Had she been a convenient outlet for his frustration over his doomed relationship with Honor? Was that all it had been? She dragged her scattered wits together and pushed away the hurt that now lodged deep in her chest.
“No need to apologize. It was nothing,” she said with all the dignity she could muster. “We’ve had a challenging time and we needed an outlet. Don’t worry, I don’t hold you responsible for something we both clearly wanted at the time. And, please, don’t worry that it will cause a problem for us at work. I’m sure we can get along just fine without hashing this out any further.”
“Tami, I—”
“Good night, Keaton,” she said firmly.
She deliberately turned her back and paused by her table, then collected her evening bag and exited the room. She held herself together through the dining room, out the door and up the stairs, but the moment her door was closed and locked behind her, she lost it. Her entire body shook as tremors took her over and the tears that she’d so staunchly kept in check until she was alone began to track down her cheeks.
She’d done it again. She’d fallen for someone who didn’t want to love her. Was she so desperate for affection that she’d just accept whatever emotional bone was thrown in her direction? No, she deserved better. And Keaton, too—he deserved to know that life wasn’t always about rigid control. Sadly, she accepted she wouldn’t be the one to show him that.
Seven
The flight home was quite different from the one to Sedona. Every seat on the private jet was taken and other Seattle-based staff had boarded a charter aircraft that was leaving just after the Richmond jet took off. The Virginia-based group were heading back on another charter flight shortly after. There was a hum of conversation around them that filled the awkward silence that persisted between Tami and Keaton.
Tami had barely slept a wink last night and, judging by the look of him, Keaton hadn’t, either. Logan and Honor were on the flight with them, seated opposite, and she couldn’t help but notice the number of times Keaton glanced at them both, then looked away equally quickly. More and more she wondered if Keaton was still in love with Honor. It had to be tough, working with the woman you were going to marry and watching a man who was a virtual stranger to you, and yet your mirror image at the same time, sweep her out right from under you.
Poor Keaton—he’d been through so much. She could understand why he wouldn’t want to pursue another office-based relationship. She didn’t, either, as her last liaison had turned into a complete disaster, too. A disaster that had planted her firmly in the Richmond family’s path, where she was supposed to be the instrument of their next failure. The whole idea twisted her stomach in knots. Hadn’t the Richmond family all been through enough already?
She didn’t want to be the one responsible for making Keaton’s life even more difficult than it had been in the past three months, but she was committed to doing so if she was going to get out of the hellhole Mark had left her in. And her dad would only keep his end of the bargain if she gave him a scoop on whatever Richmond Developments was planning. And until she’d gone through all her notes, she wasn’t even sure she’d have anything he’d consider important enough. The very idea that she’d have to betray Keaton, the entire company and all its employees—many of whom she’d now struck up firm friendships with over the course of the trip—it all made her stomach pitch and heave. She swallowed hard.
“Tami? Are you feeling okay? You’ve gone very pale,” Honor asked from where she sat across from Tami.
“I’ll be fine.”
Honor summoned a cabin-crew member and requested some sparkling water for Tami to sip on. She also reached into her bag and passed Tami a small packet of crystalized ginger.
“Chew on one of those. It’ll help with your stomach.”
Tami smiled gratefully at Honor’s consideration, but she seriously doubted that a cube of ginger and some fresh water would fix what ailed her. Either way, she did as she was told and then sought refuge in sleep for the balance of the journey. It was only when a strong male hand clamped on her shoulder and gave her a little shake that she realized she’d slid across in her chair and was snuggled up against Keaton. She moved back instantly.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know I’d—” she spluttered.
“It’s okay. Don’t fuss. We’re preparing to land.”
His voice was brusque, his words clipped. Of all the stupid things she could have done, sleeping on top of him was nearing the top of the list. Of course, kissing him after the zip line ranked right up there at the very top, alongside kissing him back like a wanton woman, as she had last night. And while Keaton’s unbridled passion had taken her by surprise, she’d loved every second of it. Clearly, he did not feel the same way, and she had to accept that. Maybe she’d just been a convenient vessel to vent his frustrated yearning for Honor on. And like that wasn’t a slap in the face?
But Tami felt like there was more to it. Yes, he’d been watching Logan and Honor as they walked by the windows last night, but she’d been getting a vibe off Keaton over the past several days that he was fighting with something internal. Was he attracted to her? Well, it had certainly felt that way last night. Was he prepared to do something about it? She pursed her lips slightly, remembering exactly what he’d done and how thoroughly. So while her first two questions had returned a positive response, that left her last question. Was he prepared to pursue this further? And to that she could only hear an empty, echoing no in the back of her mind.
