IRL: In Real Life (After Oscar, #1)(38)

“The company specialized in express pharmaceutical supply transportation and logistics,” he explained. “Mark and I worked very well together, and the company grew like magic in that first year. I remember spending Christmas at my parents’ house a year and a half in. My father had invited Mark’s entire family to celebrate with us, and everything seemed perfect.”

He hesitated a moment before clearing his throat and adding, “He, ah… he met and fell in love with my sister during that visit.”

He glanced away, looking so vulnerable, it made me feel unsettled. I didn’t like seeing him that way. It made me want to reach across the table and place my hand on his—anything to give him a modicum of comfort. But I wasn’t sure how he would take the gesture, so instead I kept my fingers clamped around my spoon.

“Wow. That sounds perfect,” I said, wondering why he looked so unsure. “Everything falling into place.”

His lips twisted slightly. “Yes, well. My parents raved about Mark’s and my success that Christmas, and I remember feeling like it was the first time they were actually proud of me. I imagined a long life of kicking ass with Mark by my side, and when Mark and Win got together… he even became family. Everything we touched was gold.” His voice sounded ragged as he told the story, and I wondered at the emotions behind it.

I remembered reading about Wells’s early success with a business called PharmDash that eventually became Grange BioMed.

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“I caught him cheating.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that it took a moment for it to sink in. “On your sister?”

He hesitated. “That too. But first I discovered he was siphoning some of the pharmaceuticals in our custody chain for personal use. One day I saw him accept a package from one of our drivers. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, of course. I assumed it was a package that needed special handling or had been loaded into the wrong vehicle. Something like that. But then it happened two more times. Same type package, same driver.”

“Shit,” I said, putting down my soup spoon and pushing the bowl away. The food was delicious, but the story dampened my appetite. I was beginning to see how deeply affected Wells had been by the events.

“Yes. So I interviewed the driver, discovered he’d been told to deliver a ‘sample’ each week from a certain shipment to Mark for quality control reasons, and determined the ‘sample’ was a specially packaged delivery of six bottles of a narcotic pain medicine from the manufacturer. When I finally got to the bottom of it, I learned the manufacturer’s rep had agreed to the side deal in exchange for better transportation rates from our company.”

I sat back in my chair, oblivious now of the hustle and bustle going on around us in the cramped space. “Jesus, Wells. What did you do? Did you call the authorities?”

He nodded. “I had to. When I confronted Mark, he lied to my face about it. Blamed it on my sister. Said she’d manipulated him into it because she’d become addicted to the pain meds after gallbladder surgery or something like that. And the worst part?”

He paused, glancing down at his hands. The muscle along his jaw ticked as he clenched his teeth, as though the anger from long ago still sifted under his skin.

Then he blew out a long breath, and I realized it might not be anger that was causing his hesitation, but the fact that he was about to share something personal. He seemed almost skittish, as if this was a story he wasn’t used to telling. I said nothing, letting the silence stretch, afraid that even moving might scare him away from telling me.

“I believed him,” he finally said softly. His lips twisted. “Why wouldn’t I? We’d been best friends for years. And he always knew exactly what to say to get me on his side. Mark was good at many things; instilling loyalty was one of them. So I went to Win and told her I knew her secret—told her she needed to get help for her addiction. She denied it, of course, but I didn’t believe her. It wasn’t until she had her doctor call me to tell me she’d never had gallbladder surgery that I realized the truth—that Mark was the one with the problem.”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe I trusted Mark over my own sister.” It was obvious how upset the admission made him.

I couldn’t help it—I reached across the table and placed a hand on his arm. He immediately tensed and I almost jerked away, but then his hand landed on top of mine. He looked up, his eyes meeting mine. And the intensity of his gaze was like a physical force. I couldn’t have looked away if I’d wanted to.

“You can’t blame yourself,” I told him. My voice was barely more than a whisper, but still he heard.

The corner of his lips ticked in a rueful smile. “Yes, I can.”

“You can’t control the world, Wells.”

The smile grew larger. His hand covering mine felt somehow heavier. As though he could hold me in place. “Yes, I can.”

It felt as though suddenly the conversation had shifted in a new direction. Clearly we weren’t talking about his sister or his former business partner anymore. My mouth dried, something inside of me flaring at the possessiveness of his touch. There was something so familiar to it, as if my body were responding to a question I hadn’t realized he’d been asking. It left me feeling off balance, my skin too tight.

I needed the comfort of familiar ground, and so I slid my hand out from under his and reached for my spoon, hoping he didn’t notice it trembling slightly as I raised it to my lips. “Mark sounds like a grade A asshole,” I said, trying to steer the conversation back on track.