Secrets and Lies (Vandervilles Book 2) Read online

  “What!” Regina gasped. No wonder that damn bastard didn’t argue when she said she wanted in on ownership of Fast Tech.

  “Eventually, all the other companies will follow. The reports I saw confirm it. And companies like that don’t just go bust. Someone is stealing from him big time. When I say big, I mean massive. It’s like it’s being siphoned. This file contains the real records for Fast Tech. What Ben sent the other day is some twisted idea of a joke made to look like everything was fine with them.”

  “How is he hiding this?” She found it hard to believe that all of Ben’s companies could be in such a position and no one knew. They were all NASDAQ-100 companies. Someone had to have suspected something if the situation was so dire.

  “Trust me, he has people who have his back. They cover him well, and it will only be when the companies crash that anyone will hear anything. I’ve seen it before, but such a crash will affect a lot of people. Look through this when you get a chance.” Gilly handed the folder over to her.

  “How did you get this?” Wade asked, widening his eyes.

  “I have my ways.”

  Gilly could hack into any system. It was like child’s play to him.

  “Anyway,” he cleared his throat. “It all explains why he wants to co-own with you. Runway is in the best financial standing it’s ever been in, and to make it look like he’s got an interest in the fashion business he’s also just become a major investor in Sassy Magazine. Penelope signed the contract last Friday. If he is to win the election, or even have a place in the government of this state, he can’t be seen to have anything unethical that might put his standing in question. Bad finance would undoubtedly make him a threat to public funds.”

  Wow, so this was what it all came to.

  Ben wanted to be California’s governor. Then on to campaigning to be the president, she supposed. All that hard work wouldn’t be about being governor of one state. He’d aim for the top, and these were like stepping stones to get there.

  It was all about power. Everything in the end was always about power. The significant thing about it was he could actually pull it off if he wanted to. Ben’s name preceded him, and people revered him for the power he had and that old family name that demanded respect and reverence like he was some kind of god. She’d seen how people behaved around him. There were some who tried to stand up to him, some who could see his corrupt ways and questioned them, but there was no one who was brave enough to take their assumptions further than the occasional protest or public statement. When that happened Ben always found a way to deal with them, and somehow that person or group of people would never make another reappearance. Regina never saw or heard from them again.

  Well now she knew, and like Brian warned, it wasn’t going to be easy.

  Ben was a man who always got what he wanted. Always, and at any cost, no matter the cost.

  She didn’t care that someone was stealing from him. That didn’t concern her. What concerned her was what she was going to do next.

  Regina needed a divorce and she sure as hell wasn’t going to sign any form of contract for Runway. Not that she intended to in the first place.

  She would have the absolute pleasure of telling which route to hell he could take. It was such a shame that this would most likely be the start of a very unpleasant war.

  Chapter 4

  Wade

  Just when Wade thought his father couldn’t get more despicable the man proved him wrong.

  This morning’s meeting opened his eyes even more, allowing him to see that there was no end to his father’s devious ways. Wade was surprised at the manipulative schemes and efforts he put in, and it all weighed heavily on his mind for the whole day. Along with everything else.

  His mother was a strong woman, but he wasn’t certain that she’d have the strength required to go up against his father.

  She planned to tell him she wasn’t signing his joint ownership contract and Wade knew his father wasn’t just going to accept no for an answer. Or worse, allow his mother to leave him. When Gilly left she told Wade that she’d be filing for a divorce.

  Wade wasn’t into politics, but he knew it was all about image with those people. Just like it mattered to have a good financial standing, having a strong family image mattered too. Happy marriage, happy kids, happy everything. No skeletons that could jump out of the closet, no private affairs that could be exposed to the public.

  With a family like theirs there was no way that his mother could divorce his father in private, and when word got out about that it wouldn’t look good on his father, or his campaign. People would want to know why she was leaving him and start digging around for whatever dirt they could find. It would be massive news.

  At least they finally knew what his father was up to.

  Wade just wasn’t sure how he would deal with it, or if he could even be involved in it. Truth be told there were more pressing matters on his mind.

  Like Chloe insisting on staying at her house.

  She wanted to spend time with Kelly. It was understandable, but it made him crazy that she wasn’t with him, and of course he was worried.

  The thought occurred to him to go and stay there with them but he restrained himself. Kelly would think it was weird. It was bad enough that he was already acting like the overprotective, overbearing boyfriend, and he didn’t want to make Chloe mad at him. And, most of all, make her suspicious. She was suspicious enough as it was already, so he allowed her to go while he made his way back to Runway. He started out with a check of the Closet. He looked at the banks of desks that belonged to the other eight members of the creative team and took note of their names. He positioned himself at Lisa’s desk because that was where he felt you’d need to be to draw Chloe at the angle she was drawn. He didn’t know Lisa very well. He’d seen her a few times and he’d heard Chloe speak extremely highly of her. Being nice didn’t rule her out, but Wade didn’t think he could suspect her. He couldn’t see any reason why someone like Lisa would send his father notes and do the creepy drawings. She just didn’t fit, and there were no real connections that could link her.

