by J. K. Coi
Warmth spread through her. She felt the same, like she could stay here forever with him, cocooned by the pouring rain, the scent of roses, and the shadows of night. It was perfect.
But perfect couldn’t last, and neither could the night.
She had to get out now, before she got in any deeper, before her fears swallowed her whole. She hated feeling that way, and with Ben it was sharp and strong.
“You have to,” she murmured, feeling suddenly bereft when he stilled, then moved away. “I’m so sorry, Ben, but I’m not the person you think I am. I can’t do this. It’s too hard. I’ve got too much baggage for me to ever trust you, trust the two of us together.”
“You’re afraid,” he said simply.
“I’m going back to Seattle.”
She glanced up at the glass ceiling. Perfect couldn’t last, but the rain might be here to stay for a while.
Chapter Fifteen
“I guess we should go,” said Liz. They had readjusted their clothing and tried to tidy up the mess they’d made of the potting bench.
Ben peered through the window. The high wind slashed the rain across the glass. “It’s coming down pretty hard.”
They raced up the beach. All the torches surrounding the tent had been extinguished and the area was deserted. A corner of the canvas had come loose of its post and flapped in the wind. They kept going and stopped just inside the doors of the resort, dripping water onto the marble floor. Liz shook her arms, but it didn’t do any good.
They started for the elevators, hand in hand, and Liz didn’t even care what anyone would think if they saw.
Just as Ben pushed the button for the elevator, someone called her name. She turned and looked. It sounded like Daniel, but she didn’t see him.
“Liz, wait!”
It was Daniel. He walked toward her from the front desk. He pulled a rolling suitcase behind him with one hand and had his laptop bag thrown over his other shoulder.
His hair was sticking up as if he’d been running his hands through it, and as he got closer, she noticed the dark circles under his eyes had deepened. Behind her, the elevator door slid open and then shut again as she and Ben waited for Daniel to reach them.
She dropped Ben’s hand and stepped forward. “Did something happen? What’s the matter? You’re not leaving, are you?”
“Hey, can we talk for a minute?” He glanced at Ben with a tight expression.
“Yes, of course.” She turned to Ben. “I’m sorry, I—”
He shook his head and pushed the button for the elevator again. “Don’t worry. Go and do what you need to do.”
The elevator door opened, and he stepped inside, leaving her with Daniel.
Liz tilted her head back and looked her brother over, trying to tone down her worried sister face. “I think it’s past time we had a real talk. Come on upstairs with me.”
He glanced down at his watch, lips pressed together in a thin line, and nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
She took his laptop bag and threw it over her shoulder, hooking her other arm through his and pushing the elevator button again. She had this irrational fear that if she didn’t hold onto him, Daniel would disappear and be gone forever.
They didn’t talk during the ride to her floor, thanks to a couple of convention attendees who’d hopped in with them at the last minute. They gave Liz’s bedraggled appearance an interested look. She crossed her arms over her wet bosom, so they started arguing the ethics of logic bombs and trap door programming as necessary industry protection until Liz and Daniel exited on the third floor.
He was quiet. Too quiet.
He left his suitcase at the door and sat down on the edge of her bed.
“What’s going on, Daniel? I thought you were having dinner with Laura tonight.”
He didn’t answer.
She let out a frustrated breath. “You’re going to have to talk to me sometime, you know. Is it the poker game? If you feel you have to leave in order to avoid it, I understand.”
He turned away from her with a muttered oath.
“Damn it. Did you already get sucked in, is that it?” she asked, her chest tight with worry as she reached out to touch his arm.
He jerked away and laughed. A harsh, choked sound that didn’t sound the least bit amused. “The little game going on downstairs is nothing, Liz. Nothing compared to—”
“What? Nothing compared to what?” Nervousness had her twisting her hands together. “You’re freaking me out now.”
“I met with Diego Vargas last night,” he said.
