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“Kenji, shut it.”
“Or that you’ve been walking around here like a sad Bella Swan since Rowe did his disappearing act?”
“I have not.” Now, Bash used his grip to push me off him, like he was going to jump to his feet and kick Kenji out bodily.
Before he could, I jumped up and extended a hand to Kenji. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you. Sorry if I’ve messed things up.”
Kenji glanced from my hand to my face for a moment before shaking it. “You don’t need to apologize tome. But you’ll find that I’m very—”
“Protective of Bash.” I nodded. “I get it. He’s way too nice.”
Bash made a disbelieving noise, but Kenji’s lips twitched. “I’m glad you realize it.”
“Kenji,” Bash said, exasperated. “Did you hear back from Legal?”
“I did—”
“Bash! What the fuck is this nonsense I’m hearing about Rowe—” Bash’s friend Silas walked into the office, dressed in perfectly tailored jeans and a button-down, and stopped short. “Prince,” he finished in a smaller voice.
“Hello.” I felt my face go red. “Nice to see you again.”
“Lock the door behind you, Silas,” Bash instructed. “Since you’re here, you can help us plan.”
“Planwhat?” Silas demanded after making sure the door was secured. “What’s going on? Kenji said something about intellectual property theft.”
“Exactly. MRO was not Austin Purcell’s idea.” With a hand on my shoulder, Bash led me across the room to lean against the front of his desk while Kenji sat in one of the visitor chairs, and Silas stood in the center of the room with his arms folded over his chest. My discarded sombrero lay on the floor by his feet, and I had to swallow down a nervous bubble of laughter.
Bash quickly filled both of them in on everything I’d told him, as well as some things he’d learned from Austin earlier that day, keeping me pressed against his side the entire time. I hadn’t heard about his conversation with Austin, and the idea that he’d not only stolen my project but my story—Daisy’s story—made my blood pressure spike.
I’d been willing to let my claim to the project go—I didn’t need to get the glory, and the money still seemed impossible to me—but the idea that he was taking on my pain, my sister’s death, as part of his act? That wasn’t something I could let slide.
As Bash spoke, Silas’s gaze flickered between us, and though he nodded along to show he was listening, the look he gave me was distinctly unfriendly. I could tell he didn’t believe what he was hearing. Though I hadn’t expected any different, it made my stomach queasy. Bash had sounded so firm before when he spoke about believing me, but I knew how much he loved the friends he considered his brothers. How likely was he to stay on my side if it meant risking their disapproval?
When Bash was done, Silas set his jaw. “You know, I heard from Landry about your plan to take a more public role at Sterling Chase again. That you’re dissatisfied about the direction the company’s going in—”
“That has nothing to do with this,” Bash insisted.
“Doesn’t it? It’s very convenient that all of this is happening at once, Bash. Almost like someone’s been putting ideas in your head.”
Bash ran a hand over his face. “Rowe isn’t Justin, Silas.”
“How would you know?” Silas threw out an arm toward me. “You’ve known this man a week—”
“And you knew Justin a whole hell of a lot longer than that,” Bash shot back angrily. “And hestillfucked you over.”
I had no idea what they were talking about—Justin? As in, Justin Hardy? Whatever it was, Bash seemed to score a direct hit. Silas’s face registered shock and hurt before he smoothed it out into the polite, urbane expression I remembered from the gala.
“Silas,” Bash said apologetically. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, of course,” Silas said stiffly. “Perhaps we should all just become irrationally attached to perfect strangers. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong last time.”
Bash closed his eyes and tilted his head back, like he was silently begging the ceiling for patience.
“I understand why you don’t believe me,” I offered in a small voice. “I’m not asking you to take me at my word. I have proof. Extensive notes. Research. Contacts. Recorded interviews from as far back as five years ago. An app I coded. I can provide you with all of that.”
Silas nodded once. “Good. But proving you came up with Daisy Chain is a very different thing than proving Austin did anything wrong.” My confusion must’ve shown on my face because Silas huffed impatiently before explaining, “You can’t trademark or patent an idea. And people come up with similar ideas all the time. Austin can, and probably will, claim that he was working on MRO long before he ever heard of you.”
“But he stole the story about my sister!” I insisted.
