He stiffened in my grip. “Are you threatening me?”
“Yes, I’m threatening you. I have enough money to out your kinks and slander you, and end your career. If you end hers, I end yours. If you hurt her, I hurt you. Yes, I’d say it’s a threat, because what you’re doing is shitty and illegal. It’s not okay. She shouldn’t have to wake up one more morning and think, ‘oh, I let him take those photos. I shouldn’t have done that. What if they get out?’ It’s been ten fucking years.” My grip on his arms tightened until he grimaced. “And those photos are not going to get out. Ever. You’re going to delete them as soon as you get back to your office, and then you’re going to write Ella a long, apologetic email about how wrong you were to threaten her with them, and what an asshole you’ve been.”
“What if she leaves?” he asked, trying to shake me off. “That’s the thing about her. She does what she wants, whenever it strikes her fancy. She gets lost for months concocting ridiculous theories about time travel, and that lab in Pisa? They’re years behind us. Do you want her to go back there?”
“I guess she should be able to do whatever the fuck she wants in her career.” I let him go and started to walk away. Any more words, and I would lose my tenuous grip on control.
“No.” Leo followed me. “She needs guidance. I owe it to the field of astrophysics to—”
I held up a hand, cutting him off. “I don’t know who’s crazier. Her with her time travel, or you believing that you get to run her life and career. Get rid of the photos, okay? That’s all I care about. What she decides to do after that is her own business.”
“She’s going to leave,” he argued. “She doesn’t like working for ACE Con. She’ll go back to that damn lab in Pisa because they put up with her crazy tangents, and you’ll lose your little plaything here in New York. She is your plaything, isn’t she? You’ve got a lot of heart involved in this, or a lot of dick. I know, man, I’ve been there.” His salacious grin made my fists ache. “She’s a delectable little piece.”
“You’ve got a lot of heart involved in this, too.” I realized it, said it, shoved the truth in his face. “You still want her, huh? You still adore her. She was the best fucking thing that ever crossed your plate.” It made sense now, his fakeness, his grasping need for control. “That sucks for you, doesn’t it? Sad, that she hates you so much.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Like I said, she’s crazy. She always has been. I learned my lesson when it comes to Ella. My interest in her is purely professional.”
“Purely professional?” I threw back my head and laughed. “Jesus, what’s it like for you, going to work every day, wanting to have her, control her, dominate her? You’re doing what you can to force her obedience, but you’ll never have her body again because she’s just not into you, and that’s got to sting.” I smirked at him. “I don’t mind sharing that I have her body on a regular basis. Of course, she’s into me. Our relationship is willing and mutual, not criminally extorted with a pathetic stash of outdated sex photos. And you know what? She is a delectable little piece.” I threw his words back at him with exaggerated relish. “Okay, this has been fun. Upon further consideration, I think you should resign too.”
“What?” His eyes bugged out, his jaw working. “Resign from what?”
“From your leadership position in the ACE Consortium. I think you should find a job somewhere else, maybe teaching at some university on the west coast, far away from this beautiful, intelligent woman who doesn’t want to work for you. It would probably be best.”
“You can’t make me do that,” he said. “I’ll get rid of the pictures, but you can’t force me to leave my job.”
“The way you forced Ella to leave the lab in Pisa? How does it feel, asshole?”
He drew himself up. “You’ve made your point, but I’m not resigning. If it comes down to that, I’ll give the Gibraltar money back.”
“I don’t care who has the Gibraltar money,” I said, meeting him toe to toe. “I don’t care if we have it, or the project has it, or the fucking Quasar Nebula has it. What I care about is getting you away from Ella and your sick, pathetic need for her. One way or another, I’m going to make that happen. It would probably be better if you did it on your own.”
He scowled at me, considering his options, and I scowled back, considering mine. I had all the money in the world, and all the heart-fueled intention, and he knew it. His frown deepened, his eyes dark with frustration, and when he strode away from me, I knew he was accepting his fate. He’d go back to the office and write that letter. It would end with his resignation.
Heavy-handed? Maybe, but it was for the best. Ninety-nine percent of me despised the guy, but one percent of me pitied him. Women like Ella didn’t come around very often. She was a unique star in the galaxy, a shining point in the continuum of time, seldom if ever repeated. Of course, Leo didn’t want to lose his grip on her, his proximity. I understood that from my own experience.
