11
Emma
I still know where every bowl and utensil are. My parents haven’t changed a thing in this kitchen since we moved here when I was six.
Cora cracks an egg into the ricotta and gets to mixing while Callie rummages through the fridge, looking for parmesan cheese. The sisters took one look at the disaster I’ve created in here and jumped right in with both hands.
When Zoey heard about the Pentabyte disaster on the news, she called and offered to fly home right away. But I made her swear on our friendship that she would stay put. I didn’t finally persuade her to get away from this mess just to jump right back in the frying pan. It took some convincing, but she eventually relented — although, she said only if I promised to reach out to Callie and Cora. She said I need someone, for godssake, and if she can’t be here, they’re the next best people.
The sisters have been calling and texting me nearly nonstop for the past three days, ever since they saw the stock crash reported on TV. Of course, they also mentioned the guys had been asking them about me, which is why I didn’t return their calls until this afternoon. I finally caved and said they could come over, but only after having them swear on the ancestral graves of their entire family not to tell the guys where I am.
“It just makes my skin crawl,” Cora says.
“Yeah — who keeps a file like that?” Callie asks, her nose wrinkled in distaste.
“Someone who knows the value of blackmail,” I reply. They don’t know Jeremy, but I learned the hard way he’s the crowned king of devious plans. “I’m sure he held onto all those pictures and documents because he thought they’d come in handy one day. He probably had a thousand nefarious schemes up his sleeve, just waiting for the right opportunity. But I doubt he thought he’d be using them on me.” I think back to the glee on his face as we sat on the park bench. “Getting to screw me over twice — first with the drone program and now with my security program, well. This is like Christmas for him.”
I reach for the stack of pasta boxes and begin opening them. “But hey, at least this will be over in a few weeks once they announce the acquisition. And apparently, they’re throwing some pity money my way. Said they had to have a transaction on the record.” I pause with a box in hand and purse my lips in thought. “I haven’t decided whether to set fire to it, donate it all to charity, or use it to move to the other side of the world and drink myself into a coma.”
“Maybe we should use it to find someone who can put a curse on him,” Callie suggests. “Like, everything he eats from now on will taste like dog shit.”
Cora gives her a disapproving look. “That would be a waste. If we’re talking magic, then it should be a spell that makes his dick shrivel up and fall off.”
I snort out a laugh, but the levity is short-lived. I’ve been in a foul mood ever since the meeting with BHC. Especially since Jeremy opened that fucking folder. The part of me that knows he’s an evil jackass thinks he’s just making shit up. But my gut tells me it can’t all be smoke and mirrors. There were too many damn details. Like Daniel and Jude’s signatures on government documents. Sure, those could be forged, but those are also items that can be fact-checked. I don’t think either of them had anything to do with stealing the program. But they damn sure should have fucking told me when they realized I was the partner Jeremy screwed over.
Ugh, and the pictures of Trigg and Gunner. Goddamn, those are still stinging, even though I think Jeremy piled on the bullshit a little too heavy with the line about hookers, as if the guys have been slipping away to get laid on his yacht every weekend they could. But the slightest possibility of it being true still makes my chest clench — mission accomplished, asshole. Then there’s Jax. Even though I don’t want to believe it, the weight in my heart tells me something rings true about that part of Jeremy’s story. Of course, I don’t know if Jax even knew who the devices belonged to. And I hope to God he wasn’t the one Jackass hired to wipe them clean... but... he carries that haunted look in his eyes, and he kept me at a distance longer than any of the other guys, like he was afraid what I might learn if I get too close.
Individually, I can dismiss this and overlook that and find a million technicalities that would let the guys off the hook for all of it. But when I add up everything… it’s just so much. And more than anything, the question running through my mind is: if all of this is just an unfortunate coincidence — if it can all be explained away, then why hasn’t it been? Why have none of them mentioned anything to me?
