by Carter Blake
“The deal is done,” Dad shakes his head at me. “I’ve spoken to Elite, it’s already sorted. There isn’t anything you can do now to change the plan, and you shouldn’t want to. This is what you’ve worked your whole life towards. Your bit is done now, you can relax. Just enjoy this part.”
He stands up and walks slowly towards me, before resting his hand on my arm and looking lovingly at me, but I shake him off quickly.
“No, Dad, that isn’t good enough. I didn’t think you even had a plan when I first started this. I naively assumed that it was all me. I thought that I would infiltrate Future Pharmaceuticals, and I would get your formula back, then I would help you to make something better of your life, to finally make you happy. Now I can see that you had a game plan all along and that I was just a puzzle piece in that.”
“It isn’t like that,” he tries, but I have no intention of allowing him to get a word in edgeways.
“You need to make a decision. You need to decide to go along with my plan, and do things in the right way, or I’m done.” I purse my lips together in temper, trembling all over, willing him to see that I’m right. “I will leave here, move away, and you will never see me again.”
“Don’t be so fucking ridiculous,” he mocks. “What is this? Is this because of your little love affair with Wesley? Oh don’t you worry, Oliver has kept me fully up to date with that. I thought you wouldn’t fall for him, that’s what you told me isn’t it? I thought that you were mentally stronger than that? Better than your emotions. You’re just as fucking weak as your mother–”
“Don’t you ever speak about Mom like that,” I yell, everything boiling over now. “How dare you?”
“What the fuck do you care?” he laughs nastily. “You didn’t ever know her.” He doesn’t tell me that’s because I killed her, but the implication is there. “You might look like me, and once I thought that you were a lot like me, but now all I can see is her. She was weak too, a slave to her feelings, nothing like…” Madeline…of course, it’s always been Madeline. “Look, I’ve already made the deal, I cannot back out now.”
“So, you choose money over your own daughter?” When he doesn’t respond, I finally allow the tears to fall down my cheek. “Really? Are you serious?”
But still he says nothing, so I turn around and I walk away without giving him a second glance. The tears are streaming now, I’m verging on sobs, and I don’t want him to see them.
I slam the door hard behind me, gulping in as much air as I can manage while the emotion overcomes me. I walk slowly away from my Dad’s home, feeling emptier than ever before.
Now I really don’t have anything. I was forced to make a snap judgment and I chose poorly, I chose the man who’s always been in my life, the one I really thought that I knew, and now I have to live with that.
This is all my fault, even if I didn’t actually start it, I made it happen. Now, I feel like it’s up to me to fix it, but I don’t know what to do. There isn’t anyone left on this whole planet that gets me, that’s on my side, so what can I do? How can I stop the deal with Elite Meds going through before it’s too late? There’s only one person I can think of that would know what to do, but I don’t imagine that he ever wants to talk to me again.
Without any other option, I put in a call
“Hello, Elite Meds, how may I help you?” My heart pounds, I feel sick, I don’t know what to do with myself, but I’m going to have to at least try. If I ever want to make this up to Wesley, this is the one place I can start.
“Hello, my name is…well, that isn’t important. I want to talk to someone…your boss, about the deal made with Michael Norton.”
“A deal? Michael Norton?” she sounds a little confused about that, which has me baffled. I would assume that Elite Meds would be over the moon about sticking it to Future Pharmaceuticals, and that they would all be talking about it. “No, there’s no deal.”
“Yes, yes there is. It’s for the–”
“No, there is no deal,” she continues firmly. “He came in here with a proposal, but it was turned down. We have our morals here, and what he was offering wasn’t for us.”
I hang up the phone before I can hear anymore, nausea swirling though me.
My Dad lied to me – again.
He didn’t trust me enough to even tell me the truth on that one, so now I have no information whatsoever. My heart pounds, my mind raced, trying to come up with a new solution to work with. Whatever is going on now, it could be dangerous, so it’s more pertinent than ever that I take the right steps.
Okay, I think to myself, determination running right through me. Okay, I need to speak to Wesley now. I might not like it, and neither will he, especially when I promised him that he wouldn’t ever have to see me again, but I don’t have any choice. We need to help each other out, we need to put an end to it before many lives are destroyed.
It’s going to be so damn difficult to get him to trust me again after what I’ve done, but surely it’ll help that I’m trying? Surely, it will make a difference that I’ve come back to him with my tail between my legs?
I glance my watch, noticing that there’s about an hour of business left, so I might still be able to catch him. I just hope and pray that he lets me in, that he will hear me out, that he will let me explain. I probably wouldn’t if I were him, but he’s a nicer person that I am, he always has been.
Why did I betray the one person who has truly cared about me? The only one who’s shown me any love, and I threw it all back in his face. As I race to the office, all I can think about is his hands in mine, his lips against mine, his body making mine feel incredible, and I feel gutted that I tossed that all away. We really could have been something, we could have truly been in love, and now we will never be anything. Not only will I never be able to forgive myself for this, I’ll never be able to forgive my Dad either –him and his terrible morals.
