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He made short work of his own plate of pancakes. I watched, imagining his teenage self, on the lam, figuring out how to provide for his family at sixteen. Not a whole lot different than how it had been for Raffi, back in the day, with Gabri and me on her back.
Not that I could say anything to him about that. I blew out a sigh, and then nibbled a meltingly sweet strawberry. “We should get some sleep,” I said. “I think tomorrow will be busy. We need to figure out what the hell was going on at the Fletchley Building.”
He murmured at me noncommittally, around a big bite of pancake.
“You want to know something weird about today’s job, at Clemens & Associates?” I asked.
He swallowed his bite of food, eyebrows going up. “Of course.”
“I was freaked out by that job before you even got there,” I said. “Who is Clemens, anyway? He was talking about you as if he knew you from way back.”
“I met him when I was getting a master’s degree in business,” he said. “He contacted me about his start-up. He wanted me to partner with him on his new cryptocurrency. It seemed interesting from the prospectus, but I had the sense it was shakier than he was saying. Then I met you. And all hell broke loose.”
“That’s odd,” she said. “Because the whole place was just a front.”
“In what sense?” he asked, frowning.
“In a literal sense. There was nothing there. They called me from the temp agency, and sent me there to work the front desk, but there was nobody in the back. I peeked. The place was empty. Empty cubicles, a phone that never rang. The office manager, Julia, was as nervous as a wet cat. I asked about the bathroom, to put my lunch in the fridge, and she bit my head off.”
“That is weird,” he agreed.
“Yeah, considering what happened in that elevator. When I saw the empty desks, I thought, oh shit. They’re running a con, and I’m just window dressing. That guy’s name on the wall, and behind it, nothing.”
“I tried calling Hugh, while you were in the shower,” he said.
I grunted. “He’s not going to talk to you. They’ve got him by the balls. Something big. Gambling debts, embezzlement, selling financial secrets to foreign nationals, kiddie porn. Something awful.”
“You have a devious mind,” he said.
“It was his vibe,” I said. “The stench of sleaze cannot be mistaken. He was also a dickhead. I’m not sorry for him, even if they’re squeezing his balls in a vise.”
Ethan’s phone, which lay on the bar, began to buzz. I glanced at the clock on the wall. Midnight-thirty. No rest for the wicked. Unless this was a girlfriend, doing a booty call, of course. Always a possibility.
He glanced at the display, cursing under his breath. “I should have buried this thing,” he said,” Will you excuse me for a second?”
“Of course,” I said. “Go right ahead.”
He hit the screen and put it to his ear. “Jenn, why are you calling at this hour?…yes, I know, but I was busy…”
I heard a burst of high-pitched yapping on the other end of the line.
Ethan rubbed his brow as if his head was hurting. “Oh, fuck. That lunch with the senator is tomorrow? You’re kidding me. What time?”
Another vociferous burst from the phone.
Ethan rolled his eyes. “No. I’ll do the press conference tomorrow morning, but you need to call the Emory Summit people and tell them I can’t make it for the opening address…I don’t know, Jenn! Tell then whatever you want. Get creative. Tell them I broke my leg…no, I’m not mad at you. I got attacked in an elevator this morning by eight goons, so I’m on high security alert…yeah. I’m fine, but it killed my appetite for public appearances. I want to lie low while I figure out who the fuck was trying to kill me…no, that won’t work. Don’t guilt me, okay? Not tonight. I’m not in the mood. Ten-thirty tomorrow. Got it.”
As I watched, it dawned on me, what an incredibly public figure this man was. His money, MasterTech, press conferences, lunch with the senator. He owned at least six different companies under the parent company MasterTech, and they were launching a hotly anticipated new product, FireGlass, one that even I had heard of. Pictures and videos were taken of him constantly, microphones were shoved in his face, questions shouted by eager journalists, everyone hanging on his every word.
Women fawned all over him. The hot, charming, genius billionaire.
Getting involved with this man was like sending an embossed invitation to the Petruzzi family to find me, and end me. Which, incidentally, put Ethan in danger too. Just being near me could hurt people. The kindest thing I could do for any guy that I really liked was to disappear.
And oh God, how fucking depressing that was. It had always been a fact of life, but it had never stung me like it did tonight.
His eyes narrowed as he studied me. “What?” he demanded.
“Meaning?”
