Fake Empire(98)

“You’ve had a lot going on.”

“You should talk to them, Crew.”

I used to think that Arthur and Oliver were closer than Arthur and Crew. That Oliver resented Crew for usurping and outshining him. But I realized Crew is the glue holding his family together on the flight to the Alps. Arthur and Oliver both rely on him to handle whatever needs handling. I don’t like that I’ve become another burden Crew has to carry—literally, at the moment. I lean on him, need him, rely on him, and he’s never needed my support the same way.

“You should sleep.” He lays me down on the soft fabric of my comforter. “Staying up all night can’t be good for the baby.” I can’t distinguish his concern for me from his concern for the baby. He carried me to bed once before I was pregnant. Would he have carried me tonight if I wasn’t?

“I tried to sleep on the plane,” I mutter.

“I know, baby.” The soft tone of his voice temporarily soothes my worries.

“My dad is fine. You can go back to the chalet. Spend Christmas with your dad and brother. Your family.”

He says nothing for a long minute. I don’t want him to go, and I’m worried he took it the wrong way—that I do. I wish it were brighter in here. The hall light doesn’t illuminate his whole face; most of it is shadowed. I can’t see his expression, but I can feel something pulsing in the air between us. Before I can decide what it is, he speaks. “My family is right here.”

Five words, and they decide more between us than the two-hundred-page document that was supposed to govern this arrangement. If our story had a different start, I’d respond to that sentence with three. I’d admit he’s become my whole world. The first thing I think about when I wake up and the last before I fall asleep. The first person I’d call with good news or bad. My family.

Pretty promises can be deceptive. All I hear in Crew’s words are truth. Not ugly, but real.

Before my tired brain can come up with a response, he stands and moves away. “Get some sleep, Red.”

The bedroom door closes, and I’m alone in the dark. I realize maybe you don’t have to have already experienced something to know you’re experiencing it for the first time. My emotional experience with men is laughably limited, as in nonexistent. I was so busy teaching myself not to get hurt, I never let anyone close.

Crew Kensington doesn’t just have the ability to hurt me.

He holds the power to destroy me, if he ever decides to use it.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO





CREW





I’m running on the treadmill when Asher calls. I debate answering. I slept poorly in the guest room I used to inhabit. Scarlett is still sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb her last night.

When he calls for a second time, I answer. Before I can say a word, he asks. “What the fuck is going on? Is it true?”

I falter. “Is what true?”

“Is Kensington Consolidated getting investigated for insider trading?”

Shock freezes up my limbs. I almost fall on my face. “What? Where did you hear that?”

Asher swears. “Where didn’t I? It’s all over the place, Crew. Papers, television, online. Lead story. Front page. I had to go into the back entrance of the office to avoid the fifty reporters outside.”

We need to talk more tomorrow, Crew.

Realization hits me like a sack of bricks when I recall my father’s parting words the last time we spoke. He wasn’t talking about Scarlett or Candace. Dread trickles down my spine.

I turn the treadmill off and collapse on the floor, breathing heavily. Talk about a shitstorm of a week. My brother potentially knocking up our stepmother, Hanson Ellsworth’s heart attack, and now this.

“I don’t know,” I admit.

“Aren’t you with your dad?”

“No. Scarlett’s father had a heart attack yesterday. We’re back in New York.”

Asher inhales. “Shit. Is Hanson going to pull through?”

“He should be fine.”

There’s a beat of silence. “This is a five-alarm fire, Crew. People are panicking. Phones are ringing off the hook. Stock is off the cliff.”

I scrub at my face. “Who broke the story first?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I need you to find out.”

“Crew, we’re way past the point of containment. This shit is everywhere. Discrediting one source isn’t going to—”

“True or not, someone leaked this,” I interrupt. “I want to know who.”

Asher sighs. “Okay. I’ll do some digging.”

I hang up and call my father. Voicemail. Call Oliver. Same.

My feeling of foreboding grows. They knew about this. Both of them.

My next call is to Brent Parsons, the head of Kensington Consolidated’s legal team. Luckily for him—assuming he wants to keep his job—he answers on the first ring. “Parsons.”

“It’s Crew. You’ve seen the news?”

“Reading it now.”

“What’s your gut?”

“There was definitely an investigation. Too many details to be totally fabricated. But if the feds had anything solid, we would have found about this very differently. Whoever leaked this probably did us a favor.”