The Good Chase (26 page)

“How did this happen? Where'd they come from and why are they online?” He sounded slightly out of breath, like he was pacing, getting riled up.

“Marco,” she replied. “Marco took them. Years ago.”

“Mother
fucker
.” Byrne kicked something. The crash was faintly metallic. A file cabinet, likely. “I want to kill him.”

“There's no reason for that. Then I can't do it myself.”

Byrne released a growl of frustration, but it was muffled, like he'd covered the phone so she couldn't hear.

“I can't believe this happened to you. Tell me what I can do.”

She took a deep breath of exhaust-filled New York air and had never wished to be camping in the middle of nowhere more.

“Nothing. You can't do anything, Byrne. This is my embarrassment and I'll deal with it.”

He paused. “Tell me this resistance isn't because of last night.”

She was curious if he'd apologize. When he didn't, she simply said, “It's not. Byrne, look, I'm glad to hear your voice, I really am, but I am fighting a full-on rage meltdown here, and I have to figure out what I'm going to say to Whitten after I've murdered Marco.”

Byrne's voice deepened. “You're not going to see him, are you?”

“Who? Whitten or Marco?”

“You know who. God, I can't even fucking say his name.”

“Oh, hell yes I'm going to see him. Theoretical guns blazing. Or maybe even real ones. Look, I have to go. I have to do something to put out this fire. I can't just stand here on this corner thinking it will go away on its own.”

“Wait.” It sounded like he was scrambling, shuffling things around on his desk. “Let me come with you.”

“What? Why? No, thank you, Byrne. This is my thing. I don't want you anywhere near this bloodbath.”

“Shea, please—”

“I really don't want to argue right now. I don't want to argue with you at all, if you must know.”

She knew she was acting similar to how he had last night, pushing him away when all he wanted was to help, but this was her problem and he couldn't do a thing about it.

And that was probably exactly what he'd thought about her last night.

“Okay.” His tone softened, resigned. “Okay.”

“I'll try to call you later.”

“Shea.”

About a thousand layers of emotion filtered through the way he said her name. Regret. Frustration. Longing. And something else, something far, far deeper. None of which she could afford to think about right now. He muddled her brain on her best days, and she needed all her faculties at hand.

She told him good-bye and leaned against an empty newspaper box.

Suddenly she thought of her parents. Once upon a time they used to troll the New York City social pages for mentions of Marco and her. Maybe they'd stopped since the divorce. Hopefully they'd stopped. The liquor business, to them, was disappointing enough.

Her phone buzzed in her palm. It was Pierce Whitten, and she stared at his name with a dry mouth, wondering if she should pick up. Right before the final ring, the one that would kick the call into voice mail, she tapped Answer. She was a businesswoman above all and would conduct herself accordingly.

“Good morning, Pierce.”

“Shea. Hello.” He sighed in a completely different way than Byrne had. “I'm so very sorry this has happened to you.”

Of course he would have seen. The Internet was his world.

What was she supposed to say to that?
Thank you
? Instead she remained silent. A bus rumbled past, the jet of its hot fumes kicking up around her.

“Are you still there?” he asked.

“I'm here.”

“Look.” Another sigh. “I'm just calling to let you know that my offer still stands. That Right Hemisphere is behind you.”

“You've got some pretty deep reach,” she said. “Can you erase parts of the Internet and wipe human memories?”

“I wish I could, Shea. I wish I could.” That fatherly tone again, the one he'd used when he'd described Byrne. “What I can do, what my company and I are really damn good at, is marketing. Targeting. Spinning things our way.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“I know we haven't signed any papers, but call me an optimist. Just give me the word and I'll put my PR people on this. We can misdirect people's attention, we can turn it in your favor, you name it.”

Shea started to sweat. Even when she ducked out of the direct sunshine into the shadows outside an art gallery, the heat was still oppressive.

Turn private, naked photos in her favor? Use the scandal to somehow boost her name or her business? And do it under the umbrella of Right Hemisphere, thereby linking herself with the company whose current direction she didn't care for? Declare herself for Whitten before they'd ever come to mutually beneficial terms?

