Scandal Never Sleeps, Page 26

  coming to pick me up.”

  “Scott?” Roman asked. “He called while we were in the elevator. I told him you no longer needed a ride.”

  Her expression iced over even more. “And my day is complete. Are you sure you all went to Creighton Academy and not Douchebag prep school? I’ll take my phone back and find a cab.”

  “Will you please listen to me?” The desperation icing Gabe’s veins surprised him. The thought of Everly walking out of his life made him physically sick. In that moment, he wished he’d somehow managed to keep his heart untouched . . . but no such luck.

  “Well, you boys have given me no choice.” Her gaze zipped over to Connor. “Are you former military? My father could do that move. He learned it when he became a SEAL.”

  “Something like that,” he replied with a bland smile. “We’ll leave the two of you alone. Come on, Roman. We should be able to contact the PI by now.”

  “The PI who told you how to damage my dead father’s reputation? You need more out of him?” She looked from Roman to Dax—seemingly at everyone but Gabe.

  “Not that one. When we got Mad’s lockbox open, we found an investigator’s card inside,” Dax explained. “We suspect Mad hired him. Since Mad’s gone now, we’re hoping that this PI will divulge what he was hired to investigate.”

  “I’d like to see the contents of that box. As long as I’m here, I intend to examine the evidence I nearly died to find. At the moment, I’m still temporarily in charge of Crawford’s security.” She flipped a stubborn hazel stare Gabe’s way. “Any chance you’ll send me on my merry way to the unemployment line?”

  “None.” Gabe spoke the word like a vow.

  “So, given Mulford’s absence and your stubbornness, figuring out who killed the boss falls under my purview. So why don’t you show me what you’ve uncovered.”

  “Baby, let’s talk first about what you saw in that report and overheard me tell Sara. I didn’t—”

  “It no longer matters. I’m only here for the case. Who’s the PI?”

  She was going to be mulish obviously, and he worried that could be permanent. “Give me five minutes. After that, I won’t say another word on the subject. We’ll focus on the case. I’ll show you everything we’ve found. Please.”

  She sat again, crossing her arms over her chest. “It won’t work. I’m done playing the fool for you.”

  Clearly, talking to her was going to take longer than five minutes. Even if he had five days, Gabe wasn’t sure he could find the right words to rekindle the adoration he’d seen on her face last night.

  He cast a troubled glance at Roman, Dax, and Connor. They nodded, then filed into the dining room. Gabe was alone with her and he wasn’t sure what to say. What the hell was he going to do if he couldn’t make her believe him?

  He sat on the sofa beside her, attempting to respect her space. “My parents are both gone, and I’m the only family Sara has now.”

  She held a hand up. “I’m going to stop you there, Bond. Let me guess what happened. Your sister saw the press concerning us and flipped out because now you’re sleeping with the woman who took her baby daddy away.”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way, but she wasn’t pleased.”

  “She was angry because like everyone else in the world she thinks I’m a money-hungry whore out to find myself a sugar daddy. Stop.” She put a hand up when he tried to talk. “You thought the same thing in the beginning. Hell, you might still think it.”

  “I don’t. I don’t think you were after Mad’s money.”

  She huffed a little, a dissatisfied sound. “I suppose I should be glad you now only think I was sleeping with him for pleasure. Let me talk, Bond, and you’ll get your turn. I get why you said what you said to Sara. It was harsh, but you had to come up with some way to explain my presence.”

  “Yes,” he said quickly. “That’s exactly what I was trying to do. I was trying to calm her down. I don’t want her to lose the baby because she gets overly emotional.”

  “Somehow I think she’s stronger than that, but I’ll leave that to you. I’m not upset about what you said to Sara. I’m pissed as hell about that report. You had a private investigator dig up dirt on my life. On my family. How am I supposed to forgive you for that?”

  At least he had a way to explain this. “I ordered that report the morning I took over as CEO of Crawford. I didn’t know you were Everly Parker. I found out Mad had been having an . . .” Shit. This kept coming between them. “I learned the rumors about Mad having an affair with one of his VPs. I was angry and I worried that this woman would potentially come after a part of his fortune or start talking to the press and putting more pressure on Sara.”

  She chuckled but there was no humor behind it. “So you decided to destroy me before I could do any of that.”

  “I made the decision to gather some ammunition in case a woman I didn’t know came after my family. Once I knew who you were, I would never have used it against you.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t believe you. You would use it if you had to. You would do anything to protect your sister and your friends, including sleep with the enemy. Just like they would risk going to jail to spare you the potential of me saying something to the press. At the end of the day, blood is thicker than water, isn’t it?”

  He’d stepped into a minefield. “I did not sleep with you to keep you close.”

  “So the sex was an added bonus?”

  He had to force down his frustration. She was deliberately misunderstanding him. “No. It was attraction and chemistry, and you felt it, too.”