She sighed and shifted her position. All of the above meant that to keep moving forward, she needed to remember to keep her physical distance and simply try to do her job to the best of her ability. There was no room to relive the embrace they’d shared. There was no way she could ever hope to explore that attraction, and that was for the best, wasn’t it? Because, no matter how much she was attracted to Keaton Richmond, or how likely she would have been to fall into his arms and bed last night, if he’d offered them, she wasn’t here to fall in love, or lust, or anything like that. She was here for one purpose only, and that was to feed information back to her father.
Her stomach pitched again as she made sure her seat was upright and her seat belt tight. At least she wasn’t by the window on this trip. Keaton had offered to take the window seat when it had been clear they were going to have to sit together. He’d assiduously avoided brushing against her, right up until she’d fallen asleep all over him.
They’d no sooner landed when Keaton switched his phone from plane mode to regular service. The instant he’d done that, it began to ring. Tami tried to give him a little privacy while he answered, but it wasn’t easy while they were still expected to be seated during taxi to the terminal.
“Hello? Yes, who?” He grimaced. “From which media outlet? Really?” He paused and listened for a few minutes. “That was the Everard pitch? Interesting.” He paused again. “My comment on the Tanner project going to Everard Corporation? I have no comment.”
He severed the call abruptly and looked across at his twin.
“What the hell was that all about?” Logan growled, looking fierce.
“It seems that Everard Corporation have preempted our offer for the Tanner project—and won—with a near identical pitch to our own.”
Tami’s stomach rolled.
“What do you mean they’ve gone with Everard Corporation? The tender wasn’t due to close until tomorrow. And an identical pitch? What the hell?”
Logan sat up sharply and stared at his brother. His face was wreathed in lines of concern. Honor, too, looked worried.
“That bastard. Everard has to have a spy in our camp,” Honor said in a shaking voice. “How else could he have done this?”
Keaton swore a blue streak. “This is going to play out very badly for us in the media. They’re going to assume, like we do, that we have a mole, and that’s going to damage all the work we’ve been d
oing to restore our company’s name and reliability after Dad’s double life was exposed. The fallout is going to hurt us far more than just financially.”
Tami scrambled for the packet of ginger Honor had given her and popped another piece in her mouth to try and combat the rising bile that boiled up from inside her stomach. How had her father anticipated the Richmond bid so accurately? Keaton had only told her about it at dinner their first night in Sedona. She knew everything about the bid was being kept under wraps—in fact, it was being so closely guarded she hadn’t heard anyone even discuss it during the team outdoor experience at all, and had only caught murmurs here and there between Fletcher Richmond and the three people sitting with her here.
And, more to the point, she hadn’t told her father about anything she and Keaton had discussed during their intimate dinners together. Another sobering question flared in her mind. If her father had somehow acquired the information he needed without her help, where did that leave her with respect to the two and a half million he was supposed to be releasing from her trust fund?
Keaton ended the call, only to have his phone ring again immediately. He looked at his twin and grimaced.
“It’s Mathias. Do you think he’s heard the news? Fletcher will still be airborne for the next hour or so.”
Tami had learned that Fletcher’s younger brother, Mathias, together with their sister, Lisa, ran the east coast construction company Douglas Richmond had set up. It was almost an exact mirror in every way to the company that Logan, Keaton and Kristin operated in Seattle.
“Yeah, Kristin will have told him, I’m sure. Better deal with his call now. It’s only going to get worse the longer you leave it,” Logan said somberly.
“Yeah,” Keaton agreed.
He answered the call. The words exchanged between the men were pithy and few.
“I promise you, I’ll be conducting a full investigation starting the minute I’m back in the office. I suggest you do the same at your end.”
Tami could hear the protest on the other end of the line.
“I don’t believe any of my staff could be culpable, either, but someone had to have leaked the information to Everard. He’s a sneaky bastard, but we will root out the traitor and there will be legal ramifications. Don’t worry, we will make them pay. Corporate espionage will not be tolerated.”
The plane had come to a full stop and the doors were being opened by the time he ended the call.
“We need to get straight to the office,” he said to his brother and Honor. “When Fletcher hears the news, we need to be prepared. Mathias was mighty pissed off, but Fletcher is going to be apoplectic.”
Tami was shaking. She couldn’t be responsible for this somehow, could she? She had to talk to her father. She had to find out how he’d gotten the information he needed to preempt the Richmond offer with an identical one of his own.
* * *
It was late when she left the office. Keaton and his brother and sister were still locked in discussions in the boardroom, along with the head of IT, who had instigated a forensic investigation into the computer activity of all staff to see where any of the information may have been accessed and disseminated.
The anticipated blowup from Fletcher Richmond had been exactly what they’d expected. In the video call in the Richmond Developments boardroom, his fury had been incendiary and the relationship between the half siblings had become tenuous, with accusations about carelessness from one camp or the other being flung back and forth. Kristin had become the voice of reason, halting the flow of angry words between the four half brothers and their two half sisters, and reminding everyone they were all in this boat together. The only trouble was, with this development, the boat was rapidly sinking.