He’s wrecked absolutely everything.
Once I’ve solved this, once all of this is truly over, I think I will have to leave regardless. I’ve made too much of a mess of things here, so no matter what the outcome, I think everyone will be better off without me. I won’t make the same mistakes again, no way, next time I will live a much better life having learned so much. I still need to find who I am, to work out what I want, I need a silver lining to come from this black cloud.
But first, I need to burst the bubble of the black cloud.
Chapter Twenty
Wesley
I have the press coming already, because I really need it done before I go insane. I still haven’t exactly decided what I’m going to say yet, but that doesn’t matter. I need to tackle these rumors now before anyone gets in there first. I want the information to come from me, whatever that information might be.
“I really appreciate you coming,” I say gratefully to Amber. “I know you didn’t have to, and I’m sorry for dragging you away from the hospital.”
“It’s okay. My brother’s stable right now, and there’s not much I can do there anyways.” She purses her lips, and I’m certain that she’s holding a whole barrage of I told you so’s back, for which I’m very grateful.
I know that I did a lot wrong, and I feel stupid enough about it. I don’t need it rubbed in my face too. I just need to move forward.
How I’m going to do that, I just don’t know yet.
It’s not just my company Naomi ruined when she stole those documents. It was me too. My heart feels like it’s literally torn out of my chest. The only other time I’ve felt pain like this was when my father died.
I loved her.
Hell, I still love her.
If she walked through those doors right now, I know it wouldn’t take much for me to forgive her. That’s how fucked up I am.
“Are you all ready for this?” Amber asks, still watching me warily. “I know you hate the media stuff?”
“I’m not,” I admit. “I’m totally blindsided by everything, I never expected any of this and I�
��m not quite sure how I’m going to handle it.”
“You’re going to do what you always do,” she tells me, shrugging her shoulders at me. “Act confident and everything will be fine. Just speak confidently about the company, use your faith in it to restore the faith of others.”
If only I had the same faith. It’s definitely been shaken, I just don’t know how we can recover from this.
“Everyone is here, so let’s get…” She glances through the window where all the press are sitting, and her face turns completely ashen. “Oh my God.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s… I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Just say it.”
“Naomi is in there.”
Naomi.
My heart rate speeds up.
Has she’s come to sabotage this too? Will her betrayal never end?
“She’s on the stage…” Amber continues. “Talking.”
“Fucking hell.” I move towards the door as the hot stressful pressure starts to build in my stomach. “What the fuck is she saying? How am I going to counteract this now?” Again, I’ve lost all control, and honestly I feel like I could fucking weep like a baby. “Open the door now.”
Amber pushes open the door, and I listen in for a second, just trying to work out the most professional way to handle this. If I storm up there, all guns blazing, then the press will have a story, but not the one I want them too. And with them already thinking that my employees are is disarray, this is the last thing I need.
But the words that I hear coming out of Naomi’s mouth have me totally stunned, and more confused than I was a second ago.
“…so it was a surprise fire drill, that none of the employees were informed of. That’s why the fire brigade was called, for which we are incredibly sorry. We know that’s a waste of important time that could be used on real fires, so we will never do that again.”
Much to my surprise, a titter breaks out among the crowds. Are they actually buying this bull crap? I mean, I did remind my employees about the non-disclosure agreement, and I did make the point that it would ruin our reputation more if any of this got out, but this…
I don’t know, it seems a little suspect to me. I don’t feel like I can actually jump in now, when they’re falling for it. I feel like I will make a big deal out of nothing.
“And also, a donation will be made to our local fire department,” Naomi continues.
God, she’s good. But I don’t get what she’s playing at.
“So, there haven’t been any issues in the lab then?” one disappointed journalist calls out. “No fires or anything.”
“No.” Naomi laughs in a very expert fashion, as if nothing has really happened.
I’m so fucking confused.
Is this more of her game? But she’s already taken everything from me, what more can she possibly want?
“Everything is fine, and going to plan. The release date will be announced soon.”
How can a release date be announced after what she’s done? Has she brought all of my stuff back?
My chest tightens with hope.
“What is she doing?” Amber hisses beside me.
“I have no fucking clue.”
“You should call the cops.”
I should. It’s what I would do if this was anybody else. But it isn’t just anyone. It’s fucking Naomi.
“And everything is fine with the employees too?” another reporter asks,
The crowd is already getting bored, which makes me think that a story might not even come out of this at all.
Naomi glances around, but it quickly becomes clear that no one else has anything to ask, so she wraps it up. “Thank you everyone for coming today at such short notice.”
As the press file out, I watch Naomi carefully, and instead of running out like I half expect her to, she comes towards me, with a terribly guilty look on her face.
Everything floods through me as she moves, all of our moments together, and I feel my heart opening itself back up, even if I don’t really want it to.
