The next day at work, I was on the phone with a client when Rose came into my cubicle. I finished up my call as she stood there looking like she was going to burst. Hanging up the phone, I swiveled my chair towards her with a quizzical look.
“Hello, Rose? And how are you?”
“So, how was your night last night?” Rose sat down in the corner chair.
“It was okay, why?”
“Did you do anything special?”
“I may have. Rose, what is going on?” I was getting annoyed with the way she was beating around the bush.
“Oh, no reason. You just made the Society page with Christopher Ward.” She handed me the Society section from the New York Times and there was Christopher and me walking from the limo to David Geffen Hall.
“What the hell? I don’t even remember cameras being around anywhere!”
“Oh, they’re crafty. Especially with somebody like Christopher.” Rose folded her arms and furrowed her brow. “So, what’s going on there, anyway?”
“Going on where?” I turned back to my computer and opened my email.
“Oh, come on Alison. You know very well what I mean. You have been doing so well; you just got this new promotion. Reviewing your record and working with you the last little while, I’ve grown to really respect the decisions you make and direction you’re going in.” She leaned in towards my desk and quieted her voice, “But you are playing with fire getting involved with our CEO.”
“I appreciate your concern, Rose but trust me; I have it under control.” I looked over at her and gave her a look of reassurance.
“Right, you have everything under control with the ultimate control freak?” Rose stood up and walked to the entrance of my cubicle. “Don’t rule out the possibility that he’s the one who called the society photographer.”
With that she left my cubicle. I turned around as she was leaving and watched her go, taking in her words. Why would Christopher do that? That didn’t make any sense at all. Was she jealous?
My phone buzzed with a text and then another one and yet another one. I looked down to see Mac was going on another one of his text sprees and saw that he saw the society page too. I wasn’t expecting this but I didn’t see how this could get in the way of our plans.
I texted Mac to see if he wanted to do dinner tonight. He immediately came back with, “Without a doubt. We have work to do.”
I always loved how Mac said “we.” It was starting to dawn on me that I was the one who did most of the work. Mac was definitely a big part of the planning but I started to feel like I was taking over this show. I had been feeling that way for a while.
I would never say anything to Mac. I just had to use what I’ve learned about making men think they are the ones in control with him. He was just as easy as the rest of them. If only I didn’t have such a feeling of obligation to him. He did help bring me to where I was. My emotions were so split with him.
Ultimately, I knew he was my only real family and that we had a bond through loss that I would most likely never be able to break away from. He was the one who told me the truth about our parents’ accident that nobody else would say because they were afraid of the Ward family. He is the one who brought me back to life from my grief over my mom with his plan for revenge.
I owed a lot to him. His plan for revenge was so detailed that it included me getting into an Ivy League school and breaking into the financial field so that I could get close to the Wards. He taught me how to use my looks to get further ahead, which in essence pushed us further to our revenge goals. He made me feel like I really was Alice in Wonderland, only as Alice grew up, she knew which things to drink and which things to eat. She knew how to maneuver Wonderland. She knew how to manipulate or placate everyone in it so that everything went her way; everybody except the Cheshire Cat.
Luckily, I had my dad’s name, so nobody who would have known anything about my mom and my stepfather would ever link me by name. I was fourteen when she died thirteen years ago, so if anybody had ever met me, there is no way they would link that awkward teenager with me.
I texted Mac back and told him to meet me at a sports bar. After my super glam night the night before, I needed to mix things up. Looking at the entrance to my cubicle where Rose was, I pondered what she was saying. Obviously, she knew nothing of my revenge plans, so that part didn’t bother me and she would be right if I cared about my career for anything other than revenge. However, I couldn’t stop thinking about what the implication would be if she was right about Christopher being the one to call the photographer.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
I was the first one to arrive for dinner, so I sat at a booth and waited for Mac. Unlike him, even though I was starving, I was going to wait for him to show up before ordering. I did order a drink, though, vodka with club soda and lime, and got out my notebook with the notes of everything that happened to tell Mac. It was all in a shorthand we created, well that Mac created and taught me, so that if anybody found my notes or his notes, nobody would be able to decipher what was actually being written.
“Oh, look who is early for once.” Mac sat down opposite of me in the booth. He was full of anticipation. “Okay, so spill it. Tell me everything. I know you got something from that slime.”
I smiled mischievously. He may have had a weird hold over me but when it came to things like this, I was able to control when and how he would get the information. I could tease him with it. I could play with him a bit. I liked that a lot.
