TRAP (The Billionaire's Rules, Book 15) (4 page)

“You never finished telling me what happened,” Brayden said.

She opened her eyes more fully and turned her head towards him. “About what?”

“About the recording.” He smiled.

She sat up on her elbow. “You want me to tell you who recorded me.”

“Yes,” he said, his expression turning puzzled. “Why would you protect the person who did that to me—to us?”

She bit her lip, thinking. “I’m just afraid of what you might do when you know.”

He stopped stroking her hair and sat up fully. His torso was rippling with muscle, his bicep stood out in stark relief as he braced himself on the mattress, staring at Lanie now. “You have to trust me.”

“I do trust you…”

“Then tell me.”

She sighed. “It was Frida. Doesn’t she work in the IT group?”

“Frida?” Brayden said, his eyes crinkling with confusion. “That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Why the hell would she do that?”

“Maybe she was angry at you.”

He made a snorting, scoffing sound. “Angry at me for what?”

Now it was Lanie’s turn to scoff. “Come on, Brayden. I know about you and Frida. Please don’t play innocent with me.”

“Me and Frida? Me and Frida what?” he said, running a hand through his hair. “You think she and I had some kind of relationship?”

Lanie’s brow furrowed. “Ummm…yeah. Obviously you did.”

“I don’t see what’s so obvious about it—especially since it never fucking happened.” His voice was hard and full of anger.

Now it was Lanie’s turn to be confused. “But…she said…”

“What did she say?” He leaned forward, his jaw jutting outward as his eyes locked on hers. “You need to tell me exactly what Frida said to you. Anything that could make sense of this. I need to know, Lanie.”

“Well, let’s see…” Lanie looked off to the side, trying to recall exactly what Frida had told her. It was all such a blur now. “She made a comment about how you were going to hit on me, that you hit on all the girls who worked for you. She made it sound like you had done the same with her.”

“That’s total crap,” Brayden snarled.

“I don’t see why you’re so up in arms. Frida is gorgeous, I could hardly blame you for being interested in her. And it was before I ever came into the picture, I assume.”

“Lanie. I already told you that never happened,” he said getting up off the bed and beginning to pace. He went to the window and looked out at the city. “I can’t believe she ran around the office saying stuff like that. And I really wish you’d have told me.”

Lanie threw up her hands. “You and I didn’t exactly have the kind of honest and free communication for me to mention it.”

He glanced at her. “You work for me. That’s reason enough.”

“Are you kidding me?”

He turned back to the window and gave a resigned shrug. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway. It’s over. I still need to let that fact sink in.”

Lanie was reeling, confused, her mind spinning. Was it possible that he’d never actually slept with Frida? Had Frida ever really even said that Brayden had pursued her? Lanie wracked her brain, recalling how she’d pushed for an answer and Frida had steadfastly avoided providing one.

At the time, Lanie had thought that was out of some kind of modesty. But maybe, in reality, Frida hadn’t wanted to admit the truth.

“Brayden, she never came right out and said you’d slept with each other,” Lanie finally announced.

He turned towards her again and folded his arms. “She never said it?”

“No, it was all innuendo. She made comments about how you did it with everyone, but when I tried to pin her down, she never quite answered my questions.”

Brayden shook his head and smiled bitterly. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It does matter. She was obviously manipulating me. And she must be working in concert with whoever hacked into your network. Frida is the key to the entire thing.”

He laughed. “There’s no key. They accomplished their mission. Our company’s security has been compromised and I won’t let them hurt our customers. If I go back online, they’ll release all of that personal data.”

“There has to be something we can do,” Lanie said.

“Not really,” Brayden said. “Of course, I’ll alert the police and we’ll drag the network and our databases for clues, but I doubt they’ll have been stupid enough to leave anything we can use.” He sighed and came over, took her hand and sat down on the bed. “I don’t care about any of that now,” he said.

“Of course you do. You worked hard to build that company.”

He laughed bitterly. “Lanie, you never even liked Hookup.”

She smiled. “But I like you. A lot.”

“Yeah? I like you too,” he said. And then he kissed her deeply.

And in that moment, she knew what she had to do. She was going to do something incredibly stupid and incredibly dangerous, but if it worked—she might just save Brayden’s company and bring Frida and the hackers to justice.

Brayden caressed her hair, not realizing that she was already plotting to find a way to get free, make an excuse, leave his apartment.

She needed to do it soon, and she couldn’t tell Brayden what she was planning.

He’d never allow it.

Lanie felt her heart start to pound faster and faster, realizing that she was so close to having everything she’d ever wanted. And now she was about to put it all at risk with one crazy roll of the dice.

* * *

S
ome time later
, Frida was waiting for Lanie at the Mid Way Café, a cute little place that Lanie had never been. It was full of people and there was an acoustic band on the small stage in the back of the room playing old rock and roll songs in a more stripped down, softer format that lent the place a relaxed feel.

But despite the warm ambiance inside the little café, Lanie was anxious. She had traveled alone, telling Brayden she needed to go meet Ivy and Cullen again and let them know she was all right. She told Brayden she would be back at his apartment in an hour or two at most, and then took a cab over to the bar Frida had agreed to meet her at.

The meeting had been arranged via text, and Frida had seemed only too happy to meet, and not at all suspicious.

Everything hinged on Frida believing that Lanie was still a woman scorned, if the rest of this was ever going to play out correctly.

Frida had already ordered them drinks, and when Lanie sat down, dropping her purse on the tabletop, the gorgeous, exotic woman nodded and grinned. “They make the best drinks here,” Frida said, winking.

Lanie looked down nervously at the drink in front of her. It was a fat mug that looked like something out of an old movie. A wedge of lime was sitting on the edge of the mug, but the cup was dark and the liquid inside not visible to the eye.

