NATHAN
The Cromwell Corp was far from innocent. Nathan knew that. His mother especially. She had blood on her hands. Nathan couldn’t see a way out of closing the company. It was the best possible option. If he could steer the FBI’s investigation away from Guinevere and himself—using Portia—and onto Maxum and a dead man, then quietly collapse the family business, there was a chance he could come out unscathed.
A chance.
But it would mean his family’s ruin, and Nathan, too, would lose it all…
…including the woman he had dared to trust…
…and accidentally started loving.
Even after all that he’d learned about Portia, he’d fallen for her. It hadn’t been easy duping her last night into discovering the phony files on his desk, which—as predicted—she’d documented and sent to her contact at FBI Headquarters, an agent by the name of Jennifer McBride, according to Sergeant and the technology he’d had installed on Portia’s cell phone when she hadn’t had it with her.
It was as though he’d laid out a bear trap, and caught a bunny rabbit.
Nathan wished she hadn’t done it, because it only proved to his mother that Portia, as sweet and innocent as she seemed, was really a bear.
It also proved, to Nathan more than anyone, that he couldn’t trust her.
Regardless of how they’d come into each other’s lives and why, part of him had been holding out hope that she wouldn’t take the bait, that she would instead decide to protect Nathan, do nothing with the planted Maxum files among the rest, and show her obedience and allegiance to him. It would’ve gone against the plan that Sergeant and Guinevere had devised and perhaps it would’ve left the Cromwell Corp in an even worse position, but it would’ve restored Nathan’s trust in Portia and preserved the feeling that had been growing inside of him—that she was the one.
Now he was caught in the middle of what felt like some strange stage play, his mother offering Portia fluffy biscuits on a silver tray from across her breakfast room table, the woman he was falling for trying not to show the immense guilt that was clearly written all over her pretty face, Nathan holding her hand in plain sight and knowing, every time he met his mother’s eye, that Guinevere despised Portia and wanted her dead.
Talk about masks.
“I can see my son is very fond of you,” commented Guinevere with a tight, disapproving smile. It should’ve sounded like a compliment, but to Nathan’s trained ears it could be nothing more than a veiled accusation. “Which means I’m inclined to accept you, but there are conditions. We are, after all, Cromwells.”
Nathan bit his tongue so as not to contradict his arrogant mother, but he couldn’t prevent his jaw from clenching as he glared at her to choose her words carefully. The purpose of this little breakfast was to lead Portia to believe that she was now ‘in’, a trusted confidant to both Nathan and his mother, an honorary ‘Cromwell’ of sorts, so that she could relay more and more favorable evidence—phony or otherwise—to Agent Jennifer McBride.
“Conditions?” asked Portia as gracefully as she could, as she took a sip of coffee.
Her hands were trembling slightly. She wasn’t used to being undercover and she was clearly out of her depth.
“What you see here,” Guinevere explained, “what you hear here, stays here. The same goes for anything and everything you might learn about the Cromwell Corp and its affiliates when you’re in Manhattan with us. The majority of our work is highly confidential, and I’m sure, spending so much time with my son, you’ll overhear a lot more than you’ve perhaps bargained for.”
Portia’s innocent blue eyes widened with excitement, but she kept her tone steady as she assured them, “Nathan’s business is his business. I would never betray his trust. If it puts your mind at ease,” she went on, making a point to meet his brooding gaze before she addressed Guinevere, “I haven’t lived in New York long. I don’t know anyone. I have no family or friends back home. There’s no one to tell. There isn’t even anyone to vent to,” she added with a little laugh as though every woman needed a sympathetic girlfriend to complain to from time to time.
If Nathan had been having a hard time swallowing his mother’s performance, he was having an even harder time choking down the blatant lies of Portia’s conniving assurances.
As far as he was becoming concerned, this breakfast was another opportunity for Portia to drop everything, level with him, and switch sides, promising to help them.
But that’s not what she was doing.
It was beginning to make his blood boil.
He touched eyes with his mother when Guinevere shifted her cold gaze from Portia, shooting him a careful look that implied, the gall!
“Mother, I’m sure,” said Nathan in as unemotional a tone as he could muster, “that Portia’s presence will only benefit Cromwell.”
She offered them both an empty smile and agreed with an edge, “Of course.”
The curtain was closing on this little scene, the stage now set for Act Two. Portia had been primed and they both knew that from this moment forward, when Nathan paraded her in front of more phony files or scripted telephone calls, every word would be relayed back to the Feds.
They had her right where they wanted her…
…but it only made him furious.
“When will you return to Manhattan?” his mother asked offhandedly, carrying on with casual conversation for the rest of their unappetizing breakfast.
Nathan responded in kind, as Portia politely ate and returned poised replies when expected, and soon they parted from Guinevere’s wing. By nightfall, they arrived at his penthouse suite, having driven through a brutal snowstorm, Portia’s gloved hand draped over his leg as he’d steered the Lexus with a white-knuckle grip in silence.
Like the darkness that had fallen over Manhattan, so too had a cold, dark feeling—devoid of human emotion—settled over Nathan’s hardening heart.
Days passed. Nathan tried to ignore the distance dividing him from the woman he’d thought he loved—mistakenly, perhaps. He made love to her like clockwork, and in an equally calculating fashion, left files out in plain sight for her to betray him with. It might have been the plan and his mother might have been pleased with its flawless execution, but it was causing rage and resentment to build up inside of him…
…and he wasn’t sure for how much longer he would be able to stay in control.
The beast was rattling the cage and the bars wouldn’t hold forever.