The switch in topics threw her off guard. “Yes, you mentioned that earlier.” This wasn’t about the gambling, but about Vargas? Maybe Vargas had made his decision and planned to invest in Ben’s company, and Daniel felt guilty?
“Did something go wrong? Does he not want to make a deal with us?” She hurried to relieve his mind. “It’s okay, we knew that there was a good possibility he’d decide to go with Optimus Inc.”
He took a deep breath. “That’s not it. Vargas is more than willing to take a chance on Sharkston. In fact, I’ve already got his promise on it.”
“You do? He is?” Her voice was thin and weak, and there was a heavy thumping in her ears. Her pounding heart. She cleared her throat. “Then what’s the problem?” Because it was more than obvious that he wasn’t telling her the whole story.
Finally he looked at her. His cheeks were flushed and his lips pulled tight together. “I had to do it, Liz.”
“Had to do…what?”
“You don’t have to worry, I made an amazing deal for us, and I barely had to talk him into it. After he’d looked over the material you emailed to him, he was chomping at the bit to buy us out.”
“I don’t under—Buy us out?” Oh no. No. No. No. This couldn’t be happening. “We talked about this. I made it very clear in my discussions that we were looking for an investment of venture capital from his company. I have no intention of letting him buy anything. Where the hell did he get the idea that Sharkston Co. is for sale?”
“From me. Because I suggested it.”
She was speechless. She couldn’t understand why Daniel would have done such a thing.
“Liz, I couldn’t take the chance that he would decide to go with Optimus Inc.” He pleaded with her to understand. “But when I offered him everything, he couldn’t turn it down, and he’s willing to pay through the nose for it.” He was so animated, as if by faking excitement, she would get excited along with him and forget about the fact that he’d gone behind her back.
She didn’t say anything, she couldn’t. Her throat was swollen shut. Finally, he stuffed his hands in his pants pockets and lifted his shoulders. “It’s money we could really use right now.”
And there it was. The real reason for this betrayal. The elephant in the room. “How much?” Her stomach was doing acrobatic rolls and her heart hurt.
“He said he’ll give us—”
“No, not Vargas,” she snapped, clenching her eyes shut to keep the tears from gathering. “How much do you owe, Daniel? How much is it going to cost me to bail you out of trouble? How many years of my life? How much of my work?”
He took a deep breath. “Two hundred grand.”
Her whole body shook, and she couldn’t breathe. She blinked up at him. He stood there with his mouth hanging open, looking at her like he was the one betrayed and she was losing her mind.
“Liz—”
“I can’t. I can’t keep doing it.” Tears pooled in her eyes until it was like looking through a soda bottle. “You’re the only family I’ve got left, and I’ve tried so hard. I want to be there for you, but I can’t keep fixing your mistakes.”
“Hey, just chill. I don’t understand what your problem is.” He tried to laugh it off and pretend the two of them weren’t on the verge of imploding, but it was a thin attempt. “Vargas’s company is going to buy out Sharkston for $1.2 million, Liz. I’ve made us more money this way than we could have earned trying to run Sha
rkston on our own, you know that. With this kind of payout, there’ll be plenty to go around. We’ll never have to worry about cash again. From my share I’ll pay off my debt, and I could even pay you back everything you’ve given me over the years. You could do anything you want with it. You’ve had such a good time the last few days, if you wanted to, you could come to Antigua once a month.”
He took a half-step toward her. She shook her head and backed away. He didn’t understand anything. “You have no idea what I want. All you think about is yourself.”
“I screwed up, I admit it.” He sounded so wounded, as if losing two hundred thousand dollars was just a small thing, and he should be commended for trying to rectify the problem himself. She wanted to scream. “But I didn’t want you to feel like you had to save me again, and part of this company is mine, too. I’m entitled to my share.”
