Chapter Forty-One - Victoria
“That’s not true!” I say. “How dare you accuse me! I was stuck on that island with him, you jerks. I have nothing to do with any of this.”
“You’re wrong,” Oliver says. “You’re the whole reason we got set up in the first place.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I look at West, who stays silent. “West?” I ask. “You cannot believe them! I am not a part of this.”
“OK,” Five says calmly. “Let’s just take a deep breath and start from the beginning with you, Miss Arias.”
“No,” I say, stomping my foot down on the tiled floor. “No. My past is none of your business. I’m not rehashing this with complete strangers.” I look at Weston. “Please, West! Don’t let them do this. I told you. That was hard for me. You have to understand that. It was hard for me. I’m not sharing these very personal things with your friends. No.”
I feel the panic rising in me. I can’t talk about this to them. No. My heart is racing, and my legs are trembling. I hold my hand out in front of my face and find it shaking so bad, it scares me.
“Tori,” West says, pulling me into him. “Just take it easy. I think there’s a connection here, babe. And I think we need to know everything in order to put all the pieces back together.”
“I didn’t steal your money. It’s not my fault. I just answered the phone, that’s all!”
“What’s that mean, Victoria?” Pax asks.
But West hold up his hand and says, “Just hold up for a minute. OK? Just hold up.” He stands, taking my hand and pulling me with him. “We’re going upstairs—”
“Fuck that,” Pax says, standing up and pushing West back with a flat palm to his chest. “Fuck that. Do you have any idea how fucking serious this shit is, Corporate?”
“If what you guys are saying is true, then I just lost everything I’ve been working for the past ten years, Mysterious,” West says, eerily calm. “So yes, I’m pretty fucking sure I know how serious this is. I’m taking Tori upstairs to talk and we’re going to figure it out together. And after we do, I’ll let you know.”
I can’t look anyone in the face as West leads me upstairs. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. I keep chanting it over and over, willing it to be true. It wasn’t me.
It can’t have been me.
The stairs lead to a catwalk lined with wire cables instead of a railing. And the catwalk overlooks the living room, so I don’t have to move my head at all to see three sets of eyes staring at me from down below.
West leads me past them and into another part of the house. He goes by a few bedrooms and bathrooms, and stops in front of a set of double doors that open into an office.
He closes the door behind us, then twists the lock.
I meet his eyes. “What are we doing?”
“I just need a minute, OK? And I didn’t want to leave you down there with those assholes, so just let me have a fucking drink and we can decide what to do next.” He walks over to a large cupboard, opens the doors, and pulls out a sliding tray set for drinks. “Want one?”
“Yes,” I say. “Make mine a double.”
West takes the ice bucket and opens another cabinet, where a small freezer is hidden. He fills the bucket as I look around the office and try to breathe.
“Nolan and I used to meet up here every now and then. After a while I just came for the ambiance, you know?” West looks at me as he picks up the small ice cubes with the silver tongs and places them carefully in our glasses. He lets out a small laugh. “When I was a kid I used to watch Conrad take meetings at home. This is how he had it set up too. I can only assume Delaney senior had something similar at his place. Powerful men all have decanters of Scotch in their office. Ice buckets, and tongs, and crystal glasses are a requirement for staying sane.”
“Are you going to get me drunk?” I ask. “To make me talk?”
“I’m going to have a drink with you, yes,” West says, still concentrating on the drinks. “And I’m sure we’ll do some talking. But I didn’t bring you up here for a lecture, Tori. I just need to get the fuck away from them for a minute. OK? I just need a drink, and a beautiful woman, and a nice view, and an office that probably cost more than my car to furnish. Because if they’re not lying and I just lost everything, it’s gonna be a hell of a long time before I ever get to do this again.”
He turns to face me with two glasses in his hands. He holds one out to me, I take it, and then he touches his to mine, making the ice clink and the crystal sing. “To better days,” he says, and takes a drink without waiting for me.
“I didn’t do it,” I say again. How can he be so calm? How can he be so together? Why isn’t he angry?
West grimaces as the Scotch burns its way down his throat, then lets out a breath and heads back to the decanter and pours the dark liquid back over his rocks.
He’s smiling when he faces me the second time. “I don’t care, Tori. I don’t care what you did. I don’t even want to talk about it right now. OK? I just want you to have a drink with me.”
I look at my glass, scowling.
West gulps down his second and heads back for more.
I sigh, decide I probably need this drink more than he does if what happened over the weekend was my fault, and let the entire thing slide down my throat.
It burns like fuck. My throat is fire, my stomach is warm, and when I exhale, I feel better.
West is smiling.
I smile back. “It’s good.”
“Have another one,” he says, taking my glass, refilling it, and giving it back.
“You’re trying to get me drunk. You’re hoping whatever it is I know will come pouring out with that bottle.”
“I wouldn’t mind it, Tori, but I just told you why I’m doing this. If I lost it all, I want one last chance at enjoying it.”
“To better days,” I say, touching my glass to his.
“We could probably both use some of those.”
We drink together this time.
