The First Order [Safeword LLC 1] (Siren Publishing Sensations) (21 page)

Lane pumped the ball harder in his hand, trying to think back to their conversations. Had they spoken about this outside of the office? They’d had lunch with John a few times since he’d come up with solid information that this would be a good approach, but they’d been in a private area. The night they’d had dinner with Brookstern, they spoke about it in the car, but not in the restaurant where they’d met up with him. So who could have—

Lane stood up, the ball now flattened in his grip. “John, head back to your office. We’ll figure this out.”

“But—”

“I said we’ve got this,” Lane replied, his tone hard. He felt as if his whole world was collapsing. It took all of his might not to turn and ram his fist through the wall behind him.

“Look, I know this is bad, but let’s set up a meeting with Brookstern,” Ross said after John had left the office and closed the door behind him. “Maybe we can—”

“Ross, there’s only one person who had that information outside of this office.”

“No one had this information. And if you crush that ball any harder, it’s going to turn to dust. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“When we had dinner with Brookstern, we discussed business in the car on the way to the restaurant.” Lane didn’t have to wait long for recognition to hit Ross, who immediately started to shake his head.

“No way. You’ve fucking lost your mind!” Ross started to pace back and forth in front of his desk. “Becca has nothing to gain and probably had no clue as to what we were talking about.”

“Really? Nothing to gain? How much do you think Debalt would pay someone for a bit of inside information, huh?” Lane walked to the window that overlooked the city. How stupid could they have been? They’d been discussing business around her for over a month and a half, taken calls in her presence, and basically opened up their world to her.

“Do not fucking go there, Lane,” Ross yelled. “Becca is not like that and you know it.”

“She’d lost her job,” Lane said, although he wasn’t speaking so much to Ross as he was to himself. Had she been that desperate? His gut twisted. Suddenly, he needed to see her face and hear the truth from her lips. He threw the ball on his desk and started for the door. Ross grabbed his upper arm and stopped him.

“I’m begging you. If you go to her and accuse her of this, you could ruin any chance we have to make this work.”

“Becca ruined that the minute she placed that call.”

* * * *

“Thank you, Grady,” Becca said with a smile.

It was midafternoon and she’d been sitting at the table, enjoying the sun shining through the window while researching which courses in the college catalog would be best to start off with. Grady had been kind enough to bring her a glass of sweet tea. She still wasn’t used to being waited on hand and foot, and every once in a while would head into the kitchen to see if she could help. Grady would eventually usher her out, saying that she’d end up getting him discharged.

“My pleasure, Miss Schuler.”

Becca shook her head at the use of her last name. Nothing she did got him to veer away from his formal speech, although every once in a while she’d catch a glimpse of a smirk on his face as he turned to walk away.

Turning back to the laptop, which she was borrowing from Ross, she’d been about to pull up another site when the front door opened. Looking up in surprise, she saw that Lane had come home early and he didn’t look happy. In fact, his face had lost color and he seemed disgruntled. Ross followed him, a worried expression on his face. She slowly stood and pushed the chair backward with her calves.

“Lane? Ross? Has something happened? Are you all right?”

“One question.”

Lane wasn’t upset, he was angry—with her. She gradually made her way across the room to meet them halfway as something inside of her said this wasn’t good. What had she done to cause such a reaction?

“Did you sell information to Debalt Capital or Carl Brookstern? Did you betray us?”

Becca stared at him in shock. She knew she must look ridiculous, with the way her mouth was flapping open, but she honestly couldn’t form an answer at that moment. They were actually standing in front of her accusing her of selling them out for money. Did they really think so little of her?

“Lane, look at her,” Ross said, taking a step and placing himself in between her and Lane. “She has no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then she can answer me, damn it!”

Rebecca was already shaking her head. She wasn’t going to answer him. She shouldn’t have to answer him. Her chest felt like something had crushed it and she couldn’t breathe.

“Rebecca, you were in the car with us that night. We had dinner with Brookstern. It’s a simple yes or no answer.”

But it wasn’t simple, couldn’t he see that? If they didn’t trust her with something they said in passing—and in all honesty she hadn’t had a clue as to what they were talking about—then they had nothing to base their relationship on. Everything they said about trust and honesty was a one-way street, apparently. She should trust them with her heart, body, and soul, but they didn’t trust her with a piece of information about their business that she didn’t even understand.

Although she couldn’t prevent the tears that formed in her eyes, Becca started to laugh. She didn’t know what else to do to keep herself from falling into a heap on the floor. They’d just torn her world apart and he was still focused on his business. Lane closed the distance between them, grabbed her upper arms and shook her.

“Damn it, Rebecca, answer me!”

“Monarch.”

“What did you say?” Lane released her immediately and stepped back, a look of horror on his face. She couldn’t blame him for asking her to repeat what she’d said, considering she’d barely got the word out.

“Monarch.”

* * * *

Becca had no clue how she ended up in her given chamber within their lair, but here she was, leaning against the door as tears streamed down her face. It was over. She’d lost them somehow, although she had never really had them to begin with. It was all a piece of paper that had just been put through the shredder. It was an inconvenient situation they would deal with before moving on. If only she could be so lucky. She slid down the wooden door until she could grab ahold of her knees and hold tight. What was she going to do now? How could she just get up, walk out that door, and go on with her life as if she hadn’t just lost everything?

Not having the energy to stand up, Becca crawled on her hands and knees over to the nightstand. Grabbing her phone, she had to blink numerous times before she could see the screen and keypad. Find the number, she thought. Becca used a shaking finger to connect the call on her third try. She knew without a doubt that she would never be able to walk through that door and face them after what they’d accused her of doing. She refused to let them see how they’d broken her so completely.

