Chapter Eighteen - Paxton
Liam is smiling like he’s got a secret. It pisses me off that he came into my life uninvited for the second time. But I keep the temper in check as I close the door behind him, then walk around my desk and take a seat.
The polite thing to do when talking to an equal is to sit in one of the two chairs facing the desk, with the guest in the chair next to yours. But I sit behind the desk for a reason.
I’m the one in charge here, and I want him to know it.
Plus, his back is to the door and I can see straight through the glass to Cindy’s desk. And I have the phone in front of me. “Let me just put this on ‘do not disturb’ in case Cindy comes back and wants to… disturb us.”
Liam brushes a piece of lint off his navy blue suit coat, like he couldn’t care less. “Pretty, that one. But a little slutty for a man of your breeding, don’t you think? Her ass was hanging out her skirt when I came in.”
“Why are you here?” I ask calmly, trying my best not to lean across this desk, grab Liam Henry by the tie, and choke this motherfucker to death.
“Mr. Corporate,” he says, taking out a notepad from his suit coat pocket. “Do you know his real name?”
“Um.” I laugh. “Weston Conrad. The guy I’ve known for ten years.”
“And how well do you really think you know him?” Liam is smiling like he’s got a secret.
“Look, if you’ve got something to say, then say it. Corporate and I aren’t besties. We’re not partners, or hell, even friends from my perspective. I don’t give a fuck who he is. But you obviously think I should, so let’s hear all your little secrets about him and hopefully that will explain away your bizarre stalking and I won’t have to kill you over it.”
Liam narrows his eyes, wondering if that’s a threat, a joke, or a promise.
Damn, I hadn’t realized how good it felt to be the bad guy since I’ve been hanging out with Cindy doing her cute little detective jobs. But I sort of miss these moments.
“Well, his name isn’t Weston Conrad, for one. And for two, he stole something from me a very long time ago. Something I want back.”
“I’ll ask this again. And I’ll try to be as concise as I can so you will stop wasting my time. What does this have to do with me?”
“I’d thought you’d like to know who set you up back in college. Forgive me,” he says, standing up and buttoning his coat, “for interrupting the nooner you were about to have with your secretary.”
“Sit down,” I command.
“Oh, so you’re interested all of a sudden?” But Liam unbuttons his suit coat and sits. Smiling like a cat with a canary.
“Corporate was accused too. It makes no sense that he was the one who set us up.” But I have always had a problem with Corporate. I mean, I have always had a problem with Romantic too. But Corporate, he never did add up. Romantic has a pretty paper-trailed past leading from point A to point B in a nice straight line.
Corporate’s past is like a dot-to-dot puzzle that I could never quite figure out. Match and Five and I worked on it relentlessly ten years ago when these charges came up. And even though Five has got to be one of the most talented hackers in modern day that I know of, we came up with very little before he went to boarding school as a teenager. Which means part of his past was hidden off the record for a reason.
“Well, he did set you up. He did. And I have all the proof and all the details and you will get every bit of it… once he’s gone.”
“Gone?” I ask. “You want me to kill him?” I laugh.
“I need him delivered to me alive so I can get this information out of him, but your run-of-the-mill accident will suffice once that business is taken care of.”
“I’m not a professional killer, Liam. You know this.” I have no problem killing people, but it’s not what I do. I like people to think it is—keeps them scared. Distant. But I don’t kill people for money, for fuck’s sake. That’s insane. My mother would never respect me if I was a paid assassin.
“You fix things. I need a fix.”
“I only fix things if I have all the details.”
He reaches into his pocket again, pulls out a neatly folded stack—kind of thick stack—of legal-sized papers. “And here’s our problem,” he says, grabbing the Mont Blanc pen off my desk and tapping it on the wood. “I have those details, and you can have them too, if you sign this non-disclosure agreement.”
I laugh. Kinda loud. “First of all,” I say, “I don’t sign anything without a lawyer looking it over first. And second of all, I’m never signing that, no matter what. So if you’d like to pay for my services, it’s going to be done with my own standard non-disclosure agreement or it won’t be done at all.”
“Fair enough,” Liam says, folding the wad of legal papers back up and placing them back in his coat pocket. “I’ll sign your agreement.”
