As far as Piper was concerned, Red MacLellan could take his team and his court case, and choke on them. The overgrown oaf.
“Piper, he’s an honest man. He may have held off informing you of the situation for far too long, but that whole time he was trying to come up with a fix for it. I do not believe it was Red’s intention to defraud you.”
“Oh, terrific,” she growled. “First my dad, and now you. He charmed the pants off you, didn’t he?”
“He—”
“Well, that’s just great. So glad you let him pull one over on you, too. I have to be honest, Perry. I thought you were a better judge of character than that.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Piper wished she could retract them. She’d gone too far. That kind of pettiness wasn’t like her, and Perry didn’t deserve it.
Her attorney sighed. “I realize you are upset, but I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just insult my intelligence or my legal acumen, Ms. Fulham.”
“I’m sorry. But he lied to me, Perry.”
“He withheld pertinent information until such time as he could present you with a solution.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?”
“Who’s everyone? Just so I’m clear.”
Piper sat in silence, feeling every inch the petulant child.
“Okay, hear me out. I’m not a fool. I understand that all of this is colored by the fact that the two of you have a personal relationship at stake.”
“Had, Perry. Past tense.”
“If you say so. But I know you’ll feel a heck of a lot better about the new contract—and your new projects—if you can clear the air between the two of you. Bite the bullet and listen to what MacLellan has to say.”
“And if I say no?”
“As your legal representation, I cannot compel you to do this. But as your friend…well, I hope I’ve banked enough goodwill with you over the years that you’ll admit I have only your best interests at heart.”
“Perry, come on. You’re really going to play that card?”
“I’ve been on this earth a long time, young lady. You bet I am.”
“God. You and Dad are two peas in a pod, aren’t you?”
“Did you know that MacLellan disclosed your relationship to his board when they voted on the new deal?”
“He…what? He did?”
“Sure did. And then recused himself from the vote, saying he’d done all he could for the company, but that the decision was in their hands.”
“I…wow. Okay,” she stammered. A man did not disclose a personal relationship to his company’s board of directors unless he considered it to be relevant and ongoing. Did he? Did Red really think it wasn’t over between them?
“Were you also aware,” Perry continued, “that he reorganized Trident and put off some big PKM projects in order to get you reimbursed as soon as possible? So you wouldn’t have to wait for the court case to wrap up, or try to get the money out of the Dentons yourself?”
Piper bit her lip. “No. I was not aware of that.”
“I didn’t think so. Except…now you are. And you are going to have to decide what to do with that information, Cupcake.”
AFTER THEY HUNG up, Piper tried to forget their conversation. She hit the internet and bought herself three impractical, badass pairs of shoes and sprung for the overnight shipping. She scoured her guest bathroom, then vacuumed all the snack crumbs from her laptop keyboard. She thought about investing. She thought about Eric Whittier and his sister.
None of it was enough to get her mind off Perry’s words, though. Thanks to him and her dad, Piper wasn’t going to be able to avoid the subject of Red any longer. So, for the first time since that horrible morning, she let herself relive what had actually happened.
When she’d first seen that news report on TV, Piper had immediately assumed that big, bad PKM had been looting little Trident’s coffers. She couldn’t conceive of John and Lisa Denton—or, for that matter, their son Jim or his fuck buddy Rachel—being outright thieves.
They’d smiled at her over coffee too many times. They’d asked Piper about her cats. Hell, a few times, they’d even emailed her funny cat memes. What kind of people did those things when they were stealing from you?
But Piper had jumped to an incorrect conclusion about PKM, and about Trident. In her defense, everything had happened so fast. She’d felt stunned, and when that wore off, fiercely betrayed. It was no wonder she’d kicked Red to the curb so abruptly.
As the full story unfolded, however, the true nature of the crimes committed against her had been revealed. Piper had to accept that she’d been wrong about PKM, and wrong about Trident. Loathe as she was to admit it, though, she had never reevaluated whether she’d given Red a fair shake.
In retrospect, she had to wonder if perhaps she’d been a tad hasty. Piper had not actually asked Red why he hadn’t told her about the stolen royalties. She hadn’t asked him a damn thing. She’d simply tossed the baby out with the bathwater, dried her hands, and went on her merry way.
Since then, she hadn’t let herself read a single text or email from Red. She hadn’t listened to any of the voicemails he’d left, either, just in case his sexy voice lessened her resolve. Where Red was concerned, Piper knew she was weak—and if she had any chance at all of resisting his pull, she had to go cold turkey.
Had that been fair, though? Red had asked her once if she was punishing him for Kyle’s transgressions, and at the time she’d been dead certain she wasn’t. Now things didn’t feel quite so cut-and-dried. Red, after all, had always been straightforward about his feelings and clear about his intentions.
Abruptly, Piper saw that there were gray areas littered all over this debacle. Rocks and hard places. Impossible choices. She saw them, but she hadn’t made any allowances for them. If she’d truly cared about Red as she’d claimed, she might have at least let him have his say.
