Crash - Part Four (7 page)

“Okay, so why did the bowler just throw it to the guy on first base?” Carter asked.

“Pitcher. The guy throwing the ball is the pitcher, and he did that to stop the guy on first base running to second.”

A girl in front of us glanced at Carter. She thought she was being subtle by pretending to look at something in the distance, but it was obvious where she was looking. The girl nudged her friend, and even though I couldn’t hear them or see their faces, I had a pretty good idea of what they were saying. The constant attention women showed Carter was equal parts infuriating and flattering. As much as I hated it, I couldn’t help but feel pleased to be the one girl he loved.

“Is the batter out if the wicket-keeper catches the ball?” Carter continued. If he was embarrassed at asking all these questions, then he did a good job of hiding it.

“What the hell is a wicket-keeper?” I asked him.

“The guy behind the batter.”

“Oh you mean the catcher. No, that’s not a way to get them out. Well, sometimes. I’m actually not sure how that works…”

The loud clunk of ball on bat reverberated around the stadium. I missed the hit, but my head snapped back to the field where I saw the ball fly into the stands for a Giants home run.

“Wow, finally, someone hit it for six,” Carter said, using another term that was completely unfamiliar with me.

“Carter, that’s a home—”

“—run. Yes, I know, I’m just playing with you now.”

After the home run, the game went back to being rather dull, so I took the opportunity to teach Carter a few more of the common terms that were being thrown around by the crowd.

“That’s called a ‘backdoor slider,’ ” I said after a Giants’ pitcher threw a ball that curved into the strike zone.

“It’s called a what?” Carter replied with a smirk.

“A backdoor slider. Why are you laughing?”

“Just sounds like a euphemism for something else, that’s all. Do you like backdoor sliders?”

I had a feeling I knew what he was referring to, but had no idea whether I liked it or not. “Stop being rude.”

Carter wouldn’t admit it, but he had changed a lot since opening up about working with Kerry against PharmaTech. All those secrets he had been keeping from me must have weighed him down, and now he was finally able to be himself around me. The real Carter was fun and a lot less moody than the one that kept secrets. He no longer carried that air of mystery around with him—in some ways, mystery was exciting, but after a while I craved this kind of openness and honesty from him. That was what long-term relationships were made of.

“Ready to hear another settlement offer?” John asked.

“After the insultingly low offer they came up with last time, I’m tempted to just ignore it,” I answered.

PharmaTech’s lawyers had contacted ours soon after the case was filed and offered us $300,000 to settle. Our lawyers were obliged to ask us whether we wanted to accept it, but it didn’t take long for John and I to make up our minds on that. We hadn’t come up with a number that would be acceptable yet. To be honest, the money was far from our only priority at this stage. In addition, we also wanted to see the people involved get punished, issue a public apology, and institute a withdrawal of the faulty drug from the market. Our problems with PharmaTech went way beyond what they did to our business, and any settlement offer would need to reflect that.

“I certainly don’t think we need to go down to Bethany’s office this time. I am not going all that way again just to leave five minutes later. Let’s just give her a call.”

John called Bethany and put her on speaker.

“Hi, John,” she said as she answered the phone. “Thanks for calling. I assume Emily is there with you?”

“Hi, Bethany,” I said. “I’m here.”

“Good. I’m glad you both called—I think you’re going to like what I have to say. As you know, PharmaTech has come up with another offer. I was expecting them to try to lowball us again, but in the last couple of weeks, they have conducted an independent and internal investigation into some of the facts we alleged in our complaint. I’m guessing they found some interesting stuff, because this offer is many multiples of the last one.”

John and I shared a look. Was this going to be the big moment? Bethany, Scott, and Carter had all been telling us that our lives may change soon, but John and I never took that too seriously. It was like how when you bought lottery tickets you knew you could win, but you never really expected to. Now I felt like we had all six of the main numbers and we were just waiting to hear the Powerball number. We still hadn’t won, but our chances were a lot better than usual.