  The only other desk in that line of sight was one that was used to keep books on and some other random stuff. No one sat there.

  Could there be cameras in here, like some kind of spyware of sorts? He’d thought that about his parents’ house. Maybe the same thing was put here. It would certainly be easier to put a camera in a busy building with people moving around all the time than it was in a private home. That was what he thought anyway.

  He stood in the center of the room for a moment and the thought occurred to him to check the CCTV here. The night security guard would be able to help with that.

  It was Sergio tonight; Wade always got on well with him. The man was a retired marine in his late forties who guarded the place like he would his own house. The daytime security team did a great job, but Sergio and his team took things to another level to protect the place. There were all sorts of things kept in the building. Precious stones worth millions, designs designers hadn’t released yet, ideas worth even more. The wrong hands could use it to their exploitation.

  Sergio welcomed Wade into his office when he saw him and started checking out the CCTV without any question when he asked.

  “This is all the recordings we have of the Closet for this week.” Sergio pointed to the link on the screen that was labelled Closet.

  “I need yesterday, just before lunch time.” That was when he’d left Chloe briefly to get sandwiches from the deli so they could eat on the way to the hospital. It was the only time he wasn’t with her that day and the picture was of her by herself.

  Sergio clicked on the link and searched through the feed to the time Wade wanted. Wade could see Chloe and Lisa talking. Then Lisa left and there was no one else in the Closet besides Chloe. She was on her computer.

  That was it, nothing suspicious at all. He watched until he saw himself come back in.

  “What did you want to see?
More of Chloe Matthews?” Sergio raised his brows and laughed.

  “No, I was just checking something out.”

  “Was it her?” Sergio continued chuckling.

  “No, seriously.” Wade was aware that he must have looked kind of silly.

  “Is there anything else I…” Sergio’s voice trailed off and he narrowed his eyes as he stared at the monitor.

  “What?” Wade asked. But Sergio didn’t answer.

  As if a jolt of lightening had hit him he started clicking away at the keyboard. The view on the monitor turned into a normal computer screen and all these numbers appeared. It looked like something from The Matrix.

  “Shit,” Sergio swore.

  “What is it?” Wade prodded with more insistence. He didn’t use computers more than for average things like booking holidays and surfing the net, so he wouldn’t know what anything on the screen meant. “Sergio, for the love of God tell me what’s wrong.”

  Sergio turned to him with a frantic look on his face and said, “We’re being hacked.”

  Hacked.

  That was it. It explained a lot.

  Wade’s stomach clenched at the thought. It was an area he wasn’t familiar with but he knew that someone who could supposedly hack a system like the one at Runway had to be extremely intelligent.

  Sergio explained that the systems set up at Runway were impossible to get into, but yet someone had managed to do it. He thought it was someone planning to break in or embezzle money, but Wade knew different.

  It had to be their psycho friend. He didn’t want to appear to be clutching at straws in an attempt to find this person, but his gut feeling told him that he was right.

  Sergio reported it straight away and within minutes the police were here to investigate.

  His mother came back, along with Brian. She looked completely freaked out by what was happening and didn’t have to guess who the culprit was. After she finished speaking to the police she took him aside, outside the security office where they could talk in private.

  “We’ll tell the police about everything else tomorrow. You’re right. We need them to handle this,” she began.

  He nodded. “This is bigger than what we imagined, Mom.”

  “I know.” Her voice quivered.

  “If they hacked here, then that’s how they’re seeing everything else we do. Through our own security systems.” He winced. This person didn’t need to put cameras around the house or anywhere else. Why do that when they could get a live feed from what was already there.

  And as for his old system, he reckoned it was working just fine. Hacking meant having control of the damn cameras and control of the whole fucking system to do whatever the hell they liked. Like walk into his house while he was asleep with Chloe. And like a fool, he’d had a new system installed, as if that could do anything. It was useless.

  His mother rested her hands on his elbows then pulled him in for a hug. She held him for a few seconds then released him. “Go home, Wade, you’ve had a long, hard day and a stressful week. Go home and rest. You look exhausted from it all. I need your strength. Please go home, forget about everything, even for tonight, and let me handle this.”

  He looked at her for a few seconds thinking about what to say. He gazed into her eyes and saw the wealth of her love and concern for him.

  “Okay.” He decided to accept the offer because he felt that he needed to.

  “We’ll speak tomorrow.”

  He nodded, bent down to kiss her forehead and left. It was hard to push what was going on out of his mind.

  He thought about it all on his way home, and only stopped when he stepped inside the house and saw Chloe sitting on his sofa with Pisces curled up in her lap

  Relief washed over him.

  The cat jumped off her lap and ran over to him, pawing at his leg and purring. The damn creature must have missed Taylor.

  “Where were you? I was worried sick.” He looked at her in a camisole top that made a really good show of her breasts and short, short denim shorts that drew his attention to the smoothness of her legs. “I came back because I didn’t want you up all night worrying about me.” She gave him a sweet little smile.

