Chapter 8

Julia hadn’t lied about the office chatter when it came to the new boss. There wasn’t a recognizable face that didn’t stop Piper and ask how she’d gotten her job back or if she had any knowledge of Chase and his sister selling their shares of the company.

Everyone was nervous. Especially the big bosses. Not that they came to her with questions, but she could tell by the way they interacted with Chase. They attempted to make small talk, which failed miserably.

Piper was starting to wonder if Chase had an aversion to smiling. He’d only done so a couple of times that she’d noticed and for such a brief period of time that if she’d been looking the other way, she’d have missed it completely.

And then Alex arrived.

Piper thought Chase was a force, but Alexandrea Stone was the tornado.

She entered like a politician, shaking hands and smiling. Piper heard her before she saw her. Her hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck and hung down her back. Her full lips and wide eyes belonged on the cover of a fashion magazine, and not in an office behind corporate doors. Her slim hand shot Piper’s way as she hesitated by her desk. “I’m told you’re Piper.”

“I am. You must be Miss Stone.”

“Alex, please. I know it took some convincing from Chase to talk you into coming back.”

Piper hesitated. “Your father put a bitter taste in my mouth with my termination.”

Alex huffed out a gasp of air that sounded a lot like a laugh. “He put a bitter taste in mine in third grade. I win. Thank you for being here. I hope Chase made it worth your while.”

“I don’t have any complaints.”

Alex pointed toward his office. “Is he in there?”

“Yes.”

And with that, she disappeared behind the massive double doors and closed them.

As soon as Alex was out of sight, the phone on Piper’s desk rang.

“What do you think?” Julia asked.

“Powerhouse.”

“Rumors are she is part of acquisitions and mergers at Regent.”

“Is or was?” Piper asked.

“No idea.”

Piper lowered her voice. “I think things are going to get very interesting around here.”

“Going to get? Where have you been?” Julia asked with a laugh.

“At home eating Lucky Charms,” she said, deadpan.

“Oh, that’s just wrong. Do you know how much sugar is in that crap?”

Maybe so, but damn, they sounded really good right about now.

The door to Stone’s office opened, and Chase poked his head out.

“That’s perfect, thank you,” Piper said in an effort to sound like she wasn’t participating in the office gossip. Then she hung up.

Chase waved her into the office.

She grabbed a legal pad and a pen and followed him in.

“Close the door, please,” Chase said.

“Am I fired already?” Piper asked, half joking.

Alex laughed from where she stood.

“No,” Chase said without humor.

“That would have been the shortest reinstatement ever.” Piper took a seat across the desk.

Alex moved from where she stared out the window to sit beside Piper. “I like you already. Chase said the three of us have something in common.”

“What was that?” Piper asked, her eyes moving to Chase.

“None of us cared for our father.”

It was Piper’s turn to chuckle.

“And Chase said you’re not an ass-kisser.”

“I did that with your father, figuratively,” she clarified. “And look how that turned out.”

Alex crossed her legs and sat back in her chair. “We don’t need that from you. We need your loyalty.”

“Confidentiality,” Chase added.

Piper narrowed her gaze. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to tell me