Page 19 of Web of Lies
“Don't you trust me to look out for your best interests anymore, Larken? What happened to you? What happened to us? I've been working myself to the bone trying to keep Vincent Solutions afloat and now you're ready to throw it all away? Over what? Some crazy ass hallucination? Come on!”
“Just prove it to me, Adrian, and I'll let it go.” I look down at the folder, thinking for a moment. “It's an easy fix,” I smile. “Just give me my phone and I'll call Charla. She can confirm that there isn't a Roger Bellmont and then I can eat dinner and laugh about this.”
His jaw ticks. “You're not calling Charla after hours, Larken. It would be rude.”
“Nonsense.” I smile again. “I can call Charla anytime I want. I've called her at almost midnight before to ask for a recipe. Just get my phone so you can be right and I can relax.”
It's reasonable. Utterly reasonable. But he isn't going to bring me a phone. He can't. Because then it would be over, and he knows it.
“It'll only take a minute to call her, babe. Then everything will be alright.”
His jaw ticks again. “I'll see if I can get it to turn on.”
“Why wouldn't it turn on?”
“Because you've thrown it several times, Larken. Eat your dinner.” He snatches the folder off the foot of the bed and stalks out of the room.
I'm not eating the burger or anything else. And he isn't going to bring me a phone.
Adrian comes back the next morning with a frozen coffee, the folder, and a smile. “Morning, babe. Feeling better.”
“I feel fine.” I've been awake for a while and I am actually feeling fine. I am hungry, though. I took the burger into the bathroom last night to dissect it, hoping to feel safe enough to eat it since it came from a restaurant, but I kept thinking about the milkshake and how easy it would have been for him to put something in it and I ended up tearing it into chunks and flushing it down the toilet. I pretended to be asleep when Adrian came in to check on me and now it's morning and I really am hungry. I don't care, I can be hungry for a few days. Hungry and clear-headed is better than fed, drugged, and manipulated, possibly to death.
“I brought you a coffee.” He hands me the glass instead of putting it on the nightstand. “I also have a few things for you to take a look at.”
“I see that.” I bring the straw to my lips and pretend to take a sip, swallowing and licking my lips afterward to make it more believable.
He hands me the folder when I reach for it and I obediently open it up. There's nothing major to see this time, no bogus payroll additions or ridiculous contracts. How much garbage have I been tricked into signing over the past months? I have to get out of here so I can get a handle on things again.
Oh my god.
I'll have to fire Adrian.
No. I'll have to divorce him. Then have him charged with every single thing my lawyers can think of to charge him with. Does this qualify as corporate espionage? I don't know, but he's out as soon as I can get out of this house. “Did you get my phone to turn on?”
He sighs and sits down on the bed beside my knees. “No.”
“Then let me use yours.”
“Why, Larken? Do you need to be right so badly that you'll make fools out of both of us on a Saturday morning?”
“Don't you want me to trust that you have my best interests at heart? And the best interests of my company? I appreciate all the work you've done since I've been unwell, but I'm feeling better now than I have in months and I'll be able to take that pressure off of you. I've missed working and it's only understandable that I would want to take stock of everything that's been happening now that I'm not losing time anymore.”
His brow ticks, but he smiles. “I'll text Charla and ask her to call me when she gets up, then you can talk to her.”
I return his smile and continue flipping through the papers in the folder. “Thank you.” The last thing in the folder is an invoice for office supplies. A very expensive invoice. There is no way in the entire universe that Vincent Solutions needs that much printer ink and paper clips. How much money has he been pulling from the company with this nonsense? And no one is suspicious? I find that hard to believe, but maybe they wouldn't be if I'm signing off on everything. Does this count as extortion? I wouldn't have signed off on anything like this if I wasn't threatened or tricked into it.
“How's the coffee?” he asks. “Is it too sweet? Sometimes I can't get the syrup right.”
“It's fine.”
“You're not drinking it.”
I look up at him. “Am I supposed to chug it?”
He laughs. “No, I suppose not. What do you want to do today?”
I close the folder and hold his gaze. “Have a visit with Regan, I miss her. Will you text her for me, too?”
