Page 54 of Business or Pleasure

“My father’s a con man. Always has been. After my mom died, he basically made me his partner. When I was fifteen, I fucked up on a con. I got caught. He didn’t. He left me behind. The second arrest was because some asshole bullies put Jin in the hospital,” she said. “And no one did shit about it. So I stole my foster parents’ car and ran them off the road.”

If she told me that before, I would have been on her side, told her that he was an awful person, but she didn’t tell me any of it. But this way, with everything else…I couldn’t just ignore incriminating evidence like that.

“Are you stealing for him now?”

A flash of hurt crossed her eyes before disappearing behind something…cold. “He asked me to get information from MIRI, but I told him no.”

“Then why do you have a list from him along with papers that contain proprietary information from your employer?” A part of me hoped that she had a reasonable answer for all of it, but I couldn’t imagine what it could be.

“I don’t know where that came from,” she said. “Where did you find it, anyway?”

“By your bag.”

She looked a little surprised by that but not overly concerned. “Someone must’ve put it in there at work or something like that. Or maybe they slid it under my door while we were sleeping.”

“Do you often get mysterious deliveries under your door?” My question had an edge to it, but I couldn’t curb it, not when a picture was beginning to present itself.

“Look, I can’t tell you what I don’t know.” Her eyes sparked angrily. “All I can do is say that I didn’t take any papers from MIRI, for Franklin or for me.”

“Prove it.”

She scowled. “How do you want me to do that, you asshat?” She glared at me. “If I would’ve known that I needed evidence that I refused to help Franklin, I would’ve recorded the conversation, but unfortunately, I’m not psychic.”

I shook my head, feeling sick to my stomach. I wished I could believe her, but the evidence was overwhelming. She had a note from her father asking for information. She had pages of information. American courts required only reasonable doubt to convict. Any doubt I might have wasn’t reasonable. It was based on the fact that I didn’t want her to be involved in corporate espionage because I liked her.

“If you can offer no viable alternative explanation, then I have nothing else to believe but what I see in front of me.”

“Wow.” She took a step back, clearly shutting down. “Get the fuck out of my apartment.”

“I was just about to suggest I do that as well.” I checked my pockets for my phone. “I’ll be speaking to Alec later today, and after that, I’ll be going back to Scotland, like I should have done weeks ago. Staying this long was a huge mistake.”

“You’re right,” she said, her voice tight. “It was. Now get out.”

I left.

Twenty-Six

Harlee

My legs went out from under me as the door closed behind Baylen. The hurt and anger doubled me over, and I struggled not to throw up. His accusations were awful but, as the shock began to fade, the true impact of what this meant hit me.

I was going to lose my job.

Fuck. I’d be lucky if I didn’t get arrested or sued. Or both.

I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that I just lost everything. Including things I hadn’t known I wanted so badly. MIRI. Friends like Tuesday and Lad. Baylen.

A future.

In less than five minutes, it blew up, and I still didn’t understand, really, what happened. I understood the actual words, but why he said them…

No. No. I couldn’t break down now. Not if I wanted to fix this.

I squeezed my eyes closed and buried my face in my hands. I needed to think. I knew I was intelligent, that my brain worked faster than a lot of other people’s. I could put pieces of information together quickly, come up with conclusions that would take other people hours if they found them at all.

It was why I was good at my job.

A job I wouldn’t have much longer if I couldn’t figure out what the hell had just happened.

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