“That shirt looks really good on you.” He did look good. His hair was back in his man bun and his hazel eyes really stood out when he did that.
“Alice. Talk to me now.” He was already squinting his eye at me. I had information he wanted and I was going to savor this.
Just then the server came up to take our order. I chuckled at the timing and watched him squirm as he quickly gave his order and looked at me with a threatening look if I took my time. I wasn’t scared of him.
I settled in and a few questions about the menu. I also made some small talk with the server. I would glance over at Mac and see him about ready to explode every once in a while. Oh, it felt so good to mess with him like this. It was almost euphoric.
After I finally ordered and the server left our table, I giggled at how red mac’s face had gotten from frustration. He stared daggers at me and grabbed my drink.
“Hey! That’s my drink. Yours is coming!”
“Too bad, Alice. You got me wound up and I need alcohol now. Your drink will do as an appetizer to mine.” He took a big swig of my bourbon and set it down close to him where I couldn’t grab it. We were such siblings sometimes. Our fights and disagreements were still pretty juvenile and we both loved to get under the other’s skin. How could I not want this guy in my life? He knew me better than anybody, which meant he could get to me more than anybody.
“I guess somebody doesn’t want to know about my night last night.” I shook my head in mock disappointment.
“I guess somebody doesn’t want to hear some information I’ve gathered.” He leaned back in satisfaction.
“Well, look at us. Quid pro quo.”
The server brought Mac’s drink and right after he left, I saw my opening to grab mine back. I took a big drink.
“Okay, you go first, then.”
“Very well, I have some information that one Mr. Matthew Ward has been spotted in New York.”
I sat straight up and my eyes went wide. I had a feeling that it was him last night but this was confirmation.
“Holy shit.” I was in somewhat of a shocked state. I knew I had seen him but to have a confirmation of it was on a whole other level.
“What? What happened?” Mac sat up straight, as well.
“I saw him last night, Mac. I saw him. I knew it was him, too. He was a balcony above us and he was watching us. I looked up and saw him leering. I wasn’t sure if it was at Christopher or me. Probably him because how could he know who I was?”
“Alice, I need you to listen to me. Listen to me very carefully. You never know with somebody like Matthew Ward. We have no idea what kind of information he has. He might know everything about you. Please be aware and guarded.” Mac’s look was intense and focused on me. “Promise me, Alice.”
“Okay, okay. I promise. You know I can take care of myself, Mac.”
“Screw all of that, just promise me that you will be on high alert.”
“Yes, Sir.” I saluted him as if he were my commanding officer. Honestly, sometimes it felt like he was.
“Okay, now that that is out of the way, tell me more. Did you say anything to Chrissy boy? Did he see him? Did it seem like he knew something already?”
“I pretended it didn’t happen but I’m pretty sure he saw him, yes. He was looking in the same direction I was and he had to get out of there. Matthew was there one second and then gone in the time it took me to look at Christopher and then back again.” I finished my drink and looked for our server. I was going to need another one. “He looked like he had seen a ghost and didn’t look happy, so I don’t think he knew, no.”
“Or he could have known and been mad that his father was out in public and risked being seen.” Mac rubbed his brow, something he always did when he was trying to figure out a problem.
“Honestly, I didn’t get that impression at all but we shouldn’t rule it out. How did you know he was in New York? Did your hacker network figure out a way to track him?”
Mac was a hacking genius and had a line into a whole hacking network that could be powerful when they wanted to be. That’s what his role was in our revenge plan. I would get the information that he needed to access Christopher Ward’s life and we would use his hacking skills to ruin the hell out of him. We weren’t going to kill him; that would be taking it too far, we didn’t need a total eye for an eye but we definitely wanted him to fall off his throne. The throne that was stained with the blood of our parents.
“Yeah, there have been several spottings and the reports have been sent to the FBI, which is where some of my guys found the info and relayed it to me. He’s being very careless and that is what tells me that he is more dangerous now than he ever was. If he doesn’t care about being seen, that means he has a nothing-to-lose mindset. I don’t like that, Alice. I don’t like it at all.”
“What about you, Mac? You are in just as much danger. Are you going to be hyper aware and alert too?” I leaned forward feeling concern that Mac might be in even more danger. “You have your father’s last name. You’re much easier to find.”
“Alice, Alice, Alice. I have myself covered, don’t worry. My records are not traceable; I have no online presence. My phone number and address, air tight. And I have you covered as much as I can in that respect but you are more vulnerable because of being more out there in the real world. If he wanted to find out who you were, it wouldn’t take long to go through a few newspaper clippings and old records to figure out who you are. He would just have to know to do it and I’m afraid seeing you with his son might be enough.” Mac started rubbing his brow again.
