Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

BASH

Bringing Rowe to my house in the Hamptons was fantasy fulfillment at its finest. My only regret was the look of disappointment on his face when he saw how sterile the decor was in my house.

“Everything is… white,” he said, staring at the simple squared-off sofas and matching chairs.

“I warned you. Maybe when all this is over, I can hire you to redecorate for me,” I said, wondering what kind of colorful jumble he’d create in the open-plan space. I could use a few more refinished antiques. And if he wanted to do the work himself, there was a large storage shed in the backyard that the previous owners had referred to as a “chicken coop,” which would be plenty large enough for him to set up a workshop.

“Maybe I won’t wait that long,” he teased. “Maybe I’ll accidentally-on-purpose smear raspberry jam on these cushions just to give the place a little life.”

I remembered the night of the gala when he’d come alive while talking to Constance Baxter-Hicks about fashion and decor. While Rowe was shy and insecure about many things, he was 100 percent himself when talking about style.

And god knew the man was good at bringing things to life.

“Stain away,” I said with a laugh. “If it makes you happy, Jackson Pollock the hell out of this stuff with whatever you find in the fridge. Or order something online. Make yourself at home.” He had no idea how badly I meant that. “Trying to relax in this space has always felt like putting on a tie that’s a little too tight. It’s hard to breathe.”

Rowe’s eyes softened. “We can definitely fix that.” He pulled out his phone and began tapping it. “Oh, thank god. There are plenty of vintage and thrift stores around here. I hope you have a little money to spend on throw pillows at the very least.”

I opened my mouth to offer him everything I had—the billion I’d made myself and the fortune I was due to inherit one day—when I closed it with a snap. This man didn’t want money. He wanted many things, but wealth didn’t seem to be one of them. “I believe I can afford a few pillows,” I said with a straight face. “As long as they’re used. Nothing I love more than putting my face somewhere a stranger has put theirs.”

Rowe waved his hand at me in a dismissive gesture. “Snob. Haven’t you heard of a washing machine? Or do you have a laundress of some kind?”

Before I could admit I did, indeed, have a laundress, Rowe finally caught sight of the view through the wall of windows that led to the back deck. “Holy fuck,” he breathed reverently, moving closer to the expanse of dunes and wild waves.

I moved up behind him and snaked my arms around him. “Better than the white sofas?”

“So much better than the white sofas.”

We watched the ocean together for a while. The rhythmic ebb and flow of the tide was soothing, reminding me that there were bigger things in the world than Sterling Chase—bigger even than the knowledge that yet another person I’d trusted had betrayed me and Rowe right under my nose. A reminder, too, that not everything in life was predictable or understandable, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be beautiful and right … like the way I’d met the man beside me under the most ridiculous circumstances and the way I felt about him now.

I turned my face to press a soft kiss behind Rowe’s ear. “Thank you for coming out here with me,” I murmured into his sweet-smelling skin. Holding him in my arms made me feel both anchored and restless. I wanted him with a solid desperation that was crawling under my skin, but I was in no hurry since we had an entire week together away from the rest of the world.

Rowe tilted his head to give me more access. “It was hardly a sacrifice,” he said with a smile in his voice. “It was this or ramen noodles and a futon. You won by a hair.”

I continued nibbling on his neck. “Who says I’m not serving ramen noodles?”

Rowe’s laughter was warm and easy. There had been a moment, after Silas and Kenji had left my office, when I’d felt Rowe pulling away from me, even though he was right beside me. I still wasn’t sure what had been going through his mind, but knowing he was relaxing now helped calm me further. “Have you ever even had ramen noodles?” he asked.

I’d eaten them plenty in college, but because I was addicted to seeing Rowe’s smile, I said haughtily, “I’ll have you know I’ve eaten ramen at Mr. Taka in the Lower East Side.”

Rowe spun in my arms. “Isn’t that the place that has a freaking Michelin star? That hardly counts.”

His grin was contagious. I leaned over to press my lips against it and taste him. “You’re so easy to rile.”

We kissed for a long, unhurried moment, letting ourselves settle into it. I’d kissed Rowe enough that the taste of his mouth and the feel of his body under my fingertips were familiar, but that familiarity only made it more exciting.

