Or maybe the problem is that I do know how she’d react.
Except he’s right—she would have confronted me. Definitely.
Still, something’s off with her. And if Weston told his wife, I have even more reason to suspect that Sabrina will know soon if she doesn’t know already. Hell, she could be whispering it to her downstairs right this very minute. “You really told Elizabeth?”
“Nothing specific. Nothing she’d tell Sabrina. Don’t worry. Just that you’re still doing favors for your father.”
“I’m not—” I realize how irritated I sound and start again. “I’m not doing favors for him.”
“You tracked down a hard drive full of the only copy of information that could potentially ruin his company and put him in jail. How is that not a favor?”
“He didn’t ask me to do it.” Admitting I took care of it on my own accord doesn’t sound much better.
The look he gives confirms that’s exactly what he’s thinking.
I lean back in my chair and puff on my cigar. “I wasn’t trying to look out for him, all right? I was digging into something for Cade a while back with some people I know who deal in sensitive information, and while we were negotiating, I was told that there was someone trying to sell some info on King-Kincaid, and I was…curious.”
Weston rolls his cigar between his fingers, nodding. I’d told him what I’d had soon after I’d obtained it, but this is the first time I’ve given him the details. I can guess what is going through his head, imagining himself in the same position—would he have been curious?
I don’t need to think about it like he does to come to the conclusion that he would have walked away. Weston has managed to keep himself untangled from our fathers’ empire, physically if not emotionally, for quite some time now.
The opposite could be said for myself. I’ve been numb about pretty much everything where my father is concerned, but I have my hands in several of his pots. Not just because Weston and I still both own stock in the family business, but because I like knowing. All of it. The good, the bad, and especially the ugly.
This particular info fell into the latter. I hadn’t known our fathers had falsified their books and used their company to launder dirty money for some shady oligarchs in Eastern Europe until I’d seen the data. There’ve been rumors for a while that King-Kincaid isn’t all on the up and up—rumors I believed—but nothing has had the potential to bring them down like this. They must have known they were dangerously close to being caught because they apparently hired a tech guy to clean their computer system of any trace of the bad dealings. The guy had done a stellar job, it seems—the company’s books looked perfect when I audited them in January—but he kept a copy of the backup, probably to use as extortion at some point.
When I discovered he was holding it, I offered to buy it off of him without a second thought. It hurts to think about how much I ended up paying for the drive. That fact alone would have Sabrina’s panties twisted in a knot.
But I know she hasn’t examined the savings accounts the same way I know everything about her—I make it my job to know.
When I’ve finished explaining, Weston asks the question I’ve asked myself over and over with no satisfactory answer. “So why didn’t you just let them blackmail our dads? Like you said, Raymond didn’t ask you for this.”
I give him the best I’ve been able to come up with. “Because I knew how to handle it. So I did.”
His laugh turns into a sigh. “There you go again, thinking you’re the only one who can do anything.” He sits forward and points a finger at me with the insistence of past experience. “You knew how to get yourself involved. If it was handled, you wouldn’t be worrying about it anymore. You wouldn’t still have it in your safe…what, two and a half years later? Are you just planning on keeping it in there forever? Why haven’t you destroyed it?”
Another unanswerable question.
He shakes his head and leans back. “Tell Raymond you have it. Let him decide what to do with it. Make him pay you back. He owes you that much.”
I prop my elbow on the arm of my chair and rest my chin in my hand. “Is that what you want me to do?”
“No, no, no. I’m staying out of this.” He twists his cigar so he can study the label. “This is new. I like it.”
I ignore the attempt at a subject change. “So you’re not over there thinking that I should hand this over to the authorities.”
“If I am, I’m not telling you. I’m not letting you put that responsibility on me.”
I know it’s not fair before the words are out of my mouth, but that doesn’t keep them from escaping. “No, you’re leaving me to carry it all by myself. As always.”
“Oh, don’t do that. You took this on yourself. I am not feeling sorry for you about it.”
“No, you’re feeling smug about it.”
He turns toward me, and when my expression dares him to deny it, he doesn’t. “Well, yes. Yes, I am.”
Once upon a time, he would have felt sorry for me. He would have bent over backward to help bear the shame inflicted by our fathers’ illicit business dealings. Elizabeth has been good for him. He’s grown. I’m generally glad about it.
Right now, I resent him. “You’re such a fuckwaffle.”
His chuckle at the old joke takes the holier-than-thou look off his face. “But really, D, if you’re still holding on to this because of me, don’t. I can handle the fall out. If you need to protect them, then do it. I’m not going to fault you for it. Raymond’s your blood. I get it. It’s complicated. I feel the same way about Nash.
“And if it’s not about me or them, then you should figure out what it is about. And you should tell Sabrina. She’s your wife. She’s supposed to help you with these things. Let her. I guarantee you that’s what you’re feeling all twisted about.”
I trust my suspicions over Weston’s guarantees any day, but I let myself mull it over while we puff silently on our cigars.
A few minutes have passed and my mind hasn’t been changed when there’s a knock on the door. “Yeah?”
It opens, and Nate’s on the other side. “Am I interrupting anything?”
Weston answers before I can. “We’re done. You’re good.”
I let Weston go ahead and believe this was a bonding moment for the two of us. Truth is, I’d be better off unloading on Nate. His morals are closer to mine—let’s call them loose—and even if it was his own father involved, he’d manage to keep feelings out of it.
But I suspect it’s about time we return to the party. “Have Sabrina and Elizabeth eaten Trish alive yet with their work talk?”
Nate crosses to me and swipes my cigar for a puff before giving an answer. “Yeah, well, they’ve moved on to domesticity.”
For Trish, that subject has to be even worse.
Weston and I exchange a glance. “We’ll go down,” we say in unison.
Nate nods in agreement as he hands me back my cigar. “Too bad. These are good.”
“Take one for the road. Take one for Trish too. She’ll like it.”