Winner Takes All (35 page)

“He believes you’re a genius.” His voice was scornful.

She ignored it. “Yes, that’s it precisely. He believes I’m a genius. So when he came to my apartment after the scandal hit the papers, I thought for sure he was going to dump me—after hurling a few insults my way. But instead he was full of admiration for the complexity of the deception. Only a true mastermind could come up with it. It’s funny. When he said this, I’d been seconds away from swearing on my grandmother’s grave that I had been set up, but it’s a good thing I didn’t. He wouldn’t have believed me—you’ve done such an excellent job no one would believe me—and would’ve only gotten angry at me for lying. Isn’t that ironic? So I accepted full responsibility for the crime, and he promised to get me the best defense money could buy. Then he offered me a job.”

Ethan’s eyes bugged. They almost shot out of their sockets like a cartoon character’s. “He offered you a job?” He was speaking slowly, carefully enouncing every word, as if speaking to a slow child or a foreigner.

“Yes, executive vice president of something or other. I’ve forgotten the details. Cole says he needs someone like me—a criminal mastermind—to make sure everything in his company is on the up and up,” she explained, noting that his surprised look hadn’t faded. Not yet.
I’m starting to get to him.
“In the past, he’s hired private detectives to investigate employees whose behavior is suspicious, but he thinks it’ll be much more useful to have someone who’s been there on the staff. I’m going to get a large corner office and a corporate credit card.”

Ethan wasn’t inclined to linger over her job perks. “You said three job offers. What’re the other two?”

“Well, the second is from the Justice Department,” she said.

These words stunned him, and he was incapable of speech for ten whole seconds. Then he gathered his wits and started laughing. “Eva, sweetheart, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but you just blew it. The Justice Department offered you a job? Please, Jeffers might be a dumbass, but even he couldn’t be that stupid. You’re going to have to come up with something more believable.”

“As I said before, I don’t care what you believe, Ethan. I was raised to thank a person when he does you a good turn. That’s why I’m here.”

“I don’t believe the Justice Department offered you a job,” he said, determined to debate the point. He wanted her to admit she was lying. “Tell me why you’re here. This has to be a pretense.”

“No, not an
official
job,” she conceded, ignoring his last comment. “They can’t do that until I’ve served my time. But Jeffers himself said it was the slickest thing he’s ever seen and I believe him. He’s been busting anti-trust offenders for almost twenty years. You did an excellent job, Ethan. Or, rather, I should say that
I
did an excellent job.” She laughed slyly. “So excellent that Jeffers wants to sign me on as a consultant for much the same reason as Cole wants to hire me: He needs someone who knows the ropes from the inside. It’s pretty insane that that someone is me. And I owe it all to you. If you hadn’t set me up to take the fall, I would have continued on the same career path for years. I would’ve worked hard for Wyndham’s and maybe inched up the corporate ladder one rung at a time. Maybe, if I was lucky, I would’ve gotten Ben’s job. God, I can’t think of anything more boring now.”

“There’s still jail time,” he pointed out, still trying to figure out the real reason for her visit. “You can’t be here to thank me for that.”

“No, jail looms and I’m not looking forward to it. But Jeffers said the price-fixing scheme is so complicated that the prosecutors won’t be able to make a strong case. He thinks I’ll get one year in a minimum-security prison, which won’t be so bad. I’ll even get to learn how to play tennis.”

Ethan sneered. “Now you’re pouring it on a bit too thick.”

She shrugged. “All right, so I might not pick up a racket sport, but I will have plenty of time to read. If I’m going to be the foremost authority on price-fixing scams, then I’ve got a lot to learn. And, besides, there’s always my book to keep me busy.”

“What book?”

“The book I’ve just been contracted to write for a major publishing company,” she explained. “The announcement should go live at any moment. I spoke with a reporter from the
Wall Street Journal
for forty-five minutes this morning and he promised to post the story by three.”