“If I’m in that much danger, doesn’t that put you at risk to be seen with me?” Now I was starting to get paranoid.
“No, I cover my tracks after every meeting we have. I’ve done that for years now.”
“Really?” I felt a little twinge of betrayal, why didn’t he ever tell me he did that?
“Yeah, once you started working at Smith & Ward, I needed to make sure that I wasn’t easy to trace or track. If they find out who I am, that makes it that much easier to find out who you are. Now, there has to be a reason that Matthew Ward is back. He is planning something and we have to figure out if Christopher is in on it. The fact that you ended up on the society page didn’t help matters but that kind of stuff can’t be avoided, I suppose.”
I bolted upright again. All of a sudden, what Rose said this morning in my cubicle made a bit more sense. It had to be related.
“I wonder if Christopher hired the society page photographer. Could that have something to do with it, somehow?”
“Or Matthew hired them. I’m sure he has enough money in offshore accounts to still pull off a bit of power. He most likely has a loyal assistant working for him to do stuff like that without giving him away. Or Christopher is that loyal servant. We can’t rule anything out, right now. What else did you find out last night?”
“That hundred-million-dollar condo that was bought last year in One 57? That was Christopher. He took me there last night.” I raised an eyebrow and looked straight at Mac. “He also got very rigid and upset when I mentioned tabloids. He talked about how they didn’t portray the real him. They really seem to get under his skin. That doesn’t seem like somebody who would hire a photographer.”
“Unless he’s trying to control the narrative. Or he is trying to send a message.”
Our food arrived and we were both deep in thought as we dug into our food. There was silence for a while. Mac would rub his brow now and then. I stole a few fries from his plate. He liked it when I did that. I was chewing on one of the fries when my phone rang. It was Christopher.
“It’s him.” I looked at Mac with wide eyes.
“Answer it, bozo.” Mac got an excited look on his face.
I looked at the phone as it continued to ring and show Christopher’s name on my screen. For some reason, I did not want to answer it. It felt like the wrong time. It felt like it would be too forced with Mac there. I looked at Mac as it stopped ringing and went to voicemail.
“Alice, what the hell? Why did you do that?”
“Eh, I just wasn’t feeling it. You are the one who told me to trust my gut.”
“Yeah, I want to talk to you about that. Now that things are moving to an intimate level, as I assume they are?” Mac arched an eyebrow to check whether he was judging the situation correctly.
“They are moving in the direction that I am wanting them to move in, yes.” I wasn’t going to go into detail with my stepbrother. He was sometimes a little tone deaf about things like that.
“Well, now that they are moving in that direction, I’m not sure how easy it will be for you to know if it is your gut talking or your lust talking. I’m not blind. The dude is very attractive; I know that. It will be incredibly difficult for you to balance things like that. I think we should meet a couple times a week now.”
Mac was getting into controlling mode. Okay, I had to play this right. I had to placate him while still maintaining my covert boundaries I kept with him. He wasn’t the type you could overtly lay down boundaries with. He would look for ways to cross them. You had to be very clever about how you kept the line drawn in the sand with him.
“Right, okay Mac. Let’s just play it by ear. How about for now, we’ll do a call once a week and keep our Saturday lunches up?”
“Alice, I’m thinking of you here. I mean, yeah, the plan is always number one but I also don’t want you to get in over your head.”
“Mac, who are you talking to? You are the only person I get in over my head with.”
Mac smiled at that and tossed a fry in his mouth. And that’s how you placate Mac. We continued to try and figure out the Matthew situation and how the society page could be related. It was a tough one and we didn’t really come to any conclusions yet. We did decide that knowing Christopher was the owner of the penthouse in One 57 and his hatred of tabloids was a good combination and would keep that in our back pocket.
As we were walking out of the restaurant, Mac and I hugged and he pulled me in a little tighter than normal.
“Just don’t lose yourself, okay Alice? Remember how to navigate Wonderland.”
I pulled away and looked up at him, smiling.
“Says the Cheshire Cat.”
He chuckled and we parted ways as we promised to see each other on Saturday.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
Work was becoming a minefield with everybody coming into my cubicle to ask about the society page. I told them it was to discuss a big client and tried to leave it at that. Nobody believed me and who knows what they all thought of me. I didn’t care. I put my focus on work and tried not to let the gossip bother me. It was difficult, though. It was everywhere I turned.