  He closed the door and leaned back against it so he could look at the perfect image of her.

  What a week it had been so far, and how had he spent it not touching her? She’d slept in this house two nights this week, right next to him, and he hadn’t touched her. She’d slept in his bed, on his sofa.

  Within days the stress of what was going on around them had transformed them into that couple who merely existed together and did nothing.

  “Wade.” She placed her hands on her hips and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, making her long blonde hair flow about her delicate shoulders.

  Wade didn’t want to speak, because if he did he’d have to tell her what was going on, and he didn’t want to do that. Right now he just wanted to truly forget everything that was happening and leave it outside the house, outside the room, outside them.

  His fingers yearned to touch her, his mouth to taste her. Wade moved away from the door and walked over to the woman who filled his fantasies. He reached out and cupped her face, loving the feel of her skin, loving the feel of the real her that rivaled any image he could possibly conjure up in his mind.

  The real her was everything and more, enough to drive him wild for as long as he’d known her.

  She looked up at him and gazed at him with her beautiful autumn-colored eyes. He saw desire fill them and Wade knew she knew what he was thinking.

  They didn’t need to speak.

  He lowered to her lips, covering them hungrily, and she returned the kiss with reckless abandon, making his emotions whirl and his blood pound through his body.

  They fed on the desire that fueled them and the rough, raw heat that rippled between them. His hands found her full, round breasts and squeezed them. In the back of his mind he remembered the cameras and broke the moment of passion so he could pull her into the kitchen. There weren’t any cameras in here.

  He’d opted to have one fit by the sitting room because it led to the back sliding doors.

  “Wade,” she attempted to talk but he shook his head.

  “Us, let’s just be selfish for tonight. Just for tonight.”

  When she nodded he set her on top of the breakfast table and kissed the silky top off her. It turned him on more that she wasn’t wearing a bra and he could go straight to her beautiful, beautiful breasts.

  She moaned as he cupped them and caressed her perfect pink nipples that pebbled with each stroke. He gazed at her, taking a mental image of how perfect this woman was, never wanting to forget.

  He then took pleasure in the little sounds she made as he lowered to suck her breasts, enjoying the succulence of her and everything that was her.

  Chloe

  Selfish.

  That’s exactly what it felt like, selfishness that she had to indulge in and had no desire to resist.

  She felt bad for feeling this good when Taylor was stuck in a coma in the hospital and everyone was so distressed.

  But she was with Wade, and being with him always meant that her brain would leave her body and raw emotion would take her over, propelling her intense need for him.

  Mindless sounds of pleasure escaped her lips as he sucked her breasts and ran his hands over her bare skin. He kissed his way down to her shorts and slid those off her, revealing her blue silk panties, which he seemed fascinated with.

  “Blue. This looks good on you, baby. Keep that on.” He smiled up at her as he kissed the soft insides of her thighs.

  She wanted to enjoy him too. Every time he got his chance to enjoy her, mainly because she was always so weak from his touch that she couldn’t do anything else. But she wanted to enjoy him too. She stopped him, hopped off the table and lifted the edge of his long-sleeved T-shirt.

  “My turn.” She smiled, eliciting a look of surprise in his steely gray eyes that almost loo
ked metallic with the intensity in which he stared back at her.

  “Take it,” he said with a cunning smile, spreading his arms wide.

  She would. She slid the T-shirt up his chest. He helped her out by pulling it over his head. She then took her time to run her hands over the rock-hard muscles of his abs and kissed her way down the cool surface of his skin all the way down to the waistband of his jeans.

  Carnal desire guided her actions and she allowed it to. It was as if she was living in a different reality, where all that existed was them and their need for each other. She unbuttoned his fly and watched his face in delight as she shoved her hands beneath his boxers and wrapped her palm around his hard shaft and squeezed. The satisfaction on his face filled her with this sense of achievement and she thought this must be what it felt like to be him. But it was probably just a fraction of what he did to her. A deep groan escaped his lips as she stroked him from base to head, up and down. Then he took hold of her arm to raise her up.

  “I need you now,” he told her in a pained voice, his gaze locking on hers. His desperate touch heated up her insides, drove her wild, and made her blood ripple through her veins.

  He shrugged out of his jeans and boxers, setting himself free. As always, she took that moment to appreciate the masterpiece of him and couldn’t believe she was with him. Wade, the man who had filled her dreams with his overpowering personality and wild recklessness that had always captivated her. Her eyes roamed over the perfection of his muscles, the definition and strength in his long legs, the creative artistry that had gone into his tattoos, and the impressive length of his shaft. He was all for her.

  When he lifted her up, she wrapped her legs around his waist and placed her arms around his neck. She sucked in a sharp breath as their flesh touched and he thrust upwards into her slick opening. He pulled out slightly then buried himself deep, and all there was was nothing but intense pleasure. The penetration was so strong a primal moan escaped him and he gasped, pulling air into his lungs.