My hands snuck under his shirt to spread across the warm skin of his back. His hard cock pressed into my inner thigh. I was torn between taking my time with him and ripping his clothes off like a savage beast. In the end, I found a sweet middle ground, undressing him quickly with my hands while teasing him slowly with my lips and nose.

Every time I ran my nose lightly under his ear or against his cheek, he shuddered and let out a delicious noise of submission and abandon.

I moved him over to one of my sterile white sofas with the sole purpose of acting on every single sex fantasy I’d had about the man since the moment I’d met him.

“We’re going to mess up your perfect furniture,” he said in a gasp as I bit into the tender skin of his bare neck.

“Good.”

“We… we’re going to horrify the neighbors with all these glass windows and doors.” Rowe ended with a long, drawn-out groan as I moved my hand down into his briefs to fondle his dick. “Oh. God. Fuckkk .”

“Neighbors can go fuck themselves,” I said before sucking on one of his nipples.

“Just like that.” He reached his fingers into my hair and scratched my scalp lightly, which made my skin prickle with need. “Touch me.”

I fondled his balls and tried to remind myself we had an entire week together. “You smell fucking amazing,” I said, moving my mouth down across his stomach to his happy trail. The top of his tattoo peeked out over the waistband of his briefs. I ran a thumb across it and down below the elastic. “I want to lick every inch of your skin.”

“Start with my penis. Just a suggestion.” Rowe’s voice was rougher and deeper. He sounded more confident than he had before. I hoped the experience we’d already had together had contributed to his comfort with me. “Not a suggestion, actually,” he hissed as I teased the area around his cock without touching it directly. “Command. Superstrong command. Suck me. Please. Pretty please.”

I adored this man. He was sexy and sweet, an intoxicating blend of vulnerability and masculinity that fired all my engines.

My mouth hovered over his cock, and the warm, humid air from my exhales made the fabric of his briefs damp. Rowe’s entire body thrummed with anticipation.

“I hate you,” he said. “This is torture. This is horrible.”

I yanked down his underwear and sucked the head of his cock into my mouth. Rowe yelped.

“I fucking love you,” he cried. “This is heaven. This is the best.”

I wanted to laugh. He made me feel so many things all the damned time. Suddenly, it felt like my life was about someone else. Pleasing him. Reassuring him. Impressing him. Listening to him. Learning about him. Adoring him.

All of it seemed possible. A fantastical future laid out before us on the golden trail of sunlight that danced across the ocean water outside the windows. In that moment, I felt like I could have it all.

And I could have it with Rowe Prince.

My mouth held him while my tongue danced around his shaft. I proceeded to defile him, sucking his cock and fucking him with spit-slick fingers. The sexy flush mottling his neck and chest made my dick hard as granite, so I yanked at the button and zippers on my pants until I was fisting my dick while sucking him off.

Rowe grabbed my hair and pulled as he shouted his release into the room. The sound of his broken voice crying out my name was enough to make me come all over myself and the stupid white sofa. I lurched up to take his mouth in mine and roll us until we were side by side, a dirty mash-up of panting breaths, sweat, saliva, and semen.

“More,” Rowe said with a cheeky grin.

I barked out a laugh and leaned back with a groan. “You’re with an old man, cutie. There’s no more in the tank for a little while.”

He reached out and ran the tip of his finger across my forehead and down my temple to my cheek and jaw. The tender affection in his expression didn’t help my breathing slow down in the least bit. “Thirty’s not so old,” he said dreamily. “Seems like you’re just right.”

We lay there staring at each other and sharing small touches and kisses until I realized someone’s phone was buzzing insistently from wherever we’d dropped our clothes.

“Real life is intruding,” I murmured, unable to take my fingers out of his adorable curls. “Make it stop.”

He groaned for a long moment before smacking a quick kiss to my lips. “We did come here with a plan,” he reminded me. “Maybe we should execute that plan.”

“Or what if we make a new plan? A plan called Sebastian and Rowe Christen Every Room of This House.”

“Hmm. I like it. How many rooms here?”