  She jerked her gaze away, stubbornly staring at the wall in front of her. “Yes, but that doesn’t make us compatible. Even if you never used that report, you’re the type of man who gathers ammunition on your enemies in case you might need it. You’re the type of man who threatened to kill his best friend.”

  What the hell was he supposed to say to that? “I wouldn’t have done it.”

  Her gaze was blank as she looked at him. “The same way you wouldn’t have used the report. You say all the right things, Gabriel. Can you be honest with me for two seconds?”

  “I’ve been honest with you all along.”

  “Are you going to fire me when this is over? You want Mad’s holdings to go to Sara. You’re going to give her the company. I assume you won’t want me there when she takes over.”

  At least he could answer that question. “I won’t fire you. I won’t hurt your career. If I have to, I’ll find you a new job.”

  “If you’re not firing me, why do I need a new job?”

  “Everly . . .” He knew he was pleading with her, but he had no idea what else to do. “I can’t leave you in your current position. You’re right. Sara is eventually going to take over Crawford Industries. I can’t run two companies at once, and Crawford is her baby’s inheritance. When she takes over, you can come with me to Bond. I’ll move my head of online security to Crawford. It will work.”

  In fact, the plan was perfect. He could keep her close. Bond had different security issues than Crawford. Maybe she would see it as a challenge. When he had to travel for business, he could take her with him. It could be good for them as a couple. Win-win.

  “Bond is smaller than Crawford with significantly fewer cybersecurity needs,” Everly replied with a shake of her head. “You don’t exactly have a big retail wing, so you don’t need the sort of Internet security I specialize in. That position at Bond is a fluff job. So I would be taking a step down. I’ll pass.”

  He felt his fists tighten, along with his temper. “Sara can’t work with you. You have to understand that.”

  “Why not? I’m good at my job. I would think she would like having other female executives around.”

  “You can’t expect her to keep you on.” He was happy with how reasonable he sounded when all he wanted to do was scream. Couldn’t she see he was trying to keep them both out of harm’s way?

  “Why not?”

  He
was going to have to lay it out for her. “Because she thinks Mad left her for you. She thinks you’re the reason her baby doesn’t have a father.”

  “Ah, so the would-be wife doesn’t want the whore around. Excellent. Tell her she doesn’t need to fire me. For the first time in my adult life, I’m going against my word, Gabriel. I quit. Once I can clean out my office, I’ll be gone forever, and your precious sister doesn’t have to sully herself with my presence.”

  “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying.”

  “I’ve heard everything,” she shot back. “In fact, I hear you so much better now that I know where you’re coming from. I’m willing to accept that you really had no idea who I was that first night. But every single second since the moment you realized Maddox spent time with me after he left Sara, you’ve plotted and planned to humiliate me in the worst way possible.”

  “That’s not true, damn it.” He didn’t exactly sound coaxing now, but he wasn’t going to let her rewrite history to suit her mood. “I admit I didn’t handle our first meeting well, but I sure as hell haven’t tried to humiliate you.”

  “You say you didn’t know who I was when you ordered that report, but you didn’t cancel it. You didn’t call off the PI. You’ve still got your ammunition in case I ever turn against you. Why would I want to live in that world, Gabriel?” She waved him off. “It’s irrelevant. All of this talk is completely useless because I know the truth. Tell me one thing: Do you believe me when I say I didn’t have anything beyond a friendship with Maddox?”

  He sighed, deeply sick of this argument. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Everly, I don’t care who you slept with before me. I want you. I want you now, and whatever went on in the past is in the past. Eventually Sara will accept you in my life. She’ll come around. She’s a smart woman, and you’ll win her over.”

  She stood again, this time steadier than before. “No, I won’t because we’re through. You see, it might not matter to you, but it’s everything to me. I won’t be with a man who thinks I’m a liar.”

  Everly walked away, and Gabe was fairly certain he really had lost her forever. He’d never felt more desolate in his life.

  TWELVE

  Everly fought her instinct to go back to Gabriel and accept whatever he would give her. It was weak, but she really wanted to believe he was telling her the truth. A friend in her neighborhood had recently miscarried after a very stressful reorganization at work, and it had been heartbreaking for her family. So Everly understood why Gabe might have thrown her under the proverbial bus to calm his pregnant sister. But she also hated the thought that she might become one of those stupid girls who made excuses for a boyfriend’s bad behavior because she couldn’t stop loving the jerk.

  All that aside, by his own admission, he intended to force her out of her job before his sister assumed Crawford’s helm because he believed she’d been Mad’s mistress. And she couldn’t get that report out of her head. Now she wished she’d been able to hold on to it. How much more had he found out besides the crap about her dad? Shouldn’t she know what he could come at her with? Maybe she should do her own digging. She wouldn’t need a PI. She could find out everything about Gabriel Bond. She could hack into his banking records and make it look like he was laundering money. . . .

  Oh, god, this was what life with a man as ruthless as Gabriel Bond would be like. Warfare. She was prepping for a war with a man she’d fallen in love with. Her heart sank. Even though she’d liked Maddox, he’d been the same. Always prepared to take down his enemies.