That’s the question tormenting me right now as I stand in my parents’ kitchen, furiously making the biggest damn batch of lasagna known to man. I dump some broad lasagna noodles into the large pot of boiling water, and a big drop of the hot liquid splashes onto my forearm. “Goddammit!”
“Emma, language!” My mother’s voice drifts to me from the living room.
“Sorry, Mom,” I call over my shoulder.
“You okay?” Cora asks in a whisper, as though my mother will yell at her for taking the Lord’s name in vain as well.
“I’m fine,” I assure her. “It just surprised me.”
I inspect the angry red blotch and snap off a bit of my mother’s aloe plant. Was Daniel lying when he told me his mother had one in her kitchen as well? What if it was all made up? A lie tailor-made for me. It’s hard to imagine the man who has a watch for every day of the month ever living in anything but luxury. He has old-world money taste, not the gaudy new-money type. Hell, maybe he knew about my mother’s aloe plant the same way that cocky BHC rep, Marcus Davidson, knew I hate oysters. Jeremy had been over here to my parent’s house plenty when we were dating. He knows about the aloe plant. Has he been feeding the guys little details about me?
No. Stop it! I tell myself, shaking my head to get the train of thoughts out of my mind. This is exactly what Jeremy wanted — to have me questioning every little thing. I’ve sequestered myself at my childhood home to work on the code and have time to think, to clear my head and decide on what my next move should be, not to dissolve into a fucking paranoid disaster.
Cora finishes her whisking job, taking the backseat in recipe-making for likely the first time in years. “So, this deal with BHC… you think you’ll have to work with Jeremy, like side-by-side with that asshole?”
“Hell, no.” I pause to make sure Mom didn’t hear the use of H-E-double hockey sticks then continue at a lower tone. “Or, at least I don’t think so. They don’t really want to work with me. I don’t have anything else to offer them once they have the code. As soon as they have the world convinced that they’ve won the bid for my software fair and square, they’ll drop me like a lead balloon.”
Callie trails an index finger down the list of ingredients in my mom’s recipe book then jerks her head back in surprise. “Cottage cheese?”
“It’s an essential part of the dish. It’s the secret ingredient.”
Cora laughs. “Hey, at least there’s no anchovies or candied apricots in it.”
I shake my head in embarrassment. “Zoey needs to stop telling everyone about all of my failed experiments. But no worries — this is my mom’s recipe. It’s delicious.”
“Your recipes turn out fine, Emma,” Callie says sweetly before a big grin spreads across her face. “After, you know, a few batches.”
“Yeah, I get a little crazy in the kitchen sometimes. But, my mom makes the best lasagna. I’ve been trying to get this just right since I was sixteen. The point of a recipe is that anyone should be able to follow the directions and have it come out exactly the same, right? But it never quite turns out like hers.”
“It’s because your mom’s not making it,” Cora says. “She’s the secret ingredient, dummy. Same thing in our family — everything always tastes better when Mom makes it.”
“Ah, good point.” I turn off the stove and move the pot to the sink to drain the pasta into a colander. Then I retrieve a large glass baking dish to start building the lasagna layers.
When I move b
ack to the counter, I notice Callie is fidgeting at the end of the island counter, her fingers twisting around each other as she sends furtive glances my way.
“What is it, Callie?” I glance up at her as I work, placing a straight layer of the wide noodles in the bottom of the baking dish.
She shoots her sister a quick look then turns to me. “I just… I don’t believe the guys would be part of something this… ugly.”
Cora snaps to attention, her eyes burning a hole in her sister. “Callie!” she hisses. “You promised not to bring up the guys.”
Callie shakes her head. “I know, I’m sorry. But…” She comes around the counter and puts a hand on my arm. “I’m having a hard time reconciling the guys I know with the ones Jeremy described.”
“I am, too,” I say softly, staring down at the casserole dish. The sting of tears pricks my eyes, and I swallow hard, trying to dislodge the lump in my throat.
“Maybe it’s all a lie,” Callie suggests. “I mean, stuff can be faked, right?”