Lanie picked it up and sniffed at it

“It won’t hurt you, I promise,” Frida laughed. “Besides, you might want to have a hazy memory, just in case you get subpoenaed to testify in court someday.” She winked yet again and laughed a little more.

Lanie laughed too, but her insides twisted. She wouldn’t put it past a weirdo like Frida to have drugged her drink.

“Maybe I should keep my wits about me,” Lanie said.

Frida raised an eyebrow as she lifted her own mug and drank from it. “You called
me
,” she reminded Lanie, licking her lips and setting the mug down on table again. It was a little rickety, and the tabletop shifted anytime weight was put on it.

Lanie took a deep breath.
Relax
, she told herself.
Just be normal. Or be abnormal—whatever it takes to convince her you’re serious.

“I know I called you, and I’m thankful you agreed to meet with me.” She shook her head. “I feel so stupid.”

Frida’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Look, I know you recorded me, Frida. Brayden sent me the voice memo.”

Frida’s expression didn’t change much. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“It didn’t make me mad,” Lanie rushed to reassure her. “Brayden was such a jerk about all of it. He insulted me, told me I was just some girl he fucked.”

Now Frida’s eyes widened. She leaned forward. “He actually said that to you?”

The excitement in her eyes was almost repellent.

“That and more,” Lanie said, shaking now—not with rage—but fear. And yet, perhaps her fear passed for anger, because Frida nodded sympathetically.

“He’s an animal, Lanie. He’s hurt a lot of us. A lot of women,” Frida added.

Lanie felt her lips pucker. She picked up the mug in front of her and took the tiniest of sips. The drink tasted better than she’d have expected. No, of course Frida didn’t try and slip her a mickey. She tried to calm down, but she was still shaking.

“You said he hurt a lot of women. How did he hurt you?” Lanie asked, pretending to sound curious.

Frida’s eyes narrowed. “I want to talk more about you,” she said. “Why did you want to see me when you knew that I recorded you without your knowledge? I can’t really believe that you’re not mad at me, Lanie.”

Lanie shrugged. “At first, I was. But when Brayden said all of those awful things to me, it made me realize why you did it. You used me to get at him.”

Frida studied her intently, her dark, almond eyes searching as if for clues. “How do I know he didn’t put you up to this? Coming here to meet me?”

Lanie swallowed, feeling momentarily frozen.

She knows. Of course she knows. She can smell this from a mile off.

But no. If she knew for sure, she’d have told me to go screw
.

Frida was suspicious, but her strange obsession with Brayden was making her mind cloudy. She wanted more details about him, she was addicted to hearing about Brayden and screwing with his life.

“He doesn’t know anything,” Lanie said. “He doesn’t know I’m meeting with you right now.” That much was true, and she was able to look Frida dead in the eye as she said it.

Frida folded her arms. “Go on.”

“He thinks I’m in league with whoever hacked his site.”

Frida’s eyes widened again. “Really,” she said.

“Yup. He’s threatening me with lawsuits and all sorts of things. He blames me.”

Frida laughed. “Wow,” she said, and she seemed rather pleased to hear it.

“Glad you find it funny,” Lanie said, a real surge of anger coursing through her blood stream. “I’m taking the fall for you.”

“I’m sorry,” Frida said, the smile immediately disappearing off her face now.

Gotcha
, Lanie thought.
Now she believes me. I just convinced her I’m for real.

“And that’s one reason I want to meet with you,” Lanie said. “I need to know just how exposed I am. Are you going to keep throwing me under the bus?”

“You’re not exposed,” Frida said. “He’s bluffing, Lanie. He can’t afford to sue you and have the truth come out in court. I mean, think about it. He’s your boss and he fucked you and basically harassed you. How would that look to a judge or jury, let alone the court of public opinion? He doesn’t have a leg to stand on and he knows it.”

Lanie sat back, thoughtful. Nodding.

Right now, her phone was recording all of this, sitting just inside her purse next to them on the table. But the acoustic band was playing in the background and this café was noisy. She didn’t know if it anything was being picked up, or if the audio quality would be good enough to be audible.

And yet, her pulse was racing because Frida was getting closer and closer to admitting her part in hacking Brayden’s network.

“Still,” Lanie said. “I hope you’re right because I want to believe he’ll pay for the way he treated me.”

“Oh, he will,” Frida said. She pointed a finger at Lanie. “Men like him always believe they can prevail over the weaker sex. But they always fall, eventually. And they never realize it’s us—the women they’ve thrown aside—who eventually are responsible for their downfall.”

Lanie nodded, pretending to accept Frida’s insanity. “When did he sleep with you?” she asked, casually.

She wondered if Frida would make up a whole lie or just avoid the question entirely.

Frida seemed to consider the question at length. She stared down as she picked at a wet napkin next to her drink. “He never slept with me,” she murmured.

“Wait…what?” Lanie said, feigning surprise. Truth be told, she
was
surprised that Frida had admitted the truth so easily.

Friday glanced up at her and gave an awkward smile. “He fucked just about every other girl in the office, you know. He’s truly a pig.” She got a strangely intense look on her face and then her hand grabbed the wet napkin and she tore it into pieces. “It’s like he purposely wanted to hurt me—wanted to show me that he didn’t need me. Every other guy fell all over themselves trying to get in my pants, but no. Not him. Not Mr. Wonderful, Brayden Forman. He kept ignoring me and ignoring me and then finally, one day,
I
made a pass at
him
.”

“You did?” Lanie gasped.

Frida rolled her eyes. “I know, it’s crazy. I mean, look at me.” She leaned away from table and raised her arms, revealing her gorgeous figure. “Guys have always wanted me, Lanie. It’s just…it’s how it is. Right? Some girls just have that special something that attracts them like flies.”