“Your share?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“And I knew you’d want to keep working,” he continued gamely, “so Vargas said as part of the deal he would be willing to have you stay on. The salary would be phenomenal, and you would be a VP in a multi-national corporation, in charge of an entire division devoted to our program. You could still run the whole show, control everything. At the same time, we’ll get the cash. His company will bring services and experience to the table that we needed anyway, and—”
“Stop. Just…shut up.” She pressed her hands over her ears, blocking him out. She couldn’t hear anymore or she was going to lose it completely. “Damn it. You had no right to do this behind my back. None.”
“Liz—”
She snapped her hand up to stop him from saying another word. “Forget it. Forget the whole thing. I won’t agree to this, and you can be the one to explain the reason why to Vargas.”
She turned away and saw his suitcase and his laptop bag. “You were going to leave, weren’t you?” She spun around and glared up at him. “You were going to set all this up and then just take off without even explaining it to me.”
“I was going to talk to you earlier today when I saw you in the bar, but you seemed so happy after your seminar, and I didn’t want to ruin it for you.”
“Yeah, that was really thoughtful of you. Thanks,” she said sarcastically, then threw her hands up in frustration. “Didn’t you think I would talk to Diego and find out what was going on?”
“He has to leave Antigua first thing in the morning anyway, so I didn’t think you’d have a chance. When you got back to Seattle, I figured I would have more time to explain everything.” Daniel’s face crumpled. Gone was the fake optimism and certainty. “They’re going to kill me, Liz.”
She scoffed and crossed her arms. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
He stepped toward her. She caught a sheen of moisture in his eyes. “I had a month to pay them back, and at first I was optimistic that we could negotiate an investment contract quickly enough to work something out. But when Laura said that you and Harrison had agreed to this special feature for the balance of the convention, I knew any deal we could make would be delayed.”
He took her hand. “These are bad people, Liz. I never should have gotten involved with them, and I know better for next time. But right now I have to do something.” His desperation was starting to show. His hands were clammy and he had a frenzied look in his eyes. “They are very serious about hurting me if I can’t pay them within the next forty-two hours.”
“Forty-two hours?” She started to shake. “Jesus, Daniel. How could you be so stupid?”
“It will never happen again,” he promised quickly.
She barked out laughter at the ridiculousness of that. “Even if we went through with this deal, you still can’t get two hundred thousand dollars in forty-two hours. It will take weeks to hash out a contract.”
“I negotiated a good-faith advance from Vargas. I already have the money.”
She felt like the oxygen had been knocked right out of her. If he’d taken money from Vargas then he’d as good as locked her in. How could she back out of this mess without the money to pay him back?
She had to get out of here, away from Daniel. She scrabbled to pull open the door, stumbling out into the hall and heading blindly for the elevators until she saw the red exit sign over the door to the emergency stairwell and changed direction.
“Wait, where are you going?” His voice followed her, but she didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.
The sound of her broken sobs bounced back at her off the cement walls as she took the steps at a run. Halfway to the next level, she tripped and kept herself from tumbling all the way down the hard steps by the skin of her teeth and a hard grip on the handrail.
She gave up. Collapsing onto the step with her knees drawn up to her chin, she gave up.
Chapter Sixteen
Ben looked at his watch. It was almost midnight, but he wouldn’t sleep tonight. He couldn’t stop thinking about Beth and the things that were still unsaid between them, but it didn’t matter. The reality was, she was too stubborn to let go of her past…and he was never getting her out of his system.
He thought about calling her, to find out why her brother had looked so troubled. There was definitely something going on there, but it was a family thing and not his place to intrude when she obviously didn’t need him.
Wired and restless, he worked for an hour on the computer, but he still couldn’t settle and so finally he decided to find Nolan and Meredith at the bar. On his way down, he changed his mind about Beth and stopped at the front desk. “Do you think you could ring room 304 for me?”
She picked up the phone and punched in the number. After a moment, she shook her head and hung up. “I’m sorry, sir, but there’s no answer. Would you like me to leave a message?”
