“Nothing counts on days like today,” I tell her.
She nods in agreement. “Hey, you’re not drinking your special coffee.” She slides the mug closer to me even as she takes a big sip from her
cup. “It will cure whatever the sugar and fat don’t.”
Ethan raises a brow at that, at least until I point to the bottle of Baileys sitting on the counter. Then he just nods as he devours a second donut in three bites. He’s usually such a health nut that it’s strange to see him eating junk food—and enjoying it.
“So, what exactly is the plan here?” Tori asks after she’s eaten two donuts and Ethan has downed three. Mine sit, untouched, on my napkin, but neither of them make mention of it. “I mean, besides ripping your no-good family limb from fucking limb?”
“Tori!” I don’t think Ethan’s at the joking stage yet.
“That’s pretty much the plan right now. My attorneys are contacting each of the other women Brandon raped and then paid to keep quiet. Hopefully, they’ll manage to get two or three who are willing to violate the nondisclosure agreements.”
“Won’t there be financial penalties for them?” I ask.
“Yes. And I’ll gladly pay every single penny. At the same time, Stu is launching his own counteroffensive. We’ve had a copy of your nondisclosure agreement delivered to contacts at CNN, MSNBC and various other sites—along with copies of the rape complaint you filed against him, complete with the photographs of the bruises that bastard left. Of course, we’ve made it clear that the photographs are of a minor and not to be used under any circumstances. They are merely to cement the argument.”
“How did you get the complaint? He was a minor. The judge had it sealed.”
Tori and Ethan both look at me a little pityingly as my best friend rubs her thumb against her index and middle finger in the universal gesture for money. Of course. I don’t know what I was thinking, imagining that police and court records were actually inviolate. It’s not like Brandon and his family hadn’t already taught me just how much money could buy.
“And where are you going?” Tori asks. For the first time, I notice that Ethan is dressed in what I consider the most powerful of his power suits.
“I’m meeting with one of my attorneys and a friend of mine from college who is now special agent in charge of the Los Angeles branch of the FBI. I’ll be showing him a file my private investigator has assembled that reveals Brandon’s very close ties to the Valducci crime syndicate. Two hours after he gets the file, it will be sent to the same news outlets that got your NDA. A few hours after that, we should have statements from one or two of the other women Brandon has hurt.”
“Holy shit!” Tori says, clapping her hands in delight. “Ethan Frost is kicking ass and taking names. To be honest, I wasn’t sure you had it in you. I mean, you’re such a good guy and all.”
“Yeah, well, good guys have a tendency to cultivate good friends in high places. Brandon and my mother counted, somewhat misguidedly I might add, on me feeling some kind of family loyalty toward them. What they didn’t count on was the fact that all my loyalty belongs to Chloe now. When they messed with her, they lost any chance they had to get out of this unscathed.”
He grabs my untouched cup of Irish coffee and downs it in a couple of smooth swallows.
“You didn’t set all this up in the last hour.” He looks at me for long seconds, like he’s trying to decide how much I can take. “Tell me,” I say.
“This is the first wave of the plan I’ve been developing for the last three weeks.”
“The plan I asked you not to do.”
He meets my eyes unflinchingly. “Yes.”
“How much more is there?” I ask. “What else do you have planned?”
“I’m hoping nothing else will be necessary,” he tells me. “I’m hitting this hard so that it ends here. Now.”
“If it doesn’t work?”
“Oh, it will work.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“If it doesn’t, then I have other leverage to use against my mother and stepfather. Leverage that will have a number of their connections putting pressure on them to make sure the story dies.” He says it matter-of-factly, but there’s a cold resolve in his eyes, in the way he holds his body, that sends a shiver straight down my spine. “Don’t worry, Chloe. I will clean this up.”
This is the Ethan Frost that made an empire from nothing. The Ethan Frost who manages to stay on the very cutting edge of technology. The Ethan Frost who everyone forgets about because of the hugely generous philanthropy, the incredible employee benefits and the nice-guy exterior.
But underneath all that is a core of pure steel, one that will not bend when threatened. One that will push back until his opposition is crushed beneath the weight and the power of it.
It’s a new realization for me, one that is terrifying and fascinating and arousing, all at the same time.
Before I can ask him any more questions, his phone beeps with a text. He glances at it, then says, “The helicopter is five minutes out.”