Ethan’s hold on his temper was slipping. For the first time since she’d entered his office, she could see the seething anger in his eyes. His hands clenched at his sides as he stood up and struggled to remain—or to appear—calm. He stood behind his chair, putting more distance between them. Eva looked away for a moment, afraid that he might be able to read the excitement in her own eyes. When she felt it had passed, she turned back to him. “It would be coarse to mention numbers but it’s a six-figure deal. It’s what I believe the industry calls a very nice deal. I’m certainly happy about it. I suppose you’re wondering what the book will be about,” she said, rattling happily away, as if the man in front of her weren’t about to burst a vein in his forehead. “It’s not just about the price-fixing scheme as the editor had originally proposed. I couldn’t very well write in detail about something I don’t know anything about. It’s going to be about the rarified world of auctions, a sort of tell-all, I suppose, about our unique corporate culture and the pressure it exerts over junior employees hoping to make a big splash. I’m very excited about it. I’ve already started jotting down ideas.”

His fingers curled around the black supple leather. “How much was the deal for?”

“Six figures.”

“Fuck figures,” he said angrily, his face a disturbing shade of red. “Tell me how much the deal was for!”

“Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It’s an unusually good deal for a first-time author but, like my editor said, few people have stories as interesting as mine.” Eva saw the look he gave her. He was about to snap. All he needed was another little push. “It’s a staggering amount of money and at first I had this knee-jerk reaction that I didn’t deserve it but then I remembered the genius of my scheme and thought—”

“The genius of
your
scheme?” he said quietly, too quietly. “You fucking airhead bitch.” He turned away and looked out the window at Manhattan. “You couldn’t have come up with a scheme like that if you spent your whole life thinking about it. I was setting you up for almost two years and you didn’t suspect a thing. Two fucking years you sat out there in the bullpen with your Suzy Sunshine smile and your first-day-at-work business suits and didn’t have a clue that I’d cloned your email.” He turned around, spitting anger. If looks could indeed kill. “And this dimwit, this office drone, this stellar example of
business
acumen,
is getting credit for my brilliance.”

“Not just getting credit,” she said with a smile, egging him on, “but power, respect and, most important, cold, hard cash.”

“You fucking bitch, you didn’t come into my office to thank me.” He approached her threateningly, but Eva remained calm in her seat. He wouldn’t hurt her. She knew he wouldn’t. It would serve no purpose and only lead to more questions. What was the woman who had betrayed his company doing in his office? But he got in her face so close that Eva could smell the coffee on his breath. “You came in here to gloat, maybe even to get a rise out of me. You women are so fucking petty and predictable. Listen to me carefully: I don’t care how much money and glory you
say
you’re going to get, you’re still doing time for a crime you didn’t have the brains to commit. You’re a fucking patsy and I don’t give a flying fuck what happens to you. Now get the hell out of my office.”

Eva did not have to be told twice and she marched through the door, down the hallway and into the elevator as quickly as her legs could take her. Then she sunk to the floor, overwhelmed and stunned and vaguely terrified that Jeffers had somehow missed the whole thing. When the doors pinged open thirty seconds later, she was still on the floor, her heart pounding as she ordered herself to take deep, calming breaths.

Suddenly, Cole was at her side, feeling her body gently as if checking for broken bones. “Are you okay? Does something hurt? What happened?”

Annoyed with the melodrama, she shook herself loose, stood up and then immediately threw herself into his arms. “Tell me, tell me, tell me Jeffers heard everything,” she ordered, as she rested her head against his chest.

“Oh, yeah, he heard Ethan call him a dumbass.”

Eva laughed as they stepped off the elevator and brushed past a couple waiting to get on. “Now tell me he’s on his way up to Ethan’s office to arrest him.”

“The wheels of justice don’t move that swiftly,” Cole said, holding the door open for her. “He still has to get a warrant. But the investigator I hired was able to prove that many of those emails could not have come from your computer. Some were sent from IP addresses out of the country, one when you were sitting in a courtroom on Centre Street doing your civic duty as a juror. You’re in the clear.”

As grateful as Eva was to hear the words, she wouldn’t believe them until they came out of Jeffers’s mouth, and when they did a few minutes later, they were offered brusquely, almost impatiently. If anything, Jeffers seemed annoyed that she’d wasted his time, as if she were some sort of red herring that had deliberately tossed itself into his path to undermine his closure rate.

Rather than apologize for the inconvenience, the gentleman from the Justice Department instructed her to remain available. “We still have questions for you, Ms. Butler, and you’ll of course be called on to testify. But for now, you’re free to go.”