“No,” she told him. “Don't go near it. Please.”

“All right,” he replied after a pause. “I had a feeling you'd say that, but I wanted to offer anyway.”

“It was just gossip, but they made accusations that I was doing this to be in the spotlight. If I did anything like that, with your company, I think it would only prove them right. And they're not.”

“I understand. Is this affecting how you're looking at our meeting?”

How could he even ask that right now?

Just yesterday she'd thought she'd had everything under control, thought she'd had the steps to her future all set up and she was ready to climb. Now they were crumbling, and it hadn't even been her engineering mistake. It was someone from the side, lobbing bombs at her foundation.

Just yesterday she'd allowed herself to start putting in writing all her ideas for the distillery.

“As of right now?” she replied. “Yes. It does. This is going to take a while to sort out in my head. And in the public eye.”

“I'm not canceling the meeting, Shea. Nothing has changed on my end. In two weeks my team and I will be waiting for you in my conference room, and I sincerely hope you'll show.”

The thought of doing something to splash her name even more across the media made her shudder. The thought of having to face obnoxious strangers at the Amber with this hanging out there made her want to pack a tent and disappear into the mountains. Forever.

“Can I just say one more thing?” Pierce asked.

“Sure.”

“You can lift your chin and soldier on and turn this into something you own. Or you can let it rule you. It's your choice.”

Shea hung up, feeling more confused than ever about her professional direction but very, very clear about her personal one.

She found the number to Marco's office and stabbed the numbers on the screen like they were his eyes.

“Shea,” Marco said when she'd finally worked her way around his assistant and got through to him. “I had a feeling I'd be hearing from you today.”

“Don't say anything more. Not a word. Meet me in front of the horse in Union Square.”

“When?”

She was only momentarily thrown off by his quick acquiescence.

“Now, jackass.”

20

B
y the time Shea came up out of the subway and marched around to the statue of George Washington on his horse, Marco was already standing in front of the pedestal. Waiting for
her
for once.

His suit looked slick, his silvery hair even more so, but the troubled look on his face was so unlike the Marco she'd known that for a second she questioned whether or not it was the real him.

As she stamped up to him, his hand came out of his pocket and he watched her approach with wariness. Damn right he should. He should be glad they were meeting in public, because she wasn't sure what she'd do to him if they were alone.

She got right up close so that he couldn't ignore her fury. Her hurt. “
Why
?” Her voice sounded like she'd smoked a carton of cigarettes on the way over.

“Shea, I didn't—”

She stabbed a finger in his chest and he actually backed up a step. “Don't even
think
of trying to deny those photos aren't yours. Because I remember when you took them, you piece of shit. Unfortunately I haven't been able to forget everything.”

His shoulders slumped a bit. “Of course they're mine. You know they are.”

“So
why
? Why?” She couldn't help it, she was shouting now. “Why would you do that to me? I left you years ago.
Years
.”

“That's what I'm trying to tell you. It wasn't me. It was Sabine.”

“Who?” Right. The dark-haired child with the bob from the karaoke bar. The one who looked like she wanted to shoot fire from her eyeballs at Shea. The girlfriend who'd come back. The girlfriend who'd had to watch her slimy lover mow people down to get to his ex-wife and then had to sit there while he kept Byrne from getting back to Shea.

“She got into my computer or my phone, I don't know which, and found these. She was pissed off about you. I mentioned you more than once. She knew I'd gone to the Long Island Highland Games to see you and hated it, even though we'd broken up. And then we had a huge fight after the karaoke bar. She sent the pics to that website.”

“Are you
kidding
me?”

He opened his hands and shrugged. “I wish I was. But she's jealous and—”

“Immature. Vindictive.”

“Now wait a second—”

She cut him off with a sound of disgust.

“I had no idea she did that until this morning, Shea.” Marco actually put his hand to his heart, the corners of his eyes turned down. “I honestly didn't. And I hate that she did it.”

“That doesn't help me. Not at all. Do you have any idea what this has done? Do you have any idea what this has ruined?”