  She couldn’t live this way.

  “Are you two good?” Dax asked as she walked in the room.

  “As good as we’re going to get. Now what did you find?” Everly saw no reason to vomit out the details of her relationship with Gabriel, especially to his friends. Instead, she headed for the table. What she needed was to lose herself in work and figure out the mystery in front of her. Then she and Gabriel could go their separate ways.

  Connor glanced up from the papers he’d been studying. “You knew Mad pretty well, right?”

  “I think so.” She wished Mad was here now so she could get his opinion on how to deal with Gabriel, who’d behaved this morning like a complete douchebag-asshole-idiot. She bet that Maddox would have given her some crazy-sounding advice, which, under the punchline, would have been terribly sage. Or he would have offered to find her a male prostitute. Really, it was a fifty-fifty proposition with him.

  “Do you have any idea why he would be looking for two women?” Connor asked.

  Roman sighed as if the answer was obvious. “You’re talking about Mad. Ménage à trois, you moron.”

  Connor rolled his eyes. “I don’t think he would have spent ten grand merely to find a threesome. Fine. He might have, but I doubt he would’ve hired a PI. He knew a fair number of high-class escorts. He would have just called them.”

  “I’ll give you that,” Roman conceded. “So who did he hire this PI to find?”

  Connor looked down at his notepad. “According to the PI’s daughter, Mad hired her dad, Wayne Ferling, to find two women over the last two years. The first was named—”

  “Why talk to the daughter, rather than the man himself?” Everly interrupted. “Could you not reach him?”

  “Mr. Ferling was killed by a mugger two months ago,” Connor explained. “Right in front of his house, in fact.”

  “That’s suspicious,” Dax said with a whistle.

  “Yes, it is, considering the fact that Ferling lived in a safer part of the city,” Connor admitted. “I checked and his was the only murder in that vicinity in the last two years.”

  “So Mad’s dead and so is the PI he hired under mysterious circumstances,” Gabriel posited, strolling into the room.

  Everly tried to act as if he was nothing more than another cog in the wheel of this mystery. “Sorry I interrupted you earlier, Connor. Carry on.”

  He nodded. “Ferling’s daughter said that Mad first hired her father to find a woman in her fifties, Deborah Elliot. That was a little over nine months ago. She’s alive and living in Florida. Then more recently, Mad sought a woman named Natalia Kuilikov. She was a Russian immigrant who came to the States almost fifteen years ago. Apparently, she disappeared a while back.”

  “We keep finding Russians in the middle of this shit.” Dax paced the floor, his face thoughtful. “First, Sergei, then the Bratva, and now Natalia. That’s awfully coincidental. But Deborah Elliot doesn’t sound remotely Russian. How does she fit in?”

  Suddenly, Everly wasn’t thinking about Dax’s question or her problems with Gabriel. “Maddox was trying to find Deborah Elliot? You’re sure about that?”

  “Yeah.” Connor nodded, looking quite certain.

  A wave of dizziness rolled through her head. She braced her hand on the table, trying to process the possible implications. Now more than ever, she wished she could lean on Gabriel.

  “Everly? What’s wrong?” He moved behind her and pulled out a chair.

  She sank into the seat. Deborah Elliot. He’d been looking for Deborah Elliot. The idea made Everly’s head spin again. “Deborah Elliot is my mother.”

  The room stopped, and every eye suddenly turned to her.

  “Are you kidding me?” Roman asked.

  She shook her head. “No. I mean, that’s my mother’s maiden name. I’m sure there are plenty of Deborah Elliots out there, but for this to be another coincidence . . .” She finally looked at Gabriel. “Maddox searched for my mother. Once he found her, he apparently went out of his way to find and hire me. Why? And what made him go looking for her in the first place?”

  “With Mad gone, we may never know,” Gabriel answered. “But I think I remember your mother’s name listed in the financial records I found on his desk last night.”

  “Are they in that folder you saved from the fire?” Connor asked, looking around the table for said file.

  “Yeah.” Gabe pointed to the plain manila folder at the far end of the t
able. “That’s it. When I studied it, everything inside seemed so random. Mad had shoved a ton of receipts into that folder, along with old payment records to a Deborah Elliot.”

  “Payments? How did Maddox even know my mother?”

  Connor flipped through the files Gabriel had saved. “He didn’t. His father did. These payments were made some twenty-odd years ago. Is there any way to pull up Crawford Industries’ archived HR files? I have a hunch. I happen to remember Benedict Crawford really well, since I spent a bunch of holidays with Mad and the old bastard.”

  Before she could clear the shock buzzing through her brain to volunteer for the task, Gabriel grabbed Connor’s laptop and started typing, his face grim. “I remember, too. Do you think—”

  “Yeah, I do.” Connor’s face tightened with thought. “These payments totaled north of two hundred thousand over the course of six years. What else could this be about?”

  “Sounds like hush money to me,” Dax put in.