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CHAPTER42
Alexa
I walked backto the penthouse with trepidation and into the office I’d been using—his office.
The red file I’d come across while looking for a stapler was right on top in the upper right drawer, exactly where I’d seen it before. The lettering on the tab taunted me—Operation Overwatch.
Could Martin be messing with us, trying to get me to accuse Evan of something horrible with no evidence? Could he be trying to get me to start a fight?
I felt dirty, lifting it out of the drawer, but Evan had told me I had the ‘run of the place’ as he called it. Besides he’d had some of his work folders out before, and it was all gibberish to me. If this wasn’t what Martin had said, I’d save us from falling for Martin’s trap.
I opened the folder and felt the room go cold as I turned over page after page. There were letters of recommendation for me, promises of continuing gifts to the college, and instructions about providing me a scholarship and hiding the funding by routing it through a shell company, Davenport Partners.
I almost didn’t make it to the bathroom in time. The latte and my breakfast made a mess in the sink and on the counter. I hadn’t had time to lift the lid to the toilet. Several dry heaves later, there was nothing left to come up. I felt as drained as my stomach was now.
It was true—every dirty bit of it. What the shark of Wall Street wants, he gets. He’d manipulated everything, pulling invisible strings in my life for years.
Nothing about my life had been real.
* * *
Evan
As soon asI pushed open the door to the penthouse I realized I was in trouble.
Alexa sat on the couch, a bottle of my whiskey in her hand pouring a glass. She glanced at me briefly, her eyes not holding mine.
My stomach roiled at how badly I’d fucked this up. “Hi.” It was the best I could manage as I walked forward. “Drinking alone?”
My Operation Overlord folder was in front of her on the coffee table. She responded without looking up. “Why?”
Martin had suggested I burn the folder, but that wouldn’t have prevented this moment, not after I confided in the asshole.
She tapped the folder. “Want to explain this?”
“I thought I was helping.”
She drank down a long swallow. “Helping? Is that what you call it?”
“Let me apologize.”
She looked up with teary eyes. “Let you? Why didn’t you tell me this before? There’s no excuse for keeping this from me.”
“I didn’t mean any harm.”
“Lots of harm.” Her words held anger. “Have you learned nothing about me? How many times did I tell you that I didn’t want any help?”
“I was only looking out for you, trying to help after what you’d been through,” I explained.
She sipped the whiskey this time. “You know what my dad told me after the bankruptcy?”
I waited rather than say anything that would get me further in the hole.
“He told me they can take money, all of it, they can take things, but they can never take our pride, our self-worth. That's for us alone and nobody can take it away.” She sniffed. “I've guarded my pride fiercely ever since. I thought it was true. I've never accepted anything from anybody.” She sneered at me. “You proved him wrong.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t I didn’t mean me.” She slammed her glass down so hard whiskey spilled over the edge onto the folder. “With this.” She tapped the folder. “You stripped me of all the accomplishments I thought I made, the things I could be proud of, the things I’d done by myself, for myself, with nobody's help. You have no idea how this feels. And then, I have to learn from your creepy friend Martin that you’ve been pulling strings like a puppet master the whole time to get me what I wanted, rigging the system. Do you have any idea how fucked up that is—how much that hurts?”