He sniffed and shifted his stance, stuffing his hand back into his pocket. She'd watched him lather up and schmooze many an acquaintance with that stance, and she wasn't going to let him use it. He was looking everywhere around the park but at her. “You look amazing in those pics, if that's anything. And they're just tits.”

“It's my career!” she shouted. “My name. The respect I'm due. But of course you would never get that.”

“I think you're making a bigger deal out of it than it needs to be.”

On one hand she couldn't believe this. On the other, it was exactly what she'd come to expect from him.

“What are you going to do about it?” she demanded. “Because you have to, you know. Do you know the kind of shit I could tell the press about you? The kinds of things I've kept to myself all these years?”

He paled. “Like what?”

“By the look on your face, I think you can guess.” She folded her arms across her chest. “How are you going to fix this, Marco?”

He wiped at the corners of his mouth. “I'll issue a statement, saying I had nothing to do with it. Telling them about the game, that you didn't cheat on me. That it wasn't the reason behind our split. That those were private photos and that they were stolen and posted without my knowledge.”

They stared at each other. None of those words made her feel any better, but they were the right words to say. It was exactly what she'd wanted him to do.

“Why the hell do you still have those pictures?”

He gave her that look again, the one that said she was the crazy one for not being able to read his mind or not knowing him inside and out. “I told you that day at those stupid Highland Games. I miss you. I've wanted you back since the day you came to me with the papers. But you left and I've been pissed off ever since.” He sneered. “I had to watch you go behind my back with Lynch, do your own thing without even telling me. And then I found out you're dating
that guy
—”

“Stop.”

The way he'd brought Byrne into this, just slipped him in there like her relationship was some kind of excuse for him hanging on to those photos, forged a whole new blade of anger that stabbed into her head.

“Byrne has nothing to do with this. And we've only just started to see each other. You've held on to those photos for years, Marco.
Years
.”

Marco looked pointedly over her shoulder. “Where is he? Shouldn't a man be with his woman in her time of distress?”

“I don't need a man to hold me up.”

“You keep telling yourself that.” He hiked up the sleeve of his suit coat and checked his gold watch. “I have to go. I'll make the statement, Shea. Because those photos were never meant to be found, and I do hate that strangers can see you like that.”

“And you'll delete them.”

One of his eyes twitched, and he said nothing to acknowledge her demand.

“Delete them. Do you hear me?”

Reaching into his coat pocket, he took out a pair of sunglasses and slipped them on. “You have to understand how much I hate the fact that you left me.” Then he turned and walked away, pulling out his phone to make a call.

She wondered if his making a statement would actually make a difference in anything except making him look better. Making him look like the victim. The pictures had still gone up. People had seen them. The Internet was forever. The damage was done.

Shea headed down one of the bowed paths through the center of the square and found a bench.

Byrne called two minutes later. “I'm sorry. I know you said you'd call but I just had to know how you're doing, what's happened. I'm worried.”

She sank back against the bench. “I just saw Marco.”

“And?”

“His mouth said he regrets what happened with the photos—which his lovely daughter, I mean girlfriend, stole and then leaked, by the way. He told me he's going to issue some sort of statement denouncing them. But his eyes and the rest of him basically said that I had it coming because I left him. And I think he's going to keep them anyway.”

“Mother
fucker
.”

“I'm starting to think that should be my line.” She looked back toward the statue. “He's still standing over there near the curb. I want to go push him into traffic.”

“Don't. Then he won't be able to fix this mess.”

She sighed and had to look away from her ex. “I don't think anything is going to fix it except time. Time and me staying out of sight for the rest of eternity.”

She heard the squeak of an office chair. She pictured him behind his desk, his feet propped up, a row of glass at his back, framing the East River.

He cleared his throat, and when he spoke his voice softened. “Would you have pushed me into traffic last night? After what I said? After the way I walked out?”

“Yes,” she said. “But not because I hated you. Because I thought you needed a wake-up. I thought you could benefit from listening. I thought I was helping you.”

Another, deeper squeak of the chair. “Yeah. Okay.”

But that was all he said. No more explanation. No apology. No other acknowledgment of what they'd said to each other. Fine. She didn't think she had the energy to rehash it now anyway.