“So many,” I said fervently.

Rowe’s light laugh was enough to keep me there in his arms for a few more minutes before I finally pushed off the sofa and reached out a hand to pull him up. “Duty calls. And let’s order some food, too. I haven’t fed you in a while.”

“Good idea.” He looped his arms around my neck. “I could go for a beer and some of that snack mix we had last weekend.”

“Hmm. I dunno. I’m craving burritos— ”

Rowe snickered, pressing his face to my chest.

“Do you suppose Burrito Bandito delivers out here? I heard they have this hot-as-fuck delivery person who does a little toe-kick move, but I haven’t seen it yet…”

Rowe pinched my waist, and I jumped back. “I’ll show you a toe-kick,” he threatened, eyes dancing as his fingers made grabby motions toward me. He chased me into my bathroom, where we spent long, gorgeous minutes teasing each other under the hot spray.

It was a long time later when we finally dressed, ordered our food—burgers, not burritos—and settled at the kitchen table with our laptops to return Kenji’s calls.

“Bash, made much headway on your research?” Kenji said over the speaker, his voice just a shade too innocent. “Since you didn’t return my call immediately, I can only assume you’ve found a crucial piece of information and you’ve been working tirelessly.”

Rowe blushed and bit his lip, looking a bit guilty, but I didn’t feel guilty in the slightest. Despite my very real concerns about Sterling Chase, with Rowe at my side, none of it felt as overwhelming or heavy as it might have even a few weeks ago. Only the knowledge that this mattered to Rowe, too, had kept me from dragging Rowe out onto the balcony so I could make love to him until the sun set.

“Stop teasing, or I’ll tell Landry you’re bored and need him to come keep you company,” I said blandly.

Kenji sobered quickly. “Our investigator already found some interesting information about Austin.” I could hear the familiar tap of his fingers on his tablet. “First of all, he’s exactly who he claims to be. All of his education and work experience from his resume are accurate. However… did you realize that Austin got his MBA from NYU’s business school five years ago?”

I frowned, though he couldn’t see me. “So?”

“So, that was the same year Justin Hardy got his MBA from the same school. Not something I would have put together,” he admitted, “but the investigator we’re using is the same one we used when we investigated Justin after he and Silas broke up, so it pinged for her right away. Turns out, Austin and Justin worked with the same professor as partners on a special research project for Troy Innovation Lab about boosting profitability of startups.”

“Huh.” It wasn’t a surprise that Austin knew Justin somehow, but discovering they’d worked closely together on a graduate studies project was . “Is there a way to find out if they’re still in regular contact?”

“There is, and they are . Both of them are registered mentor alumni at NYU Stern, and they’re still working with that same professor. And what’s even more interesting? Austin’s latest HR recommendation—Felicia Ullney—was recruited from that program. It also looks like several of the grad students have been recruited to work at Hardy Development.”

I couldn’t decide if that was suspicious or not. “They might just be loyal to their grad school. Why wouldn’t they recruit from its program?”

Kenji made a sound of agreement. “Exactly what I’d think, but get this… apparently, Austin and Justin have helped not one but three other sets of partners who worked on the Troy project. In every case, one person from the partnership got recruited by Sterling Chase, and the other went to Hardy Development. That makes three people at Sterling who are close to Hardy employees. Almost like Justin and Austin planned this out. Interesting, no?”

“Very,” Rowe agreed. “How did the investigator discover this so quickly? Finding out who was paired up for a school project doesn’t seem easy.”

“Ordinarily not, but this professor has published his students’ group projects on a departmental website, so it’s very easy to see who was paired up, as well as the title of their project.” He paused. “Wanna know the title of the project Austin and Justin co-authored?”

Rowe and I exchanged a glance. “I’m gonna hate this, aren’t I?” I sighed.

“ Using Strategic Teaming, and Power and Professional Influencing to Facilitate Out-of-the-Box Acquisitions .”

Out-of-the-box acquisitions. My stomach dropped. “You…” I didn’t even know where to begin. “You’re shitting me. They wrote a paper on how to steal clients?”

