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Fortunately, she had just the thing for that. Victoria went to her cabinet and pulled out a bottle of wine she’d been saving for just such an occasion. She grabbed a box of fancy chocolates from the naughty cupboard in the kitchen and went to run a bath.
As she laid out scented candles in the bathroom, Victoria popped a chocolate into her mouth. Soon enough, she was settled in the steaming bath with the chocolates in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.
She tipped her head back against the rim of the bathtub, her eyes closing in bliss. Yes, this was what she needed. She could already feel her tense muscles starting to relax.
It was tempting to go over all the things she needed to do when she got to work tomorrow, but if she did that, she’d never get any sleep.
So, Victoria focused on relaxing the muscles in her body one by one, feeling her mind relax with them.
The shrill ringing of her phone had her eyes popping open. No, she wasn’t going to answer that. If it was important, they’d call again.
The phone started ringing again immediately after the first call went to voicemail.
Victoria sighed and carefully got out of the bath, wrapping herself in a towel before hurrying to the phone and snatching it up, glancing quickly at the caller ID.
“Hi, Jillian.”
“Victoria! You have to get in here, now!”
“What?” Victoria stood straighter as alarm zinged through her. “What happened? Where are you?”
“I’m at the office.”
Of course she was. Victoria wasn’t really surprised. At least that meant the emergency was likely work related rather than personal. Victoria could deal with work emergencies. At least Jillian wasn’t in trouble.
“Okay, I’m on my way. Give me fifteen minutes.”
Victoria rushed to get dressed, cursing the glass of wine. She wasn’t drunk, but she wasn’t at her sharpest, either.
When she got to the office, she was surprised to find it crowded. Her sense of alarm deepened. Jillian wouldn’t have felt the need to call in all the troops unless it was something really catastrophic.
“What’s going on?”
Everyone looked frantic. Jillian stumbled over to Victoria, her arms full of papers.
“It’s Rossi Corporation. They’re making a move on the Jacobs patent.”
“What? We’ve had that patent for over a year! What claim could they possibly have to it?”
“It seems they found out that Kate was involved in crucial parts of the process. They’re claiming that she was still under their contract when she gave us the information we needed to secure the deal. That means that any business deals she landed automatically belonged to Rossi.”
“B-but that’s ridiculous! Kate wasn’t still under contract when she contacted us. She had already quit.”
“According to Kate,” Jillian said grimly. “We don’t know if she was being honest with us. Maybe she needed the money and was willing to fudge the dates of her resignation. Perhaps she didn’t want to resign until she was sure of the cash payout that we provided in return for the information.”
Both of those were unfortunate possibilities.
“We need to talk to Kate—get the full story.”
“That’s the problem.” Luke’s eyebrows were drawn together and his free hand was clenched into a fist. “There was an accident, just a couple of hours ago. Kate has been in an accident. She died. Whatever truth she knew died with her.”
Fuck.Fuck.
“Jesus. Poor Kate. This is terrible news. Can we fight this?”
“We can most certainly try. It’ll be our word against theirs, and we have a chance of winning that. It’ll all depend on what kind of evidence they have.”
“Doesn’t the fact that they waited until Kate was no longer in the picture to testify imply that they are on the wrong side of this?”