Resisting the urge to stick out her tongue, Eva grabbed Cole’s hand and pulled him away from the building and the car he had waiting. “I want to take you to lunch to thank you,” she said.

Finding her eagerness irresistible, he grinned. “All right.”

“And then I want to take you home and make love for the rest of the afternoon.”

“That’s a plan I can get behind,” he said, tugging her into his arms and kissing her softly.

She sighed and sank into the sweetness. “It’s good to be free,” she said as soon as she could speak.

“Yes, it is.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Eva insisted on
going to work the next day.

“You don’t have to do this,” Cole said as she stepped into the shower at seven-thirty in the morning. “You’ve had a rough couple of days. Nobody would think less of you if you took a vacation.” He had meant to propose his two-week getaway plan last night but didn’t get the chance when Eva fell asleep in the car. They had been on their way home from an extravagant dinner his mother had insisted on treating them to. The entire council of war had come to toast Eva’s freedom with fine champagne.

Standing under the spray of water, she shook her head. “I don’t need a vacation.”

“Then take the weekend, at least,” he said, doing some quick calculating. If they left now, they’d be in the Bahamas in four hours. Not quite the holiday he’d planned but long enough to put some color in her cheeks. “It’s already Friday. There’s no point in going in on a Friday. Wait until Monday.”

Eva poured some shampoo into her hand and lathered her hair. Although it was early, she was in a rush. She still had to drop by her apartment and pick up some work-appropriate clothes. Cole had only packed casual stuff when he threw the contents of her closet in a bag. “If I wait until Monday people will think I’m scared.”

Cole thought this was utter nonsense. “Nobody is judging you.”

She sighed, washed the soapy bubbles out of her hair and told him the truth. “If I wait until Monday, I’ll think I’m scared.”

There was nothing he could say to that. Eva had to fight her own demons. “Okay, you win but at least have lunch with me.”

She put some lavender body cleanser on a loofah and ran it along her legs as she made a face. “I don’t know. I probably have a stack of work on my—” She broke off as Cole grabbed her shoulders. His boxers, which he was still wearing, were now soaking wet. Impatient with her stubbornness, he felt like shaking some sense into her, but he didn’t. He simply said please.

“All right, but we’re going somewhere quick and convenient,” she said, unable to resist the light in his eye. For some reason she didn’t quite understand, he felt a need to give comfort, whether she wanted it or not. “No two-hour, expense-account lunches at Per Se.”

When he’d stepped into the shower, Cole’s only intention was to talk her into lunch, but now that she was in his arms all slick and wet other ideas occurred to him. He lowered his mouth, heedless of the spraying water, and groaned when he felt her respond immediately.

“Now I’m going to be late for work,” she murmured as he pushed her against the tile wall.

Cole’s only response was to take the loofah out of her hand and toss it on the floor.

Although Eva wasn’t as nervous today as she’d been yesterday, she still felt considerable trepidation stepping into the lobby of the office building. Her name had been cleared on the evening news and in the late editions of the newspapers but a bad reputation was harder to shake than a good one and she knew that not everyone would be convinced of her innocence. Where there was smoke, there was fire, they’d say behind her back after smiling to her face.

I can handle it, she thought as she waited for an elevator with three other conservatively dressed professionals. They didn’t look familiar to her, which meant they weren’t Wyndham employees. The auction house shared the building with several other companies, including a very well-respected financial institution and a publishing house. Eva was relieved to realize that these people didn’t know who she was.

By the time the elevator finally came, there was a small crowd waiting and Eva barely squeezed in among the business suits and leather briefcases. It was an uncomfortable ride up to the twelfth floor, but she didn’t mind as it was also an anonymous one.

Her desk was empty. Of course it was. The Justice Department had confiscated her computer and all her files and left her with nothing but a half-finished cup of coffee and a few scattered Post-its. She stared at the blank space and wondered how long it would take to get her computer back. She didn’t even know whom to contact. Perhaps Kerry Newman in human resources knew the protocol for retrieving evidence from the DOJ. Eva was just about to pick up her phone to call Kerry when she heard the sound she’d been dreading most: Taverner’s voice. Oh, God.