and I turn a fraction to see Chloe step in. Her delicate features are relaxed, if a little flushed in the cheeks. “Everything okay?”
“Sit,” I snarl, pointing to the chair beside my desk as I stalk around to the other side. When I round to face her, she’s hesitating by the doorway with a perplexed look on her face.
“Sit. Down.” My voice is rough and gravelly, and I flex my hands, aching to break something else.
Seeing her standing there, looking as heart-stopping and beautiful as ever in a smart cream dress is a fresh graze on my open wound.
What’s worse is that she’s so familiar to me now, but all of a sudden, she feels like a total stranger.
The distance between us feels like it spans the Grand Canyon.
And to think, I had actually opened my mind up to the possibility of more with her in the three weeks since Diego’s party.
Me, who doesn’t do relationships. She clears her throat and closes the door behind her, walking slowly over to the indicated chair and folding herself neatly down.
I lean onto my desk, bracing my knuckles against the wood as she smooths her skirt over her thighs.