He’s setting me up. I’m one hundred percent sure of it. But he does have my attention, so I get up, go to the file cabinet, and pull out the standard non-disclosure agreement I have with all my clients.
I slap the single piece of paper down on my desk in front of Liam and take my seat back behind it.
Liam signs.
I drag the paper over to my side, sign, then put the pen down and steeple my fingers under my chin. “Let’s hear it.”
“Weston Conrad isn’t his real name. The Conrads aren’t even his parents.”
“Hmm,” I say. “Go on.”
“He’s mixed up with a girl right now. Someone from his past. Do you remember her? Victoria Arias? They were dating when that charge came against the five of you.”
“Kind of. Dark, right? Pretty? Wild?”
“Yes.” Liam nods, smiling big. “I’d call her more than pretty, though. But yes. That’s her. They broke up—”
“All the time,” I say, recalling that little volatile relationship with ease, now that her name has been mentioned.
“But she is the reason you got in all that trouble, Paxton. Her. And him. They are the reason. And while I could really care less about Miss Arias—she has her own keeper who will take care of business on that end—I very much need Mr. Conrad to understand that I have not forgotten what he did to me.”
“And you want me to teach him that lesson?”
“Just get him out of the country. That’s all I ask. I have a team of people ready to take over once that happens. You won’t even have to dirty your hands.”
“Other than setting him up?”
“Correct.”
“Why me?” But I know the answer before he says it.
“Because Conrad trusts you. Regardless of whether or not you are besties, as you put it. You’re part of his inner circle.”
“And he set me up. That makes zero sense.”
“Oh, but it does. You just need more information. Information I will provide once he’s out of the country.”
I pick up my pen and tap the desk, thinking it over.
“I told you that first time I called. Your Mister friends are becoming a problem. That whole debacle with Allen and Perfect could’ve been a PR nightmare.”
Mac.
“And now your Romantic friend is directing a lot of attention back to the five of you.”
Nolan.
“Corporate needs to pay his dues. He owes me. And once I tell you the truth about him, you’ll want your revenge as well.”
West.
It’s like a checklist, isn’t it? One by one, we are all being drawn back in. “I’ll think about it.”
“You have one night, Mr. Vance. One night before I take things into my own hands and deal with the situation another way.” He stands, buttons his coat jacket. Says, “You won’t like that way, I assure you. So I’ll expect a text this evening saying you’ll accept my offer and an outline of how you will do as I ask. Use the same number I used that first time I called.”
He walks out, closing my office door behind him.
I sit for a moment, then remember that Cindy came back and ducked under the desk, just as I pushed the intercom instead of the “do not disturb” button on the phone.
She stands up and looks at me through the glass doors of my office. I open the door and ask, “Did you catch all that?”
She nods. “What’s going on?”
“I have no clue. But that shit that went down with Nolan last week was not cool, man. I might not like that asshole all that much, but he had nothing to do with anything that happened to us back in school. I know it for a fact. I saw his dirt and that’s all it is. It’s dirty as fuck, for sure. But it’s got nothing to do with the rape charge.”
“So it really was Weston Conrad who set you up?”
“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.”
“What are you gonna do?” She hesitates. “You’re really going to work with that guy? Pax? He’s unstable, clearly. He’s fucking creepy.”
“Yeah,” I say, letting out a long breath. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m gonna pretend to think about it for a few hours, then send him a text saying no.”
She smiles. “Good. Good. I know this is the right answer. You need to stay away from him.”
“Let’s take the day off, huh? Go back home. Grill some steaks, make some stupid girly drinks, and just forget about Liam Henry.”
Cindy smiles. “That’s definitely the best idea I’ve heard all day.”
I try not to be silent and introspective as we start the drive back up to Malibu, but I don’t have to try too hard because Cindy is chatty enough. It kind of sucks that she’s part of this. That I dragged her into something that’s got nothing to do with her. Especially since Liam already saw her, so even if I wanted to keep her out of this whole mess, it wouldn’t be easy to pull off now.
Girlfriends are dangerous.
Match knows this better than anyone. It’s why he fucks them and leaves them as fast as he can.
Girlfriends are nothing but collateral damage waiting to happen.