“I’m trying to get my hands on that project or at least find more information on it. In the meantime, I’m pulling records from any of our employees who have any relation to NYU Stern, and the investigator is trying to find what she can on the ones at Hardy. That’s obviously more difficult.”

“What can I do from here?” I asked, reaching over to squeeze Rowe’s hand. “What can we do?”

“Other than getting all of Rowe’s material together, I’m not sure.” Kenji sighed. “Legal is opening up an investigation. They’ll be getting access to Austin’s files as early as tomorrow, and with any luck, there’ll be backup of one of the documents he ‘deleted’ that will be a smoking gun. But god, what wouldn’t I give to be able to get into his emails and see what the hell he and Justin Hardy have been talking about. If only it wasn’t, you know, illegal.”

“It’s not illegal. All employees know Sterling Chase email accounts are subject to oversight by management and HR,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but would he be stupid enough to use company email?” Rowe asked at the same time Kenji said, “I mean his personal email, Bash.”

“Oh.” I thought about it for a moment. “Do we have any hackers on speed dial?”

Rowe opened his mouth like he was about to say something, then shut it again.

“What?” I prompted.

“Well… if Austin’s stupid enough to use his work computer to check his personal email or messages—like, from Slack, or Facebook, or even his texts—you could remotely install a keystroke tracker and see his activity.” He held up a hand before I could pepper him with questions. “Yes, it’s legal to install a keystroke tracker on company-owned computers. I don’t know specifically about New York laws, but most employee privacy laws don’t protect personal email if it’s accessed on a company-owned computer or on a company-owned network. In other words, the company has a legal right to all data created, viewed, or managed on the computers they own.”

“Holy shit. Thank you, Bobby’s Tech Barn,” Kenji said excitedly.

Rowe laughed. “Bobby acts as the IT department for a couple of local companies. Miss Melly was very concerned that one of the ladies from her yarn shop was watching porn during work hours. It turned out that she hadn’t accessed anything more exciting than cat videos. But we did the same thing at one of the local credit unions, and they were able to prosecute a teller for fraud,” he said proudly.

“Kenji, who do we trust in IT who could do this?” I asked.

“Rachel Reynosa,” he said without hesitation. “She can help us, and she’s no fan of Austin’s.”

“Perfect. See if she can call us today. I’m happy to authorize overtime.”

While we waited for Rachel to contact us, Rowe pulled up his cloud storage account to walk me through his research for Project Daisy Chain and even showed me his early notebooks of ideas. If I’d been impressed with the man before—and I fucking had —it was nothing compared to how I felt after seeing the enormous amount of research he’d compiled. Document after document, page after page, told the story of his dedication to making this project a reality. There were articles from medical journals, screenshots of newspaper headlines, reams of notes from his conversations with the Montgomery County and Tippecanoe County Health Departments, email after email from hospital administrators. And that didn’t even begin to touch the literal hours of interviews he’d recorded.

Still, when he showed me the earliest incarnations of the app he’d coded, Rowe seemed almost apologetic. “It’s so basic and clunky. I really had no clue what I was doing—”

I grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him on the mouth, stopping the apologies with my lips. “Rowe, some people go to school for years and don’t manage anything this incredible. The idea that you managed this on your own… is there nothing you can’t do if you put your mind to it?”

He gave me one of his gorgeous blushes. “Some things are still pretty hard for me to understand,” he whispered. “Like how I slid into an alcove behind a potted plant a week ago and ended up here with you right now.”

“I’m just glad that you did,” I said firmly.

Our burgers arrived, and we worked as we ate, taking turns stealing each other’s french fries as we carefully assembled the key pieces of information to send to Sterling Chase’s head attorney. At my urging, Rowe also copied all of his data to an additional cloud storage account to make sure it was well backed up for his own protection.

By the time Rachel contacted us, Rowe and I had finished cleaning up our meal—a process that took a lot longer than it should have since my wet, soapy hands insisted on going lots of places besides the kitchen sink—and he was standing in my personality-less living room, gesturing wildly as he talked about feng shui and golden ratios with every bit of the same excitement that he’d talked about polo hooks and penalty points.