Just be careful, I warn myself. Don’t get tricked again. She’s already proven that she can’t be trusted. Just keep your guard up.
Not likely going to happen. No matter how angry I am at her, she’s still my Naomi.
“I’m sorry,” she mutters quietly, keeping her eyes only on me. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I made a snap decision and it was the wrong one. I can now see that my Dad is a bad man, and that I should never have gotten caught up in his plan.”
“It wasn’t quite like that though, was it?” I say harshly, seeing her wince. “I know that you conducted the plan for a very long time. You could have pulled out, but you didn’t.”
“I know,” she states as fact, not asking for any sympathy from me, which I respect. “I know I could have, and I was wrong not to. But now I want to help you get back what should be yours.”
“You don’t have it anymore?”
She shakes her head and looks down at the floor. “No. I gave it to my father.”
Shit.
“Come into my office,” I tell her, with an iciness to my tone. “We can chat in there.”
Amber starts to walk away, but Naomi stops her. “Actually, what I have to say, I need both of you.”
Amber frowns at her, but nods.
A few minutes later, Me, Naomi, and Amber all sit around my desk, gazing at one another suspiciously, before Naomi speaks out once more, “I know what I did was wrong, and I’m very sorry. More sorry than I can ever say. But I want to find a way to get the formula back before my Dad does anything crazy with it.”
“Like what?” I lean in, wanting to know just what all of this was for.
“Like sell it. He told me that he was selling it to Elite Meds, but he was lying about that – clearly he doesn’t trust me – so I don’t know where he’s going. All I know is that I cannot solve this by myself. I tried my hardest to get him to stop, to confess everything, but he turned me down.”
The intense pain that crosses her expression at that statement tells me everything that I need to know. She really did believe that somewhere along the line she was doing the right thing.
I blow out a long breath, and drag my fingers through my hair.
What the hell am I going to do?
Call the police. Have the guy carted off to jail. Naomi would never forgive me, but then she’s the one who put me in this position.
“Do you know where your father is? Where he’s keeping the documents?”
“I think he’s with Oliver.”
“You think?”
“The plan was to meet at the Radisson on Front Street this evening, but now that my Dad knows I’m out, he may change his plans. And honestly, I’m not sure I believe anything my father said.” Her face is skewed with guilt.
I rub the back of my neck. “Okay, so what do you suggest we do?”
“I’ve been thinking about it, and I feel like Oliver is the weakest link in the operation. He’s greedy, all he cares about is money, and to be honest my Dad has probably already paid him off a chunk, so his loyalty is probably already wavering. Plus, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he might be great at computer stuff, but when it comes to everything else, he’s an idiot. I think if we can somehow get him to agree to meet us, then he will be able to tell us everything before things go too far.”
This could be it, the way out that I’ve been looking for. All I need to do is to put my trust in the woman who betrayed me only hours before.
Am I willing to risk my business over this?
Then again, if I don’t, what the hell am I going to do? I don’t actually have any further plans, this really is it, so maybe it’s better to just go with it. However scary it is, however nervous it makes me, maybe this is the only choice I’ve got.
I glance over to Amber, who just continues to scowl at Naomi.
“Okay,” I finally concede, praying that I’m doing the right thing. “Tell me.
What’s your plan?”
“I think there’s one person who can make Oliver talk.”
“Who?”
“Amber.”
Amber?
“What do you mean?” I ask, the coldness returning to my voice. “I don’t intend to endanger people unnecessarily.”
“I’m pretty sure, from what Oliver told me he has a thing for you, Amber,” she says, to which Amber nods agreeing with her.
“He’s always asking me out, as if he doesn’t get that I’m married.”
He is? Why am I never told any of this?
“So I think if you contact him, maybe pretend that you know nothing of this, and that you’re bored at the hospital thinking of him…”
Amber screws her nose up at this, but she nods too as if she gets that it needs to be done.
“Most likely my dad, and the documents are with him. Amber gets his location and we can all go and pay him a little visit.”
It could work. It has to. Because if it doesn’t my next step will most likely involve both Naomi and her father in handcuffs.
Chapter Twenty-One
Naomi
Amber types furiously on her phone for a few seconds, then says, “So, this is what I’ve said ‘Hi Roy, it’s Amber. I’ve been in the hospital with my brother for days, with nothing to do but think, and to be honest, you’re on my mind a lot. Would you maybe like to meet up…and see where things go?’ Is that okay?”
“I’m sure ‘wanna screw?’ would have worked just as well, but that will do,” I tell her wryly. “Now we’ll just have to hope that there really aren’t any brain cells in there, and he doesn’t work out what we’re doing.”
“Doesn’t look like it, he’s replied already.” Amber frowns and reads the address that she’s been given. “He wants me to come now.”
“Then let’s go,” Wesley says stiffly.
I know he’s angry, and he has every right to be. I’m lucky that he didn’t call the police on me the second I walked through the doors of the building. But my stomach is in knots over the way he keeps looking at me. Like I’m a stranger.
