Chapter 4: Collateral

“It is an earring,” I said, and my voice cracked in the middle of the word.

“I can see that, I am asking whose it is,” Kade said, turning it slowly between his fingers.

“It is mine, I mean it was my grandmother’s, one of a pair, and I lost the other one a long time ago,” I said.

“Your grandmother’s,” Kade said, in the voice of a man who did not believe a word of it.

“She had good taste,” I said.

For a long moment he did not move, and the board members studied the table, and Dean looked at me with so much delight that I wanted to throw my folder at his head.

“Sir, shall I draw up the merger terms?” an older board member asked carefully.

“Draw them up, I will decide tonight,” Kade said, and then he slipped the earring into his jacket pocket. “I will keep this for now.”

“That is my grandmother’s earring,” I said.

“Then think of it as collateral, you will get it back when the contract is signed, ten minutes are up, Hale,” Kade said, with a smile that had no warmth in it at all.

I gathered my papers with hands that would not stop shaking, and I walked out of that boardroom with my chin up, because my father had taught me that you never let a room see you bleed, and I got as far as the hallway before a hand closed around my arm.

“Take your hand off me, Dean,” I said.

“You look terrible, Mina, gray really suits you, it matches your personality,” Dean said, smiling down at me.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Just to talk about Wednesday night, my friend works the door at Club Noir, and he sent me a photo, my ex-girlfriend in a red dress, leaving with my boss, I nearly dropped my phone,” Dean said.

“You are lying,” I said, though my mouth had gone dry.

“I would show you, but I would hate for you to see how happy you looked,” Dean said. “And the funniest part is that he does not remember you, the great Kade Voss slept with the Hale heiress, and a few days later he walked into a meeting and did not even know her face.”

“What do you want, Dean?” I asked.

“Fifty thousand dollars by Friday, and a job at Hale Living, vice president, I like the sound of that,” Dean said.

“Or what?” I asked.

“Or I send that photo to the newspapers and to Kade, imagine the headline, Hale heiress sleeps with merger partner, your father would love that,” Dean said.

“You cheated on me, you laughed at me behind my own door, and now you want me to pay you?” I asked.

“I want what I deserve, you owe me for two years of my life,” Dean said.

“I owe you nothing, and you can send your photo to whoever you like,” I said, though inside I was shaking so hard I thought my knees might fold.

“Brave words, Mina, you have until Friday,” Dean said, and he patted my cheek, and I slapped his hand away.

“Is there a problem here?” a woman’s voice asked.

She stood at the boardroom door with her arms folded, tall and sharp in a tight black dress, with cheekbones like blades and a smile that stopped well before her eyes.

“No problem, Tamsin, we are only catching up,” Dean said, and he walked away whistling.

“Tamsin Reed, I am Kade’s executive assistant,” the woman said, looking at my sweater the way a person looks at a stain. “Nice sweater, it makes a strong statement, I believe the statement is please do not look at me.”

“It is comfortable,” I said.

“I am sure it is, Kade wants to see you in his office, alone, right now,” Tamsin said.

“Now?” I asked.

“Now, he does not like to wait, and I would not keep him, he is in a mood,” Tamsin said, and she turned and clicked down the hallway on her heels.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and I looked down at a message from Zola. How did it go, did he recognize you, did you spill coffee on him???

He kept my earring, I typed, and Dean knows everything, and I think I am going to throw up.

I am getting my car keys, do not move, Zola wrote back.

I cannot move, Kade wants to see me, I typed, and I put the phone in my pocket, and I pressed one hand against my stomach, and I whispered, “Please be quiet in there, I need you to be brave with me.”

~~~

Kade’s office was on the top floor, with glass walls on three sides and the whole city laid out beneath them like something he owned, and he stood at the window with his back to the door.

“Close the door, Hale,” he said, without turning around.

I closed it, and the click echoed through the room.

“Do you know what I do when something bothers me?” Kade asked.

“No, sir, I do not,” I said.

“I investigate it, I have a very good security team, and I have a club that has very good cameras,” Kade said, and he finally turned around.

“I do not know what you mean,” I said, though my voice sounded very small.

“Of course you do not,” Kade said, and he walked to his desk, where a laptop stood open and glowing. “I could not sleep last night, and I could not stop looking at this earring, I have seen it before, in my own hotel room, on my own sheets, and I could not figure out how.”

“Lots of earrings look the same,” I said.

“Not this one, it is handmade, a tiny drop of rain, one in a hundred, and I have the other one in a drawer in my bedroom,” Kade said. He took a small silver object out of his pocket and set it on the desk beside the laptop, and then he put down a second one beside it, and they matched perfectly, like two halves of a sentence.

“Kade,” I said, and I did not even realize I had said his name.

“Interesting, you called me Kade, not Mr. Voss, most people take three meetings to work up to that,” he said softly.

“I only meant,” I started.

“Do not,” Kade said, and he turned the laptop around, and on the screen was a frozen picture from a club, a woman in a red dress in a man’s arms, her head tipped back, laughing, with her eyes bright and her hair loose around her shoulders.

The woman was me.

“I have been trying to remember her face for three weeks,” Kade said quietly, and he stepped around the desk until he was so close I could smell the same cologne, and his eyes dropped to my glasses, my gray sweater, and my hands pressed against my stomach.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Hale?” he asked.