“First of all,” Bethany continued, “the money is a heck of a lot bigger. PharmaTech has offered to pay the company twenty million for this case to go away.”

Simultaneously, John and I both looked at each other. That was more than enough money to keep the company going for the foreseeable future. Even in our wildest dreams, I don’t think we could have imagined spending that kind of money. We could even get into manufacturing our own products, something that had seemed impossible before.

“The only real catch on that is that you would have to maintain a degree of confidentiality about the whole thing. You could tell people you settled the case, but wouldn’t be able to mention the money involved. Other than that, your business can continue and spend the money however it chooses.”

Shit. I knew it couldn’t be that perfect. I wanted the money, obviously, and I wanted to punish PharmaTech financially, but John and I had both agreed that it had to be more than money involved. The faulty drug was still on the market, and that had to change.

“I’m not sure we can do that, Bethany,” I said. “I’m sorry, I know it’s a really good deal, but we agreed to get more than just money.”

“And you’re about to,” Bethany said. “There’s more to come. You can’t tell people about the settlement, but that’s just dealing with the corporate espionage issues. I don’t know exactly what the internal investigation showed up—God, I would love to see that report—but it was obviously drastic. In addition to paying you money, they are also going to withdraw the faulty drug and two others that turned up during the investigation and go public about them. Anyone who comes forward and claims to have been harmed by the drugs will get to discuss a separate settlement. That includes the family of this girl you know.”

“Wow,” John said. “That’s incredible. I thought that would have taken years to achieve. I assume you are happy with this?” he asked me.

“Oh, I’m happy. Very happy. Bethany, I assume you recommend accepting this offer?”

“Definitely. In my career I have seen very few offers as good as this one. It helps that they are a public company. They have to comply with all sorts of rules about reporting things like this, and allegations of bribery of government officials are enough to wipe a company off the map. Apparently, the CEO and a few others involved have already been terminated from their employment and should end up being prosecuted. They didn’t tell us how many people were involved, but it may not have been that many. The more people that know, the more chance someone will leak the information. The fact that this stayed a secret for so long suggests only a handful of people knew about it.”

I didn’t take too much pleasure in the CEO losing his job. Not because I felt sorry for him, but because I knew he would likely bounce back quickly. Someone with a resume like that will easily pick up another job, even if the allegations of his bribery got out. Still, I couldn’t in good conscience refuse such an offer just to take some sort of petty revenge against one person. We had got what we set out to achieve, and a hell of a lot more.

“What about Kerry?” John asked me, although he said it loud enough that Bethany picked it up on the other end.

“Who’s Kerry?” Bethany asked.

“Never mind. Just a friend,” I said. “But while I’m thinking about it, do you know if criminal charges will be filed against the employees involved? Or does that somehow go against the agreement to keep all this private?”

“I expect charges will be filed,” Bethany said. “I imagine PharmaTech will try to keep this in-house, if possible, but the Department of Justice will want to get ahold of those who did the bribing. There will be lawsuits and prosecutions for years to come, although I’m guessing the whole thing will be settled with as little publicity as possible. That’s the US justice system for you.”

I had no idea what that meant for Kerry. She hadn’t done any of the bribing herself, but she had gone on record as having known about it. Maybe the Department of Justice would consider her an accomplice? Kerry was the one who planned all this, so she would either accept the consequences or had planned around them. Either way, we couldn’t let that affect our decision now.

We gave Bethany the go-ahead to accept the offer, and she told us to expect paperwork in the next few days. The money would be paid to the company, but given that John and I were the only shareholders now—Bethany assured us that the investor’s shares were not valid—we were effectively millionaires ourselves.

John made plans to see Michael, and I made plans to see Carter, but first we both went to dinner, just the two of us, to properly celebrate what we had achieved. We may have had some help along the way, but most of the credit belonged to us, and we treated ourselves to more than one cocktail in our own honor.

