Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
When Bash was done, Silas set his jaw. “You know, I heard from Landry about your plan to take a more public role at Sterling Chase again. That you’re dissatisfied about the direction the company’s going in—”
“That has nothing to do with this,” Bash insisted.
“Doesn’t it? It’s very convenient that all of this is happening at once, Bash. Almost like someone’s been putting ideas in your head.”
Bash ran a hand over his face. “Rowe isn’t Justin, Silas.”
“How would you know?” Silas threw out an arm toward me. “You’ve known this man a week—”
“And you knew Justin a whole hell of a lot longer than that,” Bash shot back angrily. “And he still fucked you over.”
I had no idea what they were talking about—Justin? As in, Justin Hardy? Whatever it was, Bash seemed to score a direct hit. Silas’s face registered shock and hurt before he smoothed it out into the polite, urbane expression I remembered from the gala.
“Silas,” Bash said apologetically. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, of course,” Silas said stiffly. “Perhaps we should all just become irrationally attached to perfect strangers. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong last time.”
Bash closed his eyes and tilted his head back, like he was silently begging the ceiling for patience.
“I understand why you don’t believe me,” I offered in a small voice. “I’m not asking you to take me at my word. I have proof. Extensive notes. Research. Contacts. Recorded interviews from as far back as five years ago. An app I coded. I can provide you with all of that.”
Silas nodded once. “Good. But proving you came up with Daisy Chain is a very different thing than proving Austin did anything wrong.” My confusion must’ve shown on my face because Silas huffed impatiently before explaining, “You can’t trademark or patent an idea. And people come up with similar ideas all the time. Austin can, and probably will, claim that he was working on MRO long before he ever heard of you.”
“But he stole the story about my sister!” I insisted.
“Or he had a similar experience with a friend, exactly as he told Bash. It would be very hard to prove he didn’t.”
I knew Silas was right, that what he said made sense, but I could feel my anger ratcheting up anyway in the face of his cold, emotionless presentation.
Bash put a hand on the small of my back and rubbed his thumb in soothing circles. “It’s convenient that Austin’s earliest documentation is missing from our servers when he should absolutely know better than to delete anything.”
Silas inclined his head, granting Bash that point. “Still doesn’t prove anything.” He looked at me, narrowing his eyes. “What specifics can you provide showing that Austin personally received the paperwork you submitted?”
I blinked. “I have his rejection emails.”
“Which only shows that he rejected a project called Daisy Chain. You can’t prove he received your second packet containing all the background documentation. You can’t prove that he stole anything. It would be his word against yours, and frankly…” He shrugged.
I knew exactly what Silas wasn’t saying out loud. That anyone looking at my lackluster resume, especially someone who knew that I’d lied about being Sterling Chase, would give my claim serious side-eye.
Bash’s arm closed around my waist protectively, and he bristled with anger, but I laid a hand on his thigh before he could say something he might regret. “Silas is right. We need to connect Austin to Daisy Chain somehow.”
“Still no results on the search for the term Daisy Chain in our current project files,” Kenji inserted quietly. “If there ever was any, it might have been in Austin’s missing documents—”
Kenji broke off as someone knocked on my locked door.
“Hey, hey!” a voice called from the hall. “Bash? I was sorry you couldn’t make it downstairs, but I brought you a burrito. Do you have time for a quick chat?”
“Austin,” Bash muttered under his breath. “Fuck.”
Kenji’s teeth ground together audibly. “It’s like the man doesn’t understand what a closed door means. Insufferable.” In a louder voice, he called, “Bash and I are in a meeting, Austin. Drop the burrito on my desk and walk away.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. Kenji reminded me of Daisy. I thought he was someone I might like to be friends with, under other circumstances.
“Rowe and I need to get out of here if we want to keep Austin from getting wind of this,” Bash said, nodding toward the door. “We’ll work remotely.”
“You mean from your apartment?” Kenji rolled his eyes. “Where I can only assume Landry is, at this moment, throwing a sex orgy for every male model in the area since that’s his favorite pastime when he’s not gorging himself on my desk candy? I don’t know why you didn’t insist on him getting a hotel when he followed you home from Philadelphia.”