Tami had done her best to support them, but there’d been little she could do, aside from coordinate fresh water, hot beverages and food at regular intervals and take screeds of notes on her tablet. They were going to be at this for hours, and eventually Keaton had told her to head home. There was nothing more he needed her for.
While she knew the words weren’t meant to be another blow to her already fragile state of mind, she couldn’t help but feel them as such. She got into her car and sat there, exhaustion pulling at every part of her. As much as she wasn’t looking forward to it, she still needed to meet with her father. She headed straight for her parents’ home, relieved that even with the Friday night traffic, she could be there in half an hour.
Her parents’ mansion, in the suburb of Magnolia, was lit up like a Christmas tree. There was no conserving power or anything like that in Warren Everard’s world. No, he wanted everyone to see, carbon footprint or no, just how powerful and successful he was at all times. Tami spoke in the speaker box at the entrance and waited as the heavy wrought-iron gates, embellished with her father’s initials in gold leaf, swung open. She drove through, and in the rearview mirror, watched as the gates swung closed again.
The burning sensation in her stomach, which had started on landing at SeaTac midday, ratcheted up a few notches, and after she pulled up by the ornate portico at the front door, she reached in her bag for the crystalized ginger. The packet was empty. It had been that kind of day. She was going to have to do this without the benefit of anything to help settle her stomach.
Tami forced herself from the car and went to the front door. Her father’s butler, an anachronism in this modern age, waited in the open doorway for her.
“Good evening, Sanders. I need to talk with my father rather urgently.”
“He’s expecting you. You’ll find him in the den.”
Tami’s stomach burned that little bit more fiercely. Her father was waiting for her? How did he even know she was back? Had his spies at Richmond Developments told him? This was worse than she’d anticipated. She crossed the black-and-white marble-floored entrance, her footsteps echoing in the two-story foyer, as she made her way to her father’s den.
She hesitated a moment at the door, remembering the many times she’d been summoned to this room to be castigated over her latest failure. But, she reminded herself, she wasn’t that cowed child anymore. She was an adult who’d been independent of her parents since she was eighteen—well, independent until she’d needed two and a half million dollars, she reminded herself. And that gave her two and a half million reasons to face up to her father and demand to know what he’d done. She knocked sharply and pushed the door open before her father could respond.
He was seated in a wingback chair in front of a burning fire. Not for the first time, Tami saw every aspect of him and his life as one cliché after another. Aside from her coloring, she’d inherited very little of the man sitting there with a smug expression...and she was painfully glad of it. She never wanted to be anything like him.
“I see you got what you wanted with the Tanner development,” she said bluntly.
“I did. I imagine they’re a little upset at Richmond Developments and DR Construction right now.”
He laughed. It was a nasty sound that grated on Tami’s ears. How could he take so much joy in this? His actions had been underhanded and would cost jobs and livelihoods for so many people who were already in shaky circumstances.
“How did you circumvent the tender process?” she demanded.
He waved a meaty hand in the air. “A minor detail. The thing is, I won.”
“Yes, you did. That means you can release my trust fund to me now.”
“Oh, how so?”
“It was what we agreed. When you got the information you wanted—which you obviously did somehow, because from what I understand your pitch was identical in virtually every way to what the Richmond pitch was going to be—I’d get access to my fund.”
“Ah, but you’re forgetting something.”
“What?”
“You didn’t specifically give me the information I asked for. In fact, if I remember correctly, you i
gnored most of my messages and calls requesting updates, and only replied in a series of painfully short and noninformative texts, did you not?”
She swallowed and nodded. It was no use telling him now that she’d planned to write up all the notes she’d made on her phone.
“Then you didn’t deliver on your side of the deal, did you?” He shook his head with a sardonic smile pulling at his lips. “Tami, Tami, Tami. You’ll never learn, will you? To survive in this world you have got to be more cutthroat. You won’t win anything by being a doormat.”
“I’m not a doormat,” she argued.
No matter how hard she tried to ignore her father’s baiting techniques, and he had many of them, she always rose to them, giving him the satisfaction of winning every darn time.
“You’re both a doormat and a disappointment. And you can forget access to your fund. Your grandmother did the right thing appointing me as your trustee. Obviously, you lack the clarity of foresight and wisdom required to manage such a sum of money.” He made a derogatory sound. “Giving it all to a charity, what the hell were you thinking? No, wait, don’t bother telling me because we both know you never think things through and it’s because of your failings that you got yourself in this situation.”
“I was used,” she protested.
Used by someone as scurrilous as your father, a little voice jeered in the back of her mind.
“Yes, used because you’re too darn trusting for your own good. You can leave now. And don’t bother showing your face here again until you develop some backbone.”
“Just because I don’t choose to stomp all over people doesn’t mean I don’t have a backbone.”
Scandalizing the CEO--A Workplace Romance Page 8
