Page 7 of My Brother's Billionaire Best Friends
Now she’s here. And she’s not a kid anymore. None of us are. We have to start making better choices. We’re professionals. We can do this. We’ll just have to avoid being in an elevator together.
Which, of course, is exactly where we ended up. All four of us.
That elevator was never meant to get stuck. Never supposed to feel like a pressure cooker filled with hormones and heat and memories. But it did. And I kissed her. And she let me. No—she kissed me back. And then everything went sideways.
When I saw her panic, I didn’t think about what I was doing. I just knew in my gut how to help her calm down. No thought went into it whatsoever, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
Now it’s Monday morning, and I’m pacing in my office like a goddamn intern because a gossip blog has posted the audio of our encounter.
Not video. Thank God. Just sound. But that’s damning enough.
Heavy breathing. Soft moans. A whispered “Jack, please.” Some noise that could have been the elevator or could have been?—
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, rubbing the back of my neck.
Gavin’s voice breaks through the speaker on my desk. “Conference room in five. Heather wants to go over damage control.”
“I’m handling it.”
“You sure? Because my mother already texted me three times and it’s not even nine.”
Of course she did.
Vivian Thatcher might not technically run VT Global anymore, but she’s got her fingers in every polished glass surface we own. And her best friend Heather—the CHRO—is her eyes and ears. Always watching. Always judging. Always waiting to yank the reins if things get too messy.
I press the intercom. “Tell Heather I’ll be there.”
Then I press another button. “Call Danny Nguyen to my office.”
Danny’s the head of security. Ex-military. Sharp. Loyal. But if someone on his team leaked that audio, it means our house isn’t in order.
A few minutes later, he walks in. “Morning, sir.”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me. Shut the door.”
He does.
I turn my monitor so he can see the blog post. “How the fuck did they get this?”
Danny sighs. “I’m not sure. I’ll pull badge logs and camera access. But we had issues that night with the rolling grid outages. Could’ve been stored locally and off-loaded by someone working late.”
“Then you fire everyone who had access that night.”
Danny raises a brow. “You want me to clean house?”
“I want you to clean house,” I say, my voice flat. “If one of your team sold us out, they’re all suspect.”
He doesn’t argue. Not at first. But then he crosses his arms. “Wasn’t my guys having sex with an employee in a glass building.”
My eyes cut to his. “What did you say?”
His jaw works. “Just saying what everyone’s already thinking.”
“If you want to keep your job, I suggest you stop thinking out loud. Fire them. Now.”
He nods, jaw tight. “On it.”
When he leaves, I press my fingers to my temples. It’s not like I didn’t know this would blow up. The second I touched her in that elevator, I knew.