All the way down. One long gulp of confidence and sympathy in the form of a drink. And then I set the empty glass down on the desk and look at the man I love so much, it hurts. My chest is constricting and my heart is fluttering. And I might die if I find out I hurt this man by mistake.
West waves me over to the long leather couch on the other side of the room. I sit and he sits next to me. I cross my legs and his hand slips into place along my thigh.
“I can rebuild, you know. So fuck it. If he got my money and my assets, then fuck him. I can always make more.”
“Who?” I ask. “Who would take it?”
“Liam, I guess. He was never happy about how I got away with what he wanted.”
“The stupid coins?” I laugh. “This is really about those stupid coins?”
“They’re worth two billion dollars today.”
“They are not!” I laugh.
“But there’s a problem.” West smiles as he turns his head to look at me. “They don’t belong to me any more than they belonged to the people who lost them in that wreck.”
“What do you mean?”
“They belong to the Spanish government. So if I get them—and that’s a big if, Tori—if I get those coins, then I have to turn them over to the Spanish government. It’s their historical wealth. Liam knows this, but he’s got people in the private market who will buy. I don’t. I can’t ever sell those coins.”
“You had a lot of money saved, West? They took a lot?”
“Almost fifty million dollars.”
I can’t even comprehend fifty million dollars. “But… you were acting like you needed this contract so bad. Why? Why did you fight me so hard about it? Why not just let me have it?
He smiles, then looks at me and smiles bigger. “It wasn’t the cash, I needed Victoria. It was the job.”
“That makes no sense.”
He just shrugs. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over and the money is gone.”
“I didn’t take it,” I say again.
“I know, Tori. I don’t think you did.”
I swallow hard and close my eyes. My heart thumps in my chest and I realize my breathing is coming in short, staccato gasps.
“Hey,” West says, placing his palms flat on my flushed cheeks. They are cool and strong. He looks me in the eyes and shakes his head. “Don’t,” he says. “Don’t do that. Not over this, Tori. Not over money. I don’t need that money. It’s probably a good thing it got stolen because it was turning me into someone I said I’d never be. All I want is you. We can make more money. All I want is you.”
We’re silent after that. Everything that has happened these past few days is rolling around in my head so much, I feel dizzy.
Now what? What do I do? I’m gonna lose him, I can feel it. He’s saying this stuff now, but once he finds out what I did…
I’m going to lose him.
And if I lose him, and my business, and screw up my father’s legacy… what’s left for me?
I feel like I should fight against this fate. I feel like I need to come out swinging. I feel like this is my last chance to keep something—the only thing I can keep—of this very fucked up life I’ve been given.
West.
He’s the last thing I have left.
So now it’s my turn to talk.
“I got a phone call, West. That’s how I knew about Wallace Arlington and Liam’s contract. I got a phone call from some guy who refused to give a name and he told me to contact Liam and tell him not to hire you yet, because I could get Wallace on board and you couldn’t.”
“I don’t care,” West says, kissing my lips. It’s such a soft, gentle touch. He was always gentle with me, even though I was wild and rough with him. “And I don’t even need to know the rest.”
“I need to tell you the rest. I think your friends are right. I think we’re connected in more ways than we know. He told me that if I got you out of town for a while, he’d pay off all my debt. My mortgage, my credit cards. All of it.”
West is silent for a few seconds. I’m sure he’s going to get up, walk out the door, go tell his friends, and never speak to me again.
But he doesn’t.
He says, “I don’t understand how you got into so much debt. You had what, seven million dollars from that Fullerton contract? How, Tori? How did that happen?”
“It was such a stupid mistake, Weston. You’re going to be so mad at me.”
“No,” he says, kissing my lips again. “I won’t, I promise. We all make mistakes.”
“But it’s so dumb. I bought that building for ten million back when the housing crash happened. It was worth at least twelve just a few years before. So I had some instant equity with my down payment. It was a good investment. But I went to make the first mortgage payment and I entered the numbers wrong. Instead of fifty thousand, I entered five million. And I didn’t even notice. So then I had all seven million tied up in this building. I couldn’t even pay my taxes the next year. I had to take out an equity loan. And it just all spiraled out of control. I lost all control.”
“Fuck. How the hell do you write a check for five million instead of fifty thousand, Tori?”
“Online bill pay?” I laugh. I have to laugh. It’s so fucking sad I have to laugh. “I just don’t know how it happened.”
“Do you think…” He stops, shakes his head a little. “It’s stupid, but… do you think someone fucked up your payment on purpose?”
“Who would do that?”
“I dunno,” West says. “Maybe a jealous mob boyfriend?”
“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” I snap.
“Sorry, I know that. I just don’t have another label for him.”
“Abuser,” I say. “You can call him my ex-abuser.”
“OK,” West says. “Him. Do you think it was him?”
I want to say no. I want to say he’s been out of my life for too many years to care what I’m doing. I want to say I got away and the past is in the past.
But I can’t.
So I say, “Yes,” instead. “I have always thought it was him. And I think he was the one who set me up with the Liam contract too. I think all of this goes back to me, Weston. Not you. The rape, the island, everything. It’s all my fault.”