Page 41 of Love JD

He nodded, his third neck quivering. “Caution,” he added. “Everything with caution.”

Translation: I’m firing you if you fuck this up. But I’d already expected that.

Starla showed up with Earth Care’s legal team, and our own personnel filed in around them, filling the board room with eager participants all ready to finalize details that would hopefully be advantageous for them all. Only, this deal wouldn’t be advantageous to them at all, and Hawk watched me with eyes to match his name as he took a seat down the table and tapped his tablet to life.

I took Starla by the elbow, drawing her aside. “A word?”

She wore her hair in her signature sleek style tucked behind her ears in a way that accentuated her high cheek bones and wide eyes. She adjusted the neckline on her navy pantsuit that fluttered around her like a chiffon cape at the back. “So soon,” she murmured with a satin smile.

I didn’t correct her because she had a habit of digging in her heels when she sensed she might not get what she wanted. In this case, I wasn’t planning on giving her anything but a double scoop of disappointment. I led her out of the boardroom and to an auxiliary meeting space, smaller and out of earshot, but still overlooking Denver with a spectacular wall of windows that let the bright May sunshine into the room.

Starla turned to face me, folding her arms and gracefully tapping her French-tipped nails along her toned biceps. I had liked that about her once upon a time—I’d liked going to the gym with her and swapping fitness goals. But, like everything else about Starla, she’d been so unyielding, it had sucked the joy out of shared experiences. “Well?” she asked.

“I need to ask if your client has done their due diligence with GreenTech,” I said, getting straight to the point. I slipped my hands into the pockets of my striped suit. “Have they looked into their activities in Myanmar?”

Starla blinked once, slowly, like an irritated owl. “Has Earth Care? No. How did you find out, Brady?”

Gut punch. She knew. “I did my due diligence,” I said slowly, angling my face in suspicion. “As it appears you did.”

“And what my client doesn’t know isn’t going to hurt their margins,” she answered with a tight smile that didn’t touch her fake-lashed eyes.

“Wow.” I shook my head, disappointment lodging in my throat like I’d been forced to swallow it. “You mean your margins, right? Because what Earth Care doesn’t know will secure your paycheck.”

“Padded by GreenTech,” she admitted with a shrug. “Brady, you can’t be this idealistic. If you tell Earth Care about a little well poisoning, then you’re sinking your ship, their ship, and that of thousands of employees, too. GreenTech is on a one-way train to ruin without this merger. What will those employees do when they get shut down? You’re going to destroy entire lives over some rivers?” She gave me a disappointed eyebrow raise. “Grow up.”

I suddenly felt twelve years old again. Twelve and face-down on my brown carpet as I sobbed and refused to go to school after my mother had gotten her cancer diagnosis. Twelve years old and kicked in the ribs as my father told me this was life and not to throw a tantrum. That life wasn’t fair. That I needed to grow up.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced it to burn in my gut. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you this is fraud.”

Her eyes widened like I’d told her yetis existed. “Oh my God. Is it?”

I inhaled slowly through my nose, and my brain did a quick inventory of my options. There weren’t many good ones. “Why didn’t you tell me, at least? You know GreenTech is my client.”

“Because you’re weak, Brady,” she sighed, drifting past me with a pitying glance. “Because I know your weakness—your bleeding heart. I knew you’d get honorable and do something stupid. Do me a favor for old-times’ sake.” Starla paused at the door. “Don’t take the rest of us down with you.”

She left, and I stood rooted to the spot while my foundation see-sawed precariously. After a few minutes, Hawk found me and leaned against the doorframe with lazy indifference. “We’re fucked, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know,” I murmured distantly.

“Well, you’re the lead on this. They’re waiting for you in there.”

I nodded, my brain more vacant than a bankrupt factory. “I will. Give me a minute.” My phone rang, and I slipped it from my pocket, checking the caller ID. Tristan again. I answered. “Yeah?”

“I think Isla just passed out at your house,” he said quickly. “One minute she was talking, and then she—”

I hung up and shoved past Hawk. “I have to go.”

“Go where?” he demanded. “Brady, you can’t be serious.”

My pulse slammed in my chest, and I rubbed it, walking away without looking back at any of them. “Don’t wait for me.”

“Brady, this is suicidal!” Hawk shouted down the hall.

Somehow, I had the feeling that helping Isla was anything but suicidal. It might be the only thing that tethered me to any semblance of meaning.

Chapter fourteen

Isla

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