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“Promise,” Emma crossed her heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - NICK
“I don’t understand,” Xander said, leaning back in his chair, almost lazily playing with his stylus for his tablet. “What you wanted to accomplish with this meeting.”
Nick turned to his sister, wondering the same thing. Colette pulled her shoulders back, staring coolly at Xander.
They were in the same conference room where Nick had met Grace and Mulberry.
It felt like a long time ago now.
Beside Xander, Alicia Doyle, Axis Management’s lawyer – one of them – stared at his sister, her expression equally cool.
He’d called Xander as requested, and Xander grudgingly said he’d have the meeting with Colette, but Nick had the impression that Xander was doing him a favour and didn’t like it.
“I didn’t think I’d have an audience,” Colette said.
“The daughter of the man trying to get his hands on my software comes asking for a meeting under some kind of vague threat, and you don’t expect me to bring my lawyer? Come on, Ms. Laurent. You went to business school.”
Colette flushed at Xander’s words, but Nick didn’t have a problem with it.
“Fair. What I wanted was to talk to you. Tell you that I know what you do.”
“I do lots of things. This morning, I ran four kilometres, took two meetings, checked in on the software your father wants to acquire, fucked my girlfriend.”
Colette blushed. “I mean, I know what you do here, at Axis Management. I heard your employer say it.”
Xander raised an eyebrow. “Everyone knows that Axis Management is in the business of personal security. I don’t see how what you know is any great threat.”
Colette shifted on her chair uncomfortably, and Nick almost felt sorry for her.
“Colette, there is no point to this. What were you going to do?” Nick’s annoyance rippled through his voice. His sister closed her eyes, her mouth pursed.
“Easy for you to say. All these years, you lied to us.”
“That’s not Xander’s fault.”
“It is if he’s doing something illegal.”
“What is the illegal activity you accuse me of?”
Colette glared at Xander. “Having private operatives.”
“Alicia, is that illegal?”
“No. You can call your teams anything you want,” Alicia said.
“I don’t do well with threats, Ms. Laurent. Especially vague ones. Are you going to waste my time, or is there something you actually want?”
“I was going to tell the media.”
“That I call my personnel ‘private operatives’?” Xander shrugged. “Okay.”
Colette pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. “I’ve been desperate, and this was a bad plan. But if the media knew you had private operatives….”
“They’d what? Besides, the media know we were involved in finding Mulberry Stevens, but it was leaked. You don’t want to know what I did to the person responsible for that.”
Nick cleared his throat. He understood why Xander wasn’t holding back, but this was his sister.