“The thought has crossed my mind, a lot,” I admit as I force myself back on task with layering the noodles. “One minute, I think, maybe Jackass is taking me for a ride. But then the next minute, I think, why would he tell so many lies, knowing that some of them could easily be proven untrue? Like, what would be the point of that? And it wasn’t as if I’d pissed him off and he was just retaliating by spouting stuff off the top of his head. He had this whole folder prepared.”
Across from me, Cora cracks open a fresh tub of large curd cottage cheese and spoons it into the ricotta and parmesan mixture. “But maybe that was part of the plan,” she says. “He wanted it to look official enough that you’d believe it.”
“Maybe. I would love if that were true. I miss the guys so much. I don’t know what to believe. I can’t think straight. Like, I don’t even know which way is up anymore.”
A wave of exhaustion hits me, and I stifle a yawn. I’m so tired, I can barely stand myself. Emotionally, physically. But I’ve only slept in fits, just a nap here and there when my body finally gives out. The rest of the time, I’ve been trying to work on the Gamma segment of the code. But mostly, I just end up staring at my computer screen blankly, my mind replaying the meeting with BHC over and over, Jeremy’s words and those pictures dancing in my head, my thoughts racing with a million possibilities.
“But, you’re a computer whiz,” Cora says. “Can’t you find almost anything on the internet these days? I bet you could even find copies of Jeremy’s contract if you wanted.”
“Um, yeah, probably.” I raise an eyebrow. “But I’m not about to try to hack the Department of Defense.”
“Or you could just ask the guys,” Callie says. “You might get a better feel for things by talking to them. Maybe you could tell if they’re lying or being evasive or something. I dunno. I just… I hate this.”
I nod, the tears springing back to my eyes. “Me, too. So fucking much.”
“Emma Marie Collins!” My mom has ears like hawk.
“Oh God, she three named you!” Cora whispers, her eyes wide.
“Gah! Sorry, Mom,” I yell, wiping the corners of my eyes with the back of my wrist. I hold up the glass baking dish to Cora. “Here, it’s ready for the first layer of cheese.”
I hand the dish off, and she spreads a nice layer of her mixture. “You know,” she says, “maybe you should call them. When you’re ready to, of course. Ask them about all this stuff.”
Her sister nods in agreement. “Yeah. And we’ll be right here in case you need us.”
Cora hands the dish back for another layer of noodles. “Gunner was hanging around when I went to pick up your clothes. He really wants to talk to you. I bet they all do.”
I add more of the big pasta noodles on top of the cheese mixture as I debate what to do. I really want to talk to them, too, but not about the stuff in the folder. I wish I could somehow magically forget everything Jeremy showed me. Because I just want to curl up in their arms. Kiss those gorgeous lips of theirs. And finally, finally, get some good sleep nestled between their warm, strong bodies. The body pillow and heated blanket in my childhood room here are poor substitutes. I need the guys. I need them so much, it scares me. Because I think my feelings might be blinding me to truth. Even with all the evidence Jeremy stuck in front of my face, I still can’t bring myself to really believe it.
“You’re right, I need to call them,” I say with a loud sigh. I hand the baking dish back to Cora for another layer of cheese. “I couldn’t do it before. I just… I couldn’t handle hearing their voices after the meeting. I was barely putting one foot in front of the other to walk out of there, you know? I was really torn up, from the inside out.”
Callie nods solemnly. “I would have been, too. Like, so upset.”
“Not to mention pissed as fuck at Jackass and the Ice Bitch,” Cora adds.
“Yeah, that too,” I agree. I take a deep breath with both hands on the counter, trying to steady my nerves. “But I think I can do it now.”
Cora puts down the casserole dish and dusts her hands off, giving me her full attention as a show of support. Callie nods encouragingly. “You’ve got this, Emma.”
“Okay.” I pull my phone out, navigate to my contacts, and press to call Jude’s number.
The phone rings twice, and he answers excitedly, “Emma?”
“Hi.” Another deep breath. I need to get right to it before I lose my nerve. “I need some answers.”