As much as John and I enjoyed each other’s company, after a couple of hours we were both a little eager to go our separate ways to see our boyfriends. I arrived at Carter’s apartment about half an hour before I said I would be there and found it empty. Although the effects of the cocktails were starting to wear off, I still felt a little giddy and more confident than usual.

My attempt at finding something to watch on TV was fruitless, so I went into Carter’s bedroom and decided that now would be a good time to take a closer look at some of the toys I knew he kept in the lower drawers. John had already seen them from when we were looking for information on his hospital visits, but I was still in the dark about what he had. There had been many nights I could have looked or even asked Carter to show me, but I had never quite had the courage until now. Maybe it was liquid courage, but people were brave in different ways.

A few months ago I would have been shocked, and honestly, a little disgusted at what I found, but having now been in a sex shop and explored some previously hidden recesses of my sexuality with Carter, I was now more intrigued than appalled. Most of the stuff seemed to be in one drawer, and I recognized a few pieces from our trip to the adult boutique.

If there were one word to describe Carter’s taste in this kind of “equipment,” then it would have been “leather.” The more adventurous—and in some cases, confusing—items remained in the drawer, but I took out a corset with a matching thong, a leather choker with stainless steel spikes, and finally, a leather whip with nine tails.

The clothing items looked a lot more intimidating than they really were. I’d worn corsets and thongs before, and while the choker looked kinky, I had similar things at home—albeit not in leather—from when they were in fashion.

I got undressed, and with no small degree of difficulty tied myself into the leather corset. The thong and choker were much easier to get on. I held the whip in my hand and gave myself a few gentle lashings across my upper thighs to get a feel for it. The impact stung, but there was a definite appeal in thinking of Carter punishing me with it.
If only my ex-boyfriend could see me now
, I thought. I’d changed drastically in the past few months, and not just from having more sex. The changes were more in the mental approach I took to thinking about my body and what I wanted Carter to do with it and to it.

I checked the time on my phone and realized that Carter would be home any minute. My first thought was to hop into bed and have him find me there waiting for him, but I’d done that before, and it seemed rather ill-fitting with what I was wearing and holding in my hand.

Instead, I went back into the living room and turned off all the lights before taking a seat on the sofa. When he arrived, he was going to get one hell of a surprise.

Carter ran a little late, but just as I was about to get my phone out, I heard the elevator stop and the doors start to open. He strolled out and threw his keys down on a small table before turning on the lamp. Instead of looking at me, though, he walked straight into the kitchen, turned on the light there, and opened the fridge. It wasn’t quite the effect I was going for.

“I’ve been waiting,” I said in my best slow and sexy voice.

“Holy shit,” Carter said, turning and looking in the direction of the living room. “Why were you sitting in the dark?”

He could still barely make me out, so I stood up, whip in hand, and walked toward the kitchen, stopping once I was in the light.

“Oh, my God,” he said under his breath as he looked up and down my body. His gaze finally came to rest on what I held in my hand. “What’s all this? Not that I’m complaining, but wow, I was not expecting to come home to you like this.”

“I’ve been going through your things and trying them on. I’ve been a very bad girl, Carter.”

“Well, then,” he said, taking a couple of steps toward me, “I guess you need to be punished. Bad girls should always be punished.”

He took me by the hand and walked me over to the sofa. He sat down and pulled me next to him.

“Say ‘orange’ if you feel uncomfortable, and say ‘red’ if you want me to stop,” he whispered in my ear.

He took the whip from my hand and planted a firm kiss on my lips. Then he placed a palm on my back and pushed me over his legs. I let out a gasp as I fell forward onto the sofa cushions on the other side of his thighs. My ass immediately stuck up into the air as if eagerly awaiting its punishment.

Carter let the soft tails of the whip trickle all over my bare ass cheeks and the backs of my legs. I already knew this was going to be something I enjoyed. My heart was racing in anticipation, and I could already feel my sex pulsating with raw desire.