“No, that’s okay.”
He remembered the suitcase her brother had been carrying, but Beth wouldn’t have left with Daniel, not without at least saying good-bye, would she?
He didn’t think either of them could have gotten out of here anyway, even if that had been the plan. The weather had taken a turn for the worse. Since dinner, the winds had picked up considerably and the rain was still pounding down outside. It was so bad, the fury of the storm could be heard from within the hotel and every once in a while people stopped and looked worriedly at one another.
The likelihood that the wind and rain could damage the actual hotel and put anyone in any real danger was slim, but guests were being asked not to venture outside from now until the storm had run its course.
Entering the bar, he looked around. The doors to the outdoor patio were shut tight this evening and the air conditioning and other non-essential electrical services had been also been cut for safety reasons, so the space was hot and muggy. That hadn’t kept people from piling in on top of one another. The bar was packed. Since the convention had technically ended today, except for the closing luncheon tomorrow afternoon, it was now party time, and everyone wanted to let loose a little bit.
He didn’t see Beth, but as he turned to leave he spotted Nolan and Meredith sitting together with Diego Vargas at a small table.
Jemarcho’s President and CEO stood and greeted him with a smile, shaking his hand. He was a tall, good looking man. Because of his global success with Jemarcho, he’d had the misfortune to be featured in the news almost as often as Ben and Nolan had been recently, but especially during his divorce last year.
It was a no brainer that partnering with Jemarcho was the best option for Optimus Inc. Ben had come to Antigua knowing that and being determined to get it done, but he found himself hesitating now. Beth needed that investment money just as much as he did. It shouldn’t matter, they had both agreed that their business choices would be kept separate from their personal choices, and yet he didn’t want to hurt her.
They saw him and waved him over. “It’s nice to see you again. Have you been enjoying the convention?” he asked Vargas.
Diego glanced down at a smiling Meredith. “Now that I’ve been introd
uced to your lovely friend, I’m having a much better time,” he said.
Ben lifted a narrowed gaze at Nolan. That wasn’t the way he wanted to do business.
Meredith saw his look and punched him in the arm. “Oh good God, get your mind out of the gutter. Since the two of you have basically deserted me here, I was at the bar yesterday by myself, and Diego took pity on me and introduced himself.”
She took that moment to get up. “I’m going to brave the crowds for another drink. Does anyone else want one?”
Ben and Nolan declined. Diego still had a half-full beer, but he stood with her. “I will accompany you,” he said.
“I’m quite capable of going alone.” She patted his shoulder and smiled. “Besides, I have a feeling the discussion is about to get technical and boringly businesslike, so I had better fortify myself.”
As Meredith weaved her way toward the bar, Vargas clasped his hands on the table in front of him. “Listen Ben, I’ve heard some distressing information about you recently.”
Ben frowned, surprised. “What kind of information?”
“What part did you play in that sad business surrounding Jeffrey Olsen’s death?”
Shock slowed his reaction, and Steve opened his mouth to respond, but Ben held up his hand. He looked right at Vargas. “Olsen was my first business partner, but it wasn’t a good match. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on a number of things, so I called it quits before we got in too deep, and we went our separate ways.”
“Is it true that he killed himself because you defamed his reputation and left him high and dry with no assets and no prospects?”
Nolan shot forward. “Who the hell is spreading this horseshit?”
Diego’s eyebrows lifted. “So it’s not true?”
Ben shrugged. “I suppose that depends on whose viewpoint you’re looking at it from,” he said, resigned.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Nolan snapped at Ben before turning to Diego. “As sad as Jeffrey Olsen’s death was, everyone knows that he screwed Ben over after betraying every other business connection he’d ever made. Olsen was on a slippery downhill slope, and Ben had no choice but to get out when he did or risk going down with him. If the man felt isolated enough after all that to take his own life, no one else should have to bear the burden of that decision.”