“What are you going to do now?” So heartfelt, so true, so warm. It was the Byrne she'd come to know.

“I'm going to sit here for a few more minutes. After that, I don't know. There was a reporter outside the Amber earlier. I don't want to go there. I have reliable employees who can hold down the fort for a while.” There was a spot of pink gum ground into the pavement near her feet, and she toed it absentmindedly. “Pierce says I should own it, that I shouldn't let it rule me.”

“Oh? You talked to him?”

“He called. Told me his offer still stands, that he's not canceling our meeting.”

“What do you think you'll do?”

“My gut says not to take it. To keep hanging with the Amber but to avoid the main room for a while. To work in the back, in the office, until I feel comfortable again.”

“What about the loan you were looking into? For the farm? Wasn't it contingent on the income from Whitten's proposal?”

She turned her face to the trees. Little bits of blue sky poked through their rustling tops. “Byrne, the farm is such a superstar dream. I can start something in the city, something smaller, for much less money.”

“Or you could take Pierce's offer and get what you've always wanted.”

“Jesus. Does no man think this is as big a deal as I do? My boobs are out there for everyone to see!”

A dad and his junior-high-school-aged son wearing Miami University baseball caps, who were ambling through the square, looked up sharply at her. The dad frowned. The kid grinned.

Byrne sighed. “That's not what I meant and you know it.”

“What did you mean?”

“That there's no excuse for not going after what you want, or what can
get
you what you want. Only impossibility should stop you, and that farm is a very real possibility. You once said you should do it because it scared you. Don't try to talk yourself out of it because of a new fear.”

She flashed back to their argument in her apartment and how it seemed like he was saying similar things to her now to what she'd said to him then. They were going around in circles.

“This is something shitty that happened
to
you,” he said. “I know it's hard right now. I know it's humiliating and awful. But you would be rising above it. I think most people would see that. And think about how many other people would visit your distillery or drink your whiskey, and either won't know or won't care about all this.”

“But right now I feel like whenever someone will be talking to me or working with me from now until the end of time, they'll remember that they've seen my boobs.”

The kid in the cap giggled now. The dad gave him a shove and ushered him toward Broadway.

“Sorry,” she called to their backs. Then, to Byrne, “I need to stop saying ‘boobs.'”

He laughed, but it was strained. “What you need is to take that meeting.”

How come she couldn't tell him what to do, but he could tell her? “I don't think I'm going to. I need time.”

“All right. Okay.” But she could tell by his tone of voice that he didn't agree.

A blaring ambulance whisked around the square, having to stop and start again and again as clueless people in the crosswalk tried to slip in a chance to get across the street before the emergency vehicle, and bumper-to-bumper cars couldn't make space. It created a big pause in the conversation, so after the noise died down, she asked, “Where did you stay last night?”

“The Gramercy Park.”

Not too far from where she sat right then. “What did you wear today?”

“I went shopping. In a store. Off racks.”

The exaggerated glee in his voice made her smile, and suddenly she missed him so much she couldn't see straight. “Would liked to have seen that. Did you figure out the labels and such?”

“I did. I'm not completely hopeless, you know.”

Another drawn-out pause, and the sun hit her hard on one side of her face, feeling far too much like the spotlight she wanted to get out of.

“I have your suitcase. And your train.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Would you want to come over tonight to pick them up?” A note of hope snuck its way into her voice. “We can talk. Wallow in each other's misery. Or maybe we could finally go on that first real date.”

“Shea, I—” A growl of frustration. “I want to. Yes, absolutely. To all of the above. But, shit. I'm leaving tonight for Switzerland. I'll be gone for a week.”

That did not disappoint her or make her sad. Not at all. But someone should probably try to explain that to the sinking feeling in her stomach and the hard press of tears against the back of her eyes.

“God, I'm so sorry,” he said. “This thing has been planned for ages. Since before you and I even met. I probably should've told you before, but running off to South Carolina threw so much out of whack. I'm going with Aaldenberg, my boss. Remember him?”

“Uh-huh.”