On Friday morning, my phone rang at my desk. Answering it as I was typing up an email I heard a curt female voice on the other end.
“Mr. Ward would like to see you at lunch in the executive café promptly at 12:30 pm. Please confirm.” It was Christopher’s assistant, I had heard about her. Her name was Gloria and she was incredibly efficient but had absolutely no warmth to her at all.
“Yes, I’ll be there.”
“Thank you.” She promptly hung up. No goodbyes, not small talk. She was like a robot. That made sense. It probably worked very well for somebody like Christopher.
I sat for a second, contemplating everything Mac and I had discussed. I would have to really have my head in the game for this lunch.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
“This is becoming a regular thing.” I smiled as I sat opposite of Christopher at what I now called our usual table. It was 12:29. Was this man always early? I guess that gave him another level of control to always be the first one there.
“Hello, Miss Bishop. Yes, it is, so far.” He seemed tense and cold. I was a bit confused and thought maybe he was just having a bad day.
“So far? Oh, what is that about? Is it because I went home the other night?” I gave him a flirty smile and took a sip of water.
“Alison, I can assure you that I would never hold something like that against you. One thing I do have a problem with, however is having my phone calls ignored.”
My stomach did a flip-flop. I had forgotten about his call and he never called back, so it was easy to move onto other things with so much going on. I certainly wasn’t going to call him myself. Wait, how did he know I ignored the call?
“What makes you think I ignored the call? I was busy and you never called back or left a message. No text either? How can you be annoyed if there was no follow-up?”
“I saw you, Alison. I was at the same restaurant in a quiet corner. I know you could have taken that call. I even saw you look at your phone and shake your head telling your companion something that obviously had to do with the call you were receiving. Now, why would I follow up after that?”
My body tightened. It took everything in me not to show my panic. He had seen Mac and me together. He would now be very curious about the guy I was with. I had to resist the urge to text him right there and then. I took some quiet, deep breaths to bring back my level-headedness so that I wouldn’t stammer when I spoke. I couldn’t tell him who Mac was, who the hell would I say he was, though?
“Mr. Ward, I am surprised. You sound jealous.” I decided to taunt him a little in hopes that it would buy me some time.
“No, Miss Bishop, you misunderstand me. I have no qualms with you having other people in your life. I have no idea who this guy was. He might be somebody to be jealous of or not. It was the look on your face when I called that bothered me and then the tone of the conversation between you as you ignored my call.” His face was serious and his eyes were blank but piercing. I had hurt him.
My heart was beating fast. Had he heard any of our conversation? Did he know anything? Could he feel my anxiety? I had to tread lightly here. I had no idea where there might be landmines. Christopher was just the type to lure me into a trap to lie about something when he knew I was lying.
“I’m very sorry, Christopher, if that’s how you took it. It had nothing to do with you. I was having dinner with an old friend who is having problems with his husband and when you called, he wanted me to answer it because I told him about you but I told him that our dinner was all about him because he was having a hard time.” That’s it. That was a good quick-on-my-feet answer. I felt satisfied. The only way that wouldn’t work is if he had heard any part of our conversation.
“I see. It’s possible I misconstrued and projected my own perspective onto the situation.” He looked at me suspiciously.
“Christopher, I am so sorry that is how it came off to you. I assure you that making you feel bad would be the last thing on my list. I like making you feel good.” I smirked at him as I went on. “I do reserve my time when I’m with my friends to be with them, though.”
Christopher looked almost relieved. His eyes lightened and his shoulders relaxed. He had let himself show emotion. This guy had just shown me some of his cards. I made a mental note. I could really get under this guy’s skin. I couldn’t overdo it, though but it was a very useful thing to know. He had already let himself fall for me enough that he cared what I thought of him.
“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. I’m glad that I was perceiving things wrong and I hope your friend works things out with his husband.” He smiled as he took a big drink of water. He had really tightened up. This was a very good sign.
I couldn’t wait tell Mac that Christopher thinks he’s gay. He would get a kick out of that. It was the only way that I could guarantee that Christopher wasn’t going to do more research into this guy. I had to make sure that Mac was not a person of interest in any of the Wards’ views. I also wondered if Christopher was on edge because his father was back. Did he know? I wished I could ask him.
“I just have one question for you, Mr. Ward. Why didn’t you just come up and say hello like any normal person would have?” I looked at him quizzically while also hiding my own relief. That was a close one. Mac and I would have to figure out a different way to meet up for a while.
“Alison, haven’t you figured it out by now? I am not a normal person.”