Great Exploitations (Trouble in Tampa)

by Williams, Nicole

  Henry’s eyes widened as Tom’s did. Mine stayed the same . . . I’d heard and done far worse.

  “And by beneath you, I meant strictly in an employment capacity. Not the . . . er . . . the other way.” Tom’s face went a few shades red, then he shot me an apologetic look.

  “And here I was thinking I was the only smooth operator out there. Good to know I’ve got company.” Henry winked at Tom before lifting his hand in my direction. “Now that we’re all feeling properly awkward . . . Eve, what would you like to drink? I don’t want to order you the wrong thing and have you turn down the job as my punishment.”

  I could have looked for a wine menu—if an Irish pub actually had one—or I could have asked Tom what they served, but that defeated the whole point, right? “I don’t know what they have, and I promise I won’t quit if you order the wrong thing. At least not this time.” I gave him a sly smile. “Besides, you know what I like.” I kept my eyes on Henry’s as he worked out what to order. As he went through the red versus white, sweet versus dry, heavy versus light maze . . . and then . . .

  “The lady will have a Guinness,” Henry said confidently, which made me feel less confident.

  I’d mentioned wine. I’d been giving the wine vibe. I’d been manipulating the situation so one thought would lead him to the next to the next to thinking about me beneath or on top or sideways in bed with him. I’d done it a hundred times. It wasn’t my first rodeo.

  . . . And Henry ordered me a Guinness.

  Apparently, it was my first rodeo. Of course Henry would prove to be the one exception to every trick in my book. Why go and make my life easy?

  “A beautiful woman who drinks Guinness at lunch.” Tom covered his heart with his hands and glanced at my hand. My left hand. “And is single? There’s still hope for me after all.” Wagging his brows at Henry, he winked at me before going back to the bar.

  “Yeah, and if I thought you had half a chance with her and were a tenth deserving of her, I might actually introduce you,” Henry called after him.

  “Charming guy. Good friend?” I guessed.

  Henry raised a shoulder. “Good friend and business partner.”

  The not-quite-ancient “charming” man I’d just met couldn’t even get his buttons in the right holes—as I’d just noticed. How he could be anyone’s business partner—Henry’s especially—had to be some kind of joke. I did a mental calendar check. Nope, it wasn’t April first.

  “Business partner? Your business partner?” My expression mirrored my doubtful tone. “Okay, what are you smoking and can I have some?”

  Henry chuckled before taking a sip of his beer. He was drinking a Guinness too, which made me want one that much less. “I miss your sense of humor. The people I work with every day, you’d think they’d never heard of the concept. Certainly none have learned it, let alone mastered it like you have.”

  That’s sweet, you’ve missed my sense of humor. Evidently not enough to stay out of another woman’s bed and go on to marry a gem of a woman. “I’m still waiting for the explanation of that business partner thing you just mentioned.”

  Henry motioned at the room around us. “I decided to expand Callahan Industries into the service industry, and you’re looking at the first and sole restaurant under the C.I. umbrella.”

  My mouth wanted to, but I didn’t let it fall open. Henry had good business sense, and he could pay experts for their invaluable business sense. Had the entire department been on vacation the day that pub slipped under the C.I. “umbrella”?

  “That’s a joke, right?” That was the only reasonable explanation.

  “No joke.”

  My forehead creased in confusion, which was not an attractive look. I couldn’t afford unattractive looks—even one of them—when I was sitting across from the most difficult, high profile Errand of my career. “You own”—as I scanned the restaurant, I tried not to curl my nose because two unattractive looks in a row was like committing high treason in the Eve world—“this place?”

  “I co-own it. Tom is the other co-owner, but he runs the place. All I do is come in and eat the food and drink the beer.” As proof, Henry lifted his beer and took a drink.

  I knew Henry. As much as I hated to admit it, and hated even more that after his betrayal and our years of separation, I still felt like I knew him. It was easy to tell that he’d given me half of the story, but not the important half.