What if she leaves? he’d asked.
That was the only time I stopped and thought, maybe you should just butt out of this. But I couldn’t, because she was coming to mean so much to me. If she left, I’d just fly to go see her. I was a pilot and I had that freedom, and she would want to see me, unlike Leo Mann, who needed to fucking get lost.
Chapter Twenty-One: Ella
I got home late from work, hungry, exhausted, but I couldn’t eat because my mind was turning on everything that had happened. Leo was gone, resigned. He’d walked out of his office with a box of notebooks and his personal laptop, saying he wasn’t satisfied with our project’s direction.
What?
Leo was the one who’d set our direction. He’d controlled everything about our timeline and research, and now he was gone, just like that. Funny, that this should happen just after a huge donation from Gibraltar Airlines.
I’d told Devin not to interfere.
Of course, our work would go on just fine without Leo, because the Gibraltar money gave us the leeway to extend our lab work for years beyond the original schedule. Marc Neville, the most levelheaded member of the team, had already offered to lead until we made our way through the shakeup. There was no reason to feel upset that Leo was gone, or that he claimed to have deleted my photos. I should have been ecstatic, but I’d asked Devin to let me deal with things, and he’d stepped in anyway, and that felt like being manipulated again.
I took a bath to try to calm down and get my head together. It got me clean, but didn’t accomplish much else. I didn’t know if I was angry with Devin, or happy, or what the hell I felt. A stress headache teased my temples as I wrapped myself in a robe and made myself some hot chocolate. Sadly, the chocolate didn’t help either.
I had to call Devin. I had to ask him how, why, and what he’d done to Leo. I had to yell at him or maybe start crying with relief. I had to kiss him and feel his body against mine, but I didn’t dare ask him to come over when I felt this way, when I wanted to fall in love with him so hard that I’d never fall out of it.
I put down my mug, grabbed my phone, and dialed his number, hoping he’d pick up, because I wasn’t sure what kind of madness I’d babble out in a message. It rang so many times I almost hung up, but then his deep, rich voice was on the line.
“Good evening, Ella.” My name rolled off his tongue so musically. No, that was stupid. I was just falling in love. “How are you?” he asked, as I sat speechless.
“I don’t… I don’t know,” I finally said. “There was a shakeup at work today. But I’m guessing you already knew that.”
“Ella, I told you I had to help. I explained why.”
“And I told you I could handle it myself. When you do stuff for me, it makes me feel weak.”
“Wow, that’s a nice way to say thank you.”
I twisted my robe’s hem between my fingers. “I mean, I’m grateful. I don’t know what you said to Leo, or what you did, but he told me I didn’t have to worry about the photos anymore. He left. He quit
.”
“Good.”
“Did you pay him off?”
“I told him off,” he said in a rough voice. “What he was doing was wrong, and I had more power to stop it than you. The money doesn’t matter. Gibraltar is always looking for worthy causes to support.” He paused. “Are you angry? I was trying to help.”
“I know, but I don’t like to depend on people.”
“That’s shitty, El, because life is about depending on people.”
Tears rose in my eyes. I didn’t know why. It was like years of unwanted emotion welled behind a dam inside me, waiting to break out.
“Thanks for helping me,” I said, when I got a handle on the surge. “I don’t know why I’m conflicted about it. Honestly, I appreciate it. I hope I can do something to help you sometime.”
“How about a blowjob? Can I come over? Just kidding. I’m on my way to the airport.”
“Oh.” I pictured him in the back of a taxi, wearing his fancy pilot’s uniform. He could do so many things, both carnal and professional. For all his sadism, he could be so kind. I loved him. I loved him like mad.
“Hey, Shorty, are we on for this weekend?” he asked. “Saturday night at The Gallery?”
“Yes.” I blew out a breath. “I need some time with you at The Gallery. I miss you.”
I love you. No, I can’t. I won’t be like my dad.
When Devin spoke again, his voice was changed, a little more tentative. “Leo said you would leave if…if the photos were gone. He said you’d go back to Italy.”
That was an idea. Leave Manhattan and the ACE Consortium, and get away from the temptation of Devin’s proximity.