Piper sat down heavily on the loveseat and sighed. Sonny rolled onto his back, so she stroked the soft black fur of his belly and considered the situation. Several weeks had passed since she’d started avoiding Red and he wasn’t a patient man. It seemed entirely possible that he’d already given up and moved on to someone else. It was even likely, wasn’t it?
Except deep in her heart, Piper knew it wasn’t. Red would never have said the things he had if he hadn’t meant them. He wasn’t the type. Piper suspected he’d shown her a side of himself that not many people got to see. And if he liked her enough to do that, Red wouldn’t give up on her easily.
He’d fight for her. Just like she should have fought for him—for them. Instead, Piper had thrown in the towel before she’d even broken a sweat. Guilt and shame washed over her.
Her attorney—her friend, as Perry had so helpfully pointed out—was an excellent judge of character. He was not the kind of person to be swayed by a movie-star face, or an excess of charm, or even a smarmy sales pitch. Perry assessed the facts, consulted his gut, and made his decisions.
Piper had never known him to be wrong, in all their long association. If Perry Shanahan had made up his mind to trust Red MacLellan, then he had a damn good reason to do so. Piper might be a dolt on her own sometimes, but she wasn’t so rash as to ignore his counsel.
The thing was, Piper’s hunches about people were almost always reliable, too. She could usually tell when people were shady, when they were lying, and when they were only out for themselves.
If she was brutally honest with herself, she had known all those things about Kyle—she just hadn’t wanted them to be true. And maybe she’d even had some doubts about the folks at Trident—otherwise, why bring Perry in so soon after they’d signed her?
Which suggested Piper could read people just as well as Perry. So, if Red had sailed right past every one of her defenses and hadn’t set off a single alarm on his way into her heart, then…uh-oh.
All this time, Piper had assumed he’d managed it because she was defective somehow. Broken in the parts that counted. But maybe sh
e wasn’t. Perhaps her Bad Guy radar was still somewhat operational. And if that was the case, Red hadn’t set it off because Red wasn’t actually a bad person. He was only a guy trying to do his best with a really shitty roll of the dice.
Piper slumped back into the cushions. Did she really believe that, or was she just looking for excuses to see him again? Was she trying to justify true assholery simply because she loved being kissed like she was the epicenter of someone’s world?
She knew, with sickening clarity, that wasn’t the case. Which implied…crud—it meant that if Red tried to contact her again, Piper probably needed to face the bossy bastard and let him say what he wanted to say. The only question was whether she could handle what came next.
THIRTY-SEVEN
AT LONG LAST, Red found the information he needed buried on his own fucking desk. After getting the stiff-arm from Piper for too many weeks to count, encountering brick wall after brick wall trying to reach her, it figured that the solution would appear right under his nose.
He was sitting there flipping dejectedly through files, not really reading anything because what was the point? No one was around anyway, so it wasn’t like he had an audience to pretend for.
But suddenly, deep within one Trident file, Red noticed a very large number—a number that could only be one thing. Piper’s wire transfer. He yanked the page closer, staring down at it, and there in the bottom corner, was a notation.
Red followed the trail deeper into the packet and found a copy of the wire transfer that had settled PKM’s case with Piper, and ensured she’d never have reason to speak to him again. And there it was, in innocuous black-and-white type: Piper’s new contact information.
Red wanted to howl in triumph. Instead, he picked up the phone.
“Wayne,” he barked, when his assistant answered, “I need the next flight out of New York.”
“That’s interesting. How exactly do you expect me to perform such a feat?”
“The way you usually do, I imagine. Call the hangar. Or an airline.”
Wayne paused, and Red could hear his small desk clock ticking. “You are obviously not aware that the entire region has been grounded because of this storm,” he said finally.
“Storm,” Red reiterated, feeling like he was missing something.
“You remember the ice storm we’re in the middle of? The reason you sent everyone home three hours ago?”
He did. Sort of. Had he been sitting here aimlessly fucking around for that long now?
“Which begs the question—what the heck are you still doing there?”
Red shook his head. “A train, then,” he managed. “It’ll take longer, but…”
“Red.”
Red flinched. His intrepid assistant never called him by his first name unless shit had gotten real.
“There are no planes, trains, or buses. Where do you need to go so badly?”
“Maryland,” Red told him glumly.
Wayne groaned. “Do you even know where you’re going this time?”
“Yes.” At least, he hoped he did. It was entirely possible Piper had used someone else’s address to receive the wire and this was a dead end.
There was silence over the line, stretching long enough that Red began to wonder if Wayne had hung up on him. But, finally, the other man relented.
“Do me a favor, okay? Go outside and try to find a cab or something to bring you home. I’ll see what I can do and call you in a little while.”
ULTIMATELY, IT TOOK a couple of hours and a lot of angst for Wayne to find him a ten-year-old SUV for sale in the Village. It was a little dented around the edges, but the snow tires were new, the engine was sound, and it had excellent four-wheel drive—unlike Red’s stupidly pretentious little sportscar or the Lincoln that Felix ferried him around in.
Red packed a bag and collared a second tenacious cabbie to take him over there, wired the seller his money while standing next to him on the sidewalk, and was on the road before nightfall. The streets of Manhattan were in abysmal shape, but luckily most of the residents had hunkered down for the night and he didn’t have to jockey much for position.