Every word out of his mouth, every second in his presence, made me feel alive. Like the world was filled with more possibility than I’d ever let myself recognize. And for the first time, I started to see how my own attitude toward money had held me back. I was like Aladdin’s genie—phenomenal power and money at my fingertips but shackled by my own ideas… until Rowe had set me free.

“I love it,” I told him when he finally finished speaking, before his nerves rushed back. “I agree with everything you’re suggesting. Let’s make it happen.”

“You sure?” Rowe asked, waving around the room as if his ideas had already manifested inside the space. “I mean, you’re gonna have to do some of the work.”

“Positive,” I assured him. Because the picture Rowe had painted with his words was of something much bigger and wilder than a new living space—it looked like my future. And I couldn’t wait.

Rachel’s call was another sobering reminder that we had stuff to deal with first, though. While she and Rowe videoconferenced at the kitchen table for an hour, speaking in a technical language that would have made way more sense to Silas than it did to me, I made notes and took a few more calls from the attorneys. The patent applications in Austin’s name hadn’t been submitted yet, which meant we could pause them indefinitely. Applying for the patents on Rowe’s behalf would have been my ideal next step, but it wasn’t something I could or would do without his consent.

By the time he wrapped up his call with Rachel, Rowe was red-faced with excitement. “Sterling Chase already uses keystroke tracking, so Rachel had access to the data without having to install it. She was able to pull his recent history, and guess what? Rachel discovered several texts between Austin and Justin.”

He looked down at his hastily scribbled notes on the back of the brown paper takeout bag. “There were three in particular that caught our attention. One arranged an introduction between Justin and someone named Inessa. Not much info to go on for that one, but Rachel said she thought the name was familiar. One was a text exchange where Austin seemed to be congratulating Justin on something called ‘the Odegard matter.’ The third was—”

“Wait,” I said. “Odegard? You’re sure that’s what he said?”

“Yeah.” Rowe typed a few keys on his laptop. “She sent me the logs. It’s… here.” He turned the computer in my direction. “See? ‘Congrats on the Odegard matter. You owe me dinner at Mastros. Name the night.’ Does that mean something to you?”

“Yes,” I said grimly. “It means that all this time, Silas thought Justin used him to steal a client Silas was trying to sign to Sterling Chase. But it looked like Silas wasn’t Justin’s only source of information.” I picked up my phone to text Kenji. “Send those keystroke logs to me?”

Me: Ask the investigator to see if she can find a connection between Austin, Justin, and Odegard.

Kenji: Silas’s Odegard?? WTF??

Me: This is getting dirty. Sending you transcripts from Austin’s computer.

Kenji: On it.

I tossed my phone on the table and rubbed my hands over my face. “Do I even want to know what the third text said?”

Rowe’s forehead crinkled in concern, but he glanced back at his notes.

“The third thing was Austin messaging someone else about Justin. Rachel doesn’t have an ID on the number yet, but the message read, ‘Hardy’s so into the game, he’s legit marrying some chick for her IP.’ Is Justin engaged? Was he… didn’t he… date Silas?”

“Yes. He did.” Adrenaline spiked in my gut. Even though Silas hated Justin now, hearing that Justin had moved on would probably crush him. He’d also want to kill the man for using someone else like this. “Just when I thought I couldn’t loathe that fucker any more than I already do.”

“You should tell Silas. He should hear it from you and not through the gossip mill.”

I nodded. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure Kenji will already be relaying this information to the brotherhood. And we’ll be there for Silas if he needs us.”

“I know you will.” Rowe stood and came around the table to rub my shoulders. “I’m sorry. This whole thing sucks. Money doesn’t buy happiness, huh?”

I snorted tiredly. “Definitely not.”

“But it does buy nice beach houses.” He slid his small frame between the chair and the table, straddling my lap. His grin was pure playful temptation. “Beach houses with a truly excessive number of rooms , many of which haven’t been christened.”

I pulled him closer and slanted my mouth over his before filling my hands with his delectable ass. “We’re gonna have to rectify that right away,” I told him, breaking away only long enough to suck on the long column of his neck. “Starting with this one.”