Page 40 of Married to My Master

He smiled. Yeah, what was good for the company—that was how lives were ruined. People just blissfully passed through life, thinking they were somehow shielded from their misdeeds, just because they were following orders. The truth was, though, that the people at the bottom were the ones who faced the legal penalties most of the time. When auto-makers dodged government emissions tests, it was the engineers who took one for the team, not the executives. Banks who fiddled with interest rates blamed everything on the guy on the phone, doing the trades.

“I'm really just worried about Emily,” she admitted. “I'm a small fry, and nothing bad would ever happen to me. But if some big scandal hit while she is the CEO? God, that'd just be awful!”

He waved it off. “I wouldn't worry about that reporter, especially not with some story that might affect Emily. She's a tough woman, right? And, besides, she's new to the position. Whatever's going on, or whatever allegations there are, how could she be tied up in it? And, besides, Emily's a good person. She'd never do something that got her bad press, would she?”

Jas laughed and drank down the last of her wine, before proffering her glass for a refill. Dane obliged.

“Yeah,” she said, as the dark red liquid swilled into the large wineglass. “You're probably right. I'm just worried something bad might happen, that's all.”

Dane glanced at the time on the living room clock. Those two hours were coming up. And, if Jas was telling the truth, it was even more important now that he get hold of those files.

“Worried about the time?” Jas asked, as she followed her eyes to the clock, laughing a little as she took another sip. “She's probably just hit traffic, that's all.”

He grinned, showing her his teeth. He wasn't just worried about the time for himself. He was worried about it for Jas, too.

Chapter Seventeen

Dane

Who was he kidding? He wasn't going to kill Jas. Even with all his psycho tendencies in the last week or so, there was no way he was going to kill a woman whose worst crime was happening to work at a corporation that sold bad pills to soldiers and cops. She didn't know, just like Emily hadn’t known. And, hell, she just took messages for the CEO.

Sure, he'd killed before. He'd dropped bombs, bunker busters, and cluster munitions during war. But that had been during war, against enemy combatants, or at least people he was told were valid targets.

As he looked across the coffee table at Jas, watching her innocently drinking her wine and twirling a lock of hair with her finger, he realized there was no way he could follow through on his threat to Emily.

The time ticked along, and the two-hour mark drew closer.

Maybe she was bringing the cops with her. Maybe she was working on a plan where they could surround the house before he could get out, or where they'd just burst in. Maybe, after all his time fighting the system and finally being within reach of the evidence he needed, everything was about to come tumbling down around his head.

“You okay?” Jas asked, reaching forward to grab the bottle herself and pour the last bit into her glass. “You look kind of spooked, Dane.”

Of course, he was spooked. This could be it. This could be the moment Emily had been waiting for, before she closed the trap on his miserable ass. “Nah,” he replied with a grin, “I'm perfect. Though, I think I might have to run to the grocery store. We're running low on a few things, and I wanted to get in before the rush.”

“Grocery store, huh?” Jas asked, before she downed the last of the wine. “Yeah, totally. Let's go! We can pick up another bottle or three while we're there!”

No, that wasn't going to work. He needed to leave here on his own. Otherwise, he'd probably just make matters worse by dragging Jas along with him. “Uh, I really probably shouldn't be having much more to drink. I'll pick up one of the same bottles we had, though.”

“Really?” Jas asked, as he started to get up from his chair. “You're going to abandon me?”

He made his way to the front door, no keys or anything else in hand. His only plan was to get out the front door and head out of the neighborhood on foot. A vagabond. Maybe he could move on foot through the surrounding neighborhood and avoid any kind of police contact.

Just as his hand touched the handle of the front door, a thought flashed into his mind. He'd left his pistol in the nightstand. Shit! He immediately headed back that way.

He rounded the corner and turned to head back to the bedroom just as the automatic garage door kicked on, sending its weird rumble through the house.

Was that her? Was that Emily, returned with the information he so desperately needed? He stopped in his tracks and listened.

“Dane?” Jas asked. “Thought you were leaving?”

Out in the garage, a car door opened and closed, then the door in the mudroom opened and shut. “Dane?” Emily called. “Dane, are you here?”

His heart nearly sang in relief at the sound of her voice, unaccompanied by cops, SWAT, or flash-bang grenades. “Emily?” he called back.

He met her in the kitchen, her eyes nearly as frantic as he'd felt just a few short moments before. She dropped her briefcase on the floor and looked at him in a near panic. She crossed the kitchen to him and grabbed his arms. “Dane, thank God you didn't do anything stupid,” she said. “We've got a problem.”

A few minutes later, the trio were gathered in Emily's home office. The clothing was up off the floor, and the furniture had been placed back where it belonged, but Dane swore he could still smell the evidence of their little tryst the night before. If Jas sensed it, though, he couldn't tell.

“Edward has been running this whole thing,” Emily said after a moment. “He’s been pushing the drug through approval, bribing federal inspectors—the works. This thing is deep, and might involve the top levels of the company, all the way up to the board.”

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