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“Does she?” Noah repeated.
“No,” I said. “But I’m considering telling her. I think she could be part of the team we bring with us to Coleton Central.”
“You’re not really qualified to make that call anymore,” Noah said.
“He’s got a point,” Travis added. “I mean, it’s got to be hard to see clearly with your head between her legs.”
I glared at him. “Careful.”
“Relax, Adrian. I’m fucking with you,” Travis said. “But Noah does have a point. I say we take a vote on whether we bring her in, and he who lacks dick discipline forfeits his vote.”
I sighed. “Okay, well, what do you two think? I say we tell her the truth. Tell her everything and let her decide what to do. We haven’t actually done anything illegal yet. We’re all just playing the part of good little employees and waiting until we’re close enough to the kill switch to pull it. Sure, Noah has been collecting information we’ll need, but that’s part of his job at Coleton.”
Noah nodded. “If she went to the police or the press right now, she’d essentially have a story about how these guys she met said they want to destroy Coleton Industries from the inside. It’d be he said, she said. But we’ll be freshly promoted to Coleton Central at that point. A rumor like that might be more than enough to ruin us.”
Travis grunted. “He’s got a point.”
“Noah always has a point,” I said, irritation leaking into my words. He did, of course. Having Jules on the team would be a luxury, not a necessity. And jeopardizing everything we’d worked for to gain a luxury at this point was idiotic. It was the sort of thing people did when they lost sight of their real goals. “We should still talk to Jordan. Maybe she’ll have another angle on this.”
“An angle that lets you keep fucking your personal assistant?” Travis asked.
“I told you. We’ve kissed. Once.”
“Yeah,” Travis said. “And when someone sets a delicious chocolate cake down in front of me, I start with one bite.”
I hated when both of them made good points. It was one of the hazards of working with capable people. If I wanted to pretend I couldn’t see the truth staring me in the face, I knew these assholes would shove it in my eyes until I couldn’t deny it anymore.
I made a mistake when I hired Jules. I was making an even bigger mistake by taking things further. And bringing her with us to Coleton Central would be the final nail in all our coffins.
I couldn’t tell her who I was, and I couldn’t bring her with us on the final leg of this journey.
18
Juliette
I’d been back home for less than three days and I was already feeling like I needed another semi vacation. Adrian was a slave driver. Worse, he seemed to be a slavedriver who was intent on pretending we’d never kissed or spoken about forming some kind of relationship.
In New Orleans, he’d kissed me and very clearly said we would give having a relationship a try. But now something had changed, and he was avoiding me and the office so I couldn’t ask him what it was. All he was doing was bombarding me with tasks via email and texts, both of which were curt and professional.
I was mulling all of this over while I ate a pizza using the money I’d saved by not having to spend a dime in New Orleans. My first check from Coleton hadn’t come in yet and still wasn’t due for two weeks.
I was mid bite when someone knocked at my door. I set down the slice and went to the door. I quickly pulled my wild hair back. A stupid hopeful part of me thought maybe it was Adrian showing up to apologize and explain.
I pulled the door open and almost had a heart attack. My younger brother was standing there, proud and tall in a suit like he’d just popped right out of the gardens at our estate in New York. “Mikey?” I asked.
He spread his palms, grinning. “Found you. You always were good at hide and seek, and I was always better.”
“What are you doing here?”
He shrugged. “This place is kind of nice. Shitty, but in a quaint way. Look. You’re even eating pizza out of a box.” He lifted up a slice like it was a prop on a movie set, laughing. He gave it a sniff, then wrinkled his nose and tossed it back down with a wet thud.
Mikey, A.K.A. Michael Van Coleton, was like my father’s hound dog. For a panic-induced moment, I actually considered clubbing him over the head with my shoe and locking him in a closet. It was probably the only way to stop my father from finding out where I was at this point.