  “Are you going to make me pry it out of you, or should I go ask single, lonely Tom, who’d probably sign his co-ownership of this place over to me if I batted my eyelashes at him?” To prove my point, I fluttered my eyelashes a few times at Henry.

  He smiled. “You got something in your eyes?”

  Could I cut a break with my Target? And no, Universe, that was not a rhetorical question. Give me a fucking break already.

  I moved to slide out of the seat because it looked like I’d be getting my answers from Tom, but Henry grabbed my arm.

  “I used to come to this place a lot when I moved up here after college, when I was in the process of putting my company together,” Henry said as I settled back into my seat. “I can’t count the number of nights he let me camp out at whatever booth I was in, scratching away pages of notes, cranking out code like a mad scientist, after he’d closed and gone to bed in his apartment upstairs. He just told me to help myself to whatever I wanted and to be sure to lock the door on my way out.” Henry smiled as his eyes went to some other time and place. “I conceptualized most of what Callahan Industries started out as in these booths with a few pints of this stuff.” He flicked his Guinness. “A couple years back, Tom had a stroke. Nothing that left him too permanently incapacitated, but he wasn’t able to work for a couple of months. Since he’s pretty much the only person who runs this place, day and night, he had to close it until he could come back.”

  I already knew where his story was going. That’s how well I knew Henry. That’s how well I wished with whatever was left of my heart that I didn’t know Henry.

  “Bills piled up, from the restaurant and the hospital, and no money was coming in. Tom was going to have to close the place. A business he’d opened forty years ago, all because of one terrible, unforeseeable curve life threw him. His whole life was going to be pulled out from beneath him all because of one moment, one instant.” Henry’s eyes were still in that far off place, but I couldn’t help wonder if the story had shifted from Tom to someone else whose life had changed in one moment from one accident.

  “So you stepped in with your deep pockets and saved the day,” I said.

  He shook his head. Adamantly. “I didn’t save the day, Eve. All I did was even the scales a bit. Life is a fickle bitch and wants to give you a hand up just as much as she wants to shove you back down. If I’m in a position to help those who have fallen on her sword like I have, I’ll damn well do it.”

  His eyes weren’t somewhere else anymore. No, they were right there, blazing before me. Henry rarely did impassioned, but what he’d just said and how he’d said it clearly indicated that when he did do impassioned, he did it exceptionally well.

  “When did you fall on fate’s sword, Henry Callahan?” I leaned forward. He’d lived, by all definitions of the concept, a charmed life. He grew up with wealth and privilege. He had a mind geniuses before him would envy, a body that girls wanted to run their hands all over, and one of the top IT companies in the nation. As far as victims of fate’s sword, Henry was somewhere at the end of the line.

  Henry tilted his head, studying my face for long enough I wanted to shift in my seat. Of course I didn’t—shifting under a man’s penetrating stare was for amateurs—but I wanted to.

  After clearing his throat, he answered. “The day you walked out of my life.” My mouth snapped open to utter, accuse, or holler something, but Henry cut me off. “Correction—the day you sprinted out of my life.”

  I wanted to glare at him, but I couldn’t. I wanted to splash a glass of water in his face, call him a vile name,
and march out, but I couldn’t. I wanted to slap his face before turning around and sprinting out of his life again, but I couldn’t.

  The Eve I’d been born wanted one thing, but the Eve I’d become had to do the opposite.

  Whatever it felt like to live in harmony with myself, I was on the planet farthest away from that happy little place.

  “Paperwork.” I eyed the stack beneath Henry’s arm. Apparently I was on the planet pretty damn far away from a land of smooth transitions, too.

  Henry watched me for a few seconds—waiting for me to say something—before sighing. “Yeah, paperwork.” His gaze shifted from me to the stack, and he thumbed through it. “Most of it is already filled out so we won’t be here until next week. I just mainly need some signatures.”

  It looked like just about everything had been filled out except for the signatures. When I thought about who had filled out something as mundane and tedious as my paperwork, my stomach coiled. Part of my plan was to surprise the shit out of Ms. Gatekeeper, aka the competition. No doubt filling out pages and pages of an application for some young woman who the boss had taken an interest in had alerted her.

  “From the looks of it, your secretary’s hand must be ready to fall off.” The silver lining? She’d only have one set of claws to come at me with.

  “I don’t know about her, but mine’s one page away.” Henry gave his hand a dramatic shake.

  “You filled out my paperwork?” My eyebrows came together.

  “Yeah, who else would have?” Henry shrugged as though it was obvious. “Besides, Eve, who knows you better than I do?”

  Myself. But that was a lie. Other than being consumed by revenge and an illicit career, I’d lost my bearing a while ago. I was still moving ahead and not necessarily aimlessly, but somewhere along the way, I’d misplaced my compass. The only thing worse than losing it was having no clue where to search for it.

  So instead of answering with a blatant lie or arguing that he didn’t have a clue who I was, I ignored his comment altogether. When in doubt, playing ignorant, avoidance, or ignoring worked well. “You might need a Social Security Number along with those signatures, right?” Take that, Henry Callahan. You don’t know everything about me. Insert tongue sticking out here.

  “Well, actually . . .” Henry flashed the first page in front of me.

  I would have choked on the Guinness Tom had just slid in front of me if I’d taken a sip. “How the hell do you know my Social Security Number?” I almost yelped before catching myself. My emotion had flared, and I’d fallen out of character. I couldn’t fall out of character with Henry, not if I was going to get the Errand done. “I mean . . . how did you know it?”

  Henry took a sip of his beer and didn’t seem eager to meet my stare. “You told me it one night. Back when we were together. Do you remember?”

  I searched my memories of my time with Henry. Since I’d tried to set fire to each one of them, I had a difficult time finding the one he was talking about. I shook my head.

  “It was late. We’d spent half the night working on a school project and the other half of the night—”

  My glare stopped him mid-sentence.

  He ran his fingers through his hair before continuing with a story that hopefully wouldn’t remind me of those nights we’d shared hitting the books before moving to the bed. Or whatever was close by. “We were laying there—I thought you were almost asleep—when you listed off nine numbers. You repeated them and told me if I ever lost you or if you ever lost me, I could find you no matter what. I knew your ‘code,’ so I could never lose you.”

  I had to take a full two breaths before I could reply. “I said that?” After grabbing my Guinness, I took a long sip. Henry’d been right; I did want and need that beer. “Because it doesn’t sound like something I’d say. ‘You know my code?‘ Come on, that’s lame.”

  Henry’s face formed a small smirk. “We’re computer nerds. We speak, dream, and code in lame.”

  “Wow, so some girls bake their boyfriends a nice dinner, or give them half of some girly locket, or . . . give them a blow job, and I gave you my Social Security Number?” I gave my head a shake. Just because I couldn’t remember that night didn’t mean I didn’t believe Henry. I wouldn’t remember those more intimate memories—they had been the first to go.

  Henry clasped his hands on the table and leaned forward. “I liked knowing your ‘code’ way better than some homemade dinner or locket. And if it’s any consolation, you gave me plenty of—”

  Warning glare number two. That one was twice as potent as the first one, though.

  “Sorry. The memory train kind of got away from me.”

  Henry shifted in his seat. I wished I could be certain it was because of the glare I was still aiming his way rather than what he was replaying in his mind. Given that his cheeks were coloring, I guessed the latter was more likely.

  “Speaking of your memory”—I raised my eyebrows—“you’re telling me that after this many years, you still remember those nine numbers? You remember ‘my code’?” No, I didn’t try to keep the sarcasm from my voice, and no, I didn’t feel badly for it.

  Henry’s head tilted. “And you’re telling me that you’d expect me to forget something like that?”

  “It’s not like I’m your wife—just the almost one—so yeah, I wouldn’t expect you to remember my Social Security Number after five years.” At least I withheld my wince. That was about the only thing I did right in that bitter, wrong-on-every-level answer. How many times did I have to remind myself that I was with Henry as an Eve, not as the other one?

  Let’s see, I suppose I was at close to two thousand reminders, so maybe a couple thousand more times?

  Henry flattened his palms on the tabletop and looked up at me. His expression gave away that he was as conflicted as I was angry. “Do you want to splash your beer in my face? Do you want to slap me or take a swing or get on the table and scream about what kind of a sorry excuse for a man I am?” A flash of pain crossed his face—one that didn’t flash away quickly. “Do you want to do and say all of the things you didn’t get a chance to before running out of that room that morning? Because”—he spread his arms wide—“I’m right here. I won’t stop you. I won’t hold a grudge. In fact, it might be something of a relief because I’m certain you can’t do anything worse to me than I’ve already done to myself.”

  I highly doubt that. His tune would change when his entire empire crumbled down after I’d ripped apart the foundation. One day soon, Henry Callahan would realize he could do nothing worse to himself than what I’d already put into action.

  Folding my hands in my lap, I gave him a conventional smile. “If I wanted to throw my beer in your face, or slap you, or scream at you, or have you castrated, I would have done so already.” Henry didn’t flinch. No, he kept his eyes locked on mine. “If I was here for payback, I wouldn’t have worn silk and stockings. I’m here for paperwork and paperwork only.”

  Okay, so that was a lie. As far as payback went, I worked best in silk and stockings. Made the Errand quicker if I showed up in them instead of boxing gloves and a mouth guard. I just took my jabs and victories in other ways.

  Henry handed me the pen then slid the stack of paperwork in front of me. “Paperwork and paperwork only. Got it.”

  My proverbial eyebrow rose. We’ll see.

  As I worked my way through the stack, signing this page and that page and five hundred other ones, I scanned each box. Henry really had filled them all in. His blocky, slightly slanted writing was impossible to mistake. He’d filled in my school history and personal information. For prior job experience, he’d only filled in one: Private Contractor. My breath caught in my throat for a moment when I saw that. I had to remind myself Henry meant private contracting in the tech industry, not in the illicit one I really was a part of.

  “I know what you’ve been up to in your professional life . . .” I said, “but what about the rest of your life? If you even have time for a person
al life.”

  I kept my eyes focused on the paperwork and waited. Normally I didn’t ask Targets that kind of question because I already knew their personal life. My own morbid curiosity had just asked Henry that, not my better judgment. I wanted to hear him lie; I wanted to be reminded of the man I was sitting across from . . . more like I needed to be reminded of it. When he hmmm’d and hawww’d, conveniently forgetting to mention his wife, my resolve would be renewed and I’d forget all about the man who still remembered my Social Security Number and could look into my eyes with a sincerity that made me want to squirm.

  “A personal life?” Henry took a sip of his beer then a longer one. “What I have outside of work seems to grow smaller and smaller by the day, and well . . . it’s called a personal life for a reason.” Henry shrugged, giving me some combination of an apologetic and sad look.

  I wasn’t sure what irritated me more: that he hadn’t outright lied or that he’d gone all vague when I needed him to be anything but. Either way, I was irritated. That might have been why I said what I did next. “And how many of those personal lives are you living?”

  Bitter bitch, get back into your cell before I send you to the electric chair.

  If Henry flinched, I missed it. Probably because I was busy administering some good ol’ self-flagellation.

  “What about you? What’s your personal life like these days?” he asked quietly.

  My reply wasn’t so quiet. “They call it personal for a reason.”

  Instead of taking my comment as cutting, Henry smiled. Actually, he grinned right before he laughed. “I should have known better than to show up in a suit and tie for a meeting with you, Eve. Next time I’m strapping on the full-body armor.”

  Damn it if I didn’t try to hold it in, but a traitor smile broke on my face. “And next time, I’m bringing the grenade launcher. Let’s see how your body armor holds up to that.”

  Henry lifted his beer and held it my direction. “Eve, you could bring nothing but that sad smile of yours, and it would blast through the most impenetrable suit of armor I could find every time.”