By the sudden silence, I’m sure he’s taken aback. “Alright. Go ahead. What do you want to know?”
“Are you with the rest of the guys?”
“Yes, they’re right here.”
“Can you put me on speaker, please?” I ask, my voice wavering. “These questions are for all of you.”
There’s some rustling and murmuring, and Jude’s voice comes back more distant. “You’re on speaker. Go ahead.”
“First, for Daniel.”
“Yes. I’m here.” I can practically feel the anxiety rising in the room, wherever the guys are, just by how his voice sounds.
I look up at Callie and Cora. God, I’m so nervous. I’m scared he’ll lie. I’m scared he’ll tell the truth. I’m scared he’ll say something worse than anything I’ve imagined so far. The sisters nod their heads encouragingly, and Callie gives me a thumbs up in solidarity.
“How long have you known it was my stolen program you were helping Jeremy test when you were a government contractor?” The words come out scratchy, and I clear my throat. I want them to know I’m serious, that I’m looking for straight answers and no bullshit. “Did you know from the beginning — back when you signed his fieldwork contracts — where the program came from?”
“I didn’t know it was stolen when I signed on, no.”
“Then, when?”
“A few weeks after being in the field with him. I suspected that he’d cut his partner out of the deal. But — Emma, I didn’t know it was you. I never found out who his former partner was.” He grows quiet for a second. “Until you told me about your situation with Jeremy. Then I pieced it together.”
I’m trying so hard not to get emotional, but I have to steel myself to keep my voice from cracking. “And once you did? Why did I have to learn about this from my ex, of all people?”
“I should have told you,” he says, the words coming out fast. “I don’t have any excuses. I fucked up. I just — I couldn’t ever bring myself to tell you.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to keep my voice even. At least he didn’t try to lie. But it’s killing me that Daniel had anything to do with helping Jeremy profit off the project he ripped away from me.
“Emma, listen, you should know that I detested working with him.”
I close my eyes and draw in a deep breath. “That brings me to my next question. Gunner and Trigg.”
“Here.” Their reply is simultaneous.
“How about you two? You do much paling around with Jeremy and the BHC people?”
> “I wouldn’t call it paling around,” Trigg says.
Gunner is blunt. “I hate that asshole. All those assholes”
“So, you guys aren’t fishing buddies with Jeremy?”
“No.” There’s a whisper from a muffled voice, and I’m pretty sure it’s Gunner. Trigg speaks up. “Well, we fish sometimes, but we’re not friends, Emma.”
My chest tightens as the next question forms in my mind. “Do you ever spend the weekend on his yacht? Stay overnight? With other guests?”
There’s a long silence. Then finally, Gunner’s voice comes through the phone. “Yeah, we do. But it’s just corporate networking bullshit. And I really do hate those fucking assholes.”
I think for a moment. They both sound sincere. But they sure were smiling for the cameras in Jeremy’s photos. “Okay, but if that’s true, why does Jeremy have pictures of you guys looking like you’re best friends with him? Your arms around each other and stuff.”
There’s no mumbling this time. Complete silence reigns as my heart pounds in my chest before Trigg replies, “Those pictures — whatever he showed you — I can guarantee they don’t tell the whole story, no matter what Jeremy might want you to believe. We meet a lot of people we don’t like in this business. But we try to keep things civil. Jeremy’s a rare breed of asshole — but he did play host to some of the gatherings. We only attend those events because there are other industry leaders that we have business with.”
“Okay,” I say, repeating my refrain from earlier. “Jax?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
His voice is rough, like he’s swallowed sandpaper, and it gives me pause. Hearing each of their voices is pulling on my heartstrings. God, I miss them so much. But after a moment, I barrel forward. This is the one I really need to know.
“When Jeremy disappeared, so did every copy I had of the drone program. Did you help him erase all my copies?”
“Yes.”
Leave it to Jax to give me the most straightforward answer of the group. “Did you know you were helping him steal the program?”
Risky Business_A Reverse Harem Romance Page 9