Once on the highway, the going was slightly better, but still tortuously slow. Red and a handful of semis progressed at a crawl from the outskirts of the city all the way to the Jersey line. Halfway through Pennsylvania, the weather eased somewhat, but Red was exhausted—and was forced to stop in a hotel for the rest of the night.
In the morning, the last leg of his trek went well, but what should have taken him around four hours ended up taking more than ten. Red checked into another hotel, this one close to the address he was hunting, and made an effort to clean himself up. At least when he rang Piper’s bell, he’d have had a shower and a shave, plus a boatload of coffee.
Now that he was so close to his destination, though, Red couldn’t quite make himself go to her. He might say all the right things and still be turned away. He was probably lucky that Piper hadn’t already taken out a restraining order on him since it was so patently clear she wanted nothing to do with him. But Red couldn’t give up until he told her he loved her, face to face.
He could not allow even a single shred of arrogance to surface when he did that. Piper would have every right to murder him on the spot if that happened. So, before Red went to Piper's new place, he did the one thing that was guaranteed to make him feel like the lowest worm on the planet—he drove past her old house.
He parallel-parked across the street to check things out. Sitting there in his manly new ride, he didn’t feel like much of a man. The guy he’d sent to make all Piper’s home dreams come true had somehow managed to finagle her family seat right out from under her. And by the looks of things, he was already hard at work fixing the place up.
So much for Red taking worries off her plate. Instead, his good intentions had resulted in the worst possible outcome for Piper. He shut off the truck and got out, then leaned against the cold metal to take a few bracing gulps of air.
Because of him, Piper had lost her favorite thing on earth. Red was absolutely crazy to think this trip was anything other than a fool’s errand.
Across the street, under a rhododendron in the front yard, a dark blob shifted and mewled. Red leaned forward and squinted, trying to make out what it was. A raccoon, perhaps, or a…cat? He stepped across the street and peered under the bush, hoping no neighbors were watching him.
The blob moved again, resolving clearly into the shape of a cat. A small, gray animal who looked an awful lot like…
“Fredo?”
Piper’s pet darted across the grass and wound around Red’s ankles, purring and shaking. Now he could see that it was definitely her cat, thinner and much worse for wear, with leaves and brambles stuck to his fur.
“Fredo! Oh my God, Fredo, I thought it was you,” Red said, scooping him up. Then he laughed, remembering all of Piper’s mafia jokes. “I knew it was you. You little stinker—what happened? Piper must be so worried about you.”
Holding the cat securely in his arms, Red took one more look around, then crossed quickly to his truck. He settled Fredo on the seat beside him and took stock. Piper’s beloved pet looked like he’d been living rough for quite a while. Red couldn’t bring him to her looking like this.
So he pulled up the mapping app on his phone, got his bearings, and set off determined to get this part right, at least. When Fredo saw his mom and brother again, he was going to have a full stomach, a fresh bath, and a clean bill of health.
IT WAS EARLY afternoon by the time Red got the cat fed and watered and in to see a nearby vet. Red drove to Piper’s new pad with his nerves jangling. He left Fredo in his cardboard carrier in the truck, then stood on her mat dumbly, staring at her door for the longest time before he could make himself hit the bell.
This was his last hurrah. Piper might turn him away. If she did, Red had to be able to turn around and leave, and never bother Piper again. Even if that went against every instinct he had. Even if it crushed h
im.
But the door finally swung open, and Piper stood inside looking as forlorn as Red had ever seen her. He wanted to fold her in his arms and make it all better, but he’d lost that right. He could only speak and hope it was enough.
Piper didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see him, and she didn’t move. Maybe Red was just that predictable, or maybe Wayne had warned her he was coming. Either way, it was now up to Red to get her to listen.
Despite his shower and his mission of mercy earlier, he must not have looked much better than her—because instead of slamming the door in his face, Piper simply sighed heavily.
“God, Red. You look awful.”
“I’d like to claim it’s because I’ve missed you so much, but I’m pretty sure those wounds are strictly internal.” And, crap—he’d been determined not to come here hoping for sympathy.
“Save it,” she muttered, but her irritation was tepid, at best.
Red scrubbed a hand over his face and tried to remember some of the things he’d been so desperate to tell her all this time. Nothing helpful came immediately to mind.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s been a harrowing twenty-four hours,” he admitted.
“Yeah, how are you even here right now? I thought all the airports up north were closed.”
“They are. I drove.”
“What?”
“As I said, harrowing.”
“Jesus. You could have gotten yourself killed.”
Red shrugged. Like that even mattered.
Piper studied him while he stood on her doorstep. He tried to ignore the sight of all the other doors and windows fronting that open-air hallway, tried not to think about the eyes and ears behind them, watching and listening to his abject humiliation. He deserved their judgment, after all. Every bit of it.
“Do I even want to know which one of my now-former friends gave up my address?” she asked bitterly.
The Titan Was Tall (Triple Threat Book 1) Page 36