“Speak to me.”

Becca opened her mouth to do just that, but all that came out was a choking sob. Leaning her head back down to her knees, she squeezed her eyes tight and tried to gather herself together. She wasn’t weak. This wasn’t like her. She just needed time and then she would stand up, brush herself off, and figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

“Becca? Is that you?”

“Yes,” Becca whispered, finally lifting her head. “James, I said the word…Monarch. I stopped everything. I need your help.”

“I’ll be there in twenty. Hang tight.”

Becca let the phone slide from her hand and into her lap. Leaning her head back against the mattress, she knew that these were going to be the longest twenty minutes of her life. She succumbed and finally let the floodgates open.

One week later, Lane stood in front of the window with a glass of whiskey in his hand, not seeing the city life below, carrying on as if he hadn’t been responsible for shattering his own life—or his brother’s. Becca was gone and it was entirely his fault. She’d had every right to use the safe word Kennedy had given her. His gut twisted at knowing how much he’d hurt her. It didn’t help that Kennedy was standing behind him this very moment, lecturing him on trust. He’d fucked up royalty. He didn’t need to be reminded.

“Kennedy, I’m not in the mood for this.” Lane gulped down the last of his whiskey and turned around.

“Really? And you think I am? I have better things to do with my time than to stand here trying to talk sense into a stubborn, thick-headed, obstinate, opinionated fool who couldn’t just accept things at face value.” Kennedy walked over to their liquor cabinet, which he’d opened earlier, and poured two fingers of fifteen-year-old single malt from one of their crystal tumblers. She replaced the stopper back on the marquise-cut decanter and shoved it back into place. “Fix it.”

Lane gave a bitter laugh. He slammed his glass on the dining room table. “And how would you like me to do that? She won’t take our calls, her best friend is like a pit bull with a hard-on, and—”

“Kennedy, she doesn’t want to see us,” Ross said in a defeated tone. Lane cringed, knowing he had deeply hurt his brother. Ross just didn’t have the heart to say it to his face. “It doesn’t matter that it was Jimmy who sold out our ideas to Debalt Capital. Your man Calihan contacted the chauffeur company and threatened a lawsuit on our behalf. It didn’t take him more than fifteen minutes of investigation and he had his man. That and some discrepancies in regards to the employee background checks they run. The bottom line is, Becca could have said red, given us time to sort through this and then discuss things reasonably. She chose not to.”

Taking in his brother’s appearance, Lane realized that he looked just as bad as he felt. Ross was sitting on the couch, with his head back on the leather cushion and his eyes closed, not even bothering to look their way as he spoke. Ross hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. He didn’t bother wearing a suit to work and instead opted for jeans and a ratty old white button-down, all the while sporting red-rimmed eyes from lack of sleep. All his presence did was remind Lane how bad he’d fucked up.

“I’m sorry,” Kennedy said, although her tone indicated anything but her being sympathetic. “And here I thought I was dealing with two reasonably intellectual men. Let me explain how this is going to work. I’m having a meeting with Rebecca Schuler tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. You two will clean up, make yourselves presentable, stop feeling sorry for yourselves, and fix this before I take matters into my own hands. And boys—you won’t like what I intend to do if you can’t get your act together.”

Lane gritted his teeth together to keep from ruining a friendship that had been developing for years. Kennedy came across as a coldhearted bitch at times, but underneath her façade, she had a heart of gold...cool to the touch, though. He placed his hands on the back of the dining room chair and hung his head. He just wanted her to leave so that he could get drunk and drag his ass to bed for some much needed sleep. Her last sentence suddenly penetrated, though, and he looked up to see her piercing blue eyes staring directly at him.

“Is that a threat?”

“No, you know me better than that, Lane.” Kennedy downed her whiskey in a very elegant manner and then slammed the tumbler back on the bar. “It’s a promise and I see I finally have your attention. It’s nice to know that the competitive, ruthless, go-after-what-I-want-and-get-it Lane is still in there.”

Lane weighed his options on the ramifications of chewing her ass out, but as he looked over to Ross, he saw that she had his attention as well. His little brother sat up, resting his elbows on his knees. It was the first time he’d seen some sort of life in Ross since the afternoon Becca had left them.

“What do you mean by taking matters into your own hands?” Ross asked. “We all know that a submissive holds the power. We can’t make her do something she doesn’t want to do. It goes against who we are, Kennedy.”

“You’re absolutely right, Ross.” Kennedy walked over to him and snatched up her purse, which was sitting on the end table. “And the key word here is submissive. She will never be happy going back to a vanilla life. Rebecca Schuler has been exposed to a whole new world, and it is one where she finally feels she fits in. My job is to not only find a submissive that suits your needs, but it’s my responsibility to ensure Rebecca is given what she’s come to require as well.”

Her words hit Lane with the force of a fighter’s blow to the chest. His fingers curled around the wood of the chair to keep from himself contained. “Over my dead body will you place her with another set of Dominants within the Order.”

“Not going to happen, Kennedy,” Ross said in agreement.

“Then don’t force my hand. I have a job to do, and I don’t work for you.” Kennedy walked to the door. She turned back to face them. With a softer tone that was unlike the woman he knew her to be, she said, “Lane and Ross, I
know
that she is the perfect submissive for you both. Don’t let her get away because of your pride. Even Dominants aren’t flawless. Yes, there are rules in this lifestyle that we follow to the letter. It’s who we are. Isn’t your first priority as her Dominants giving her what she needs, placing her well-being before your own desires? You just need to find a way to ask her forgiveness. Good luck and I’ll buy you as long as I can in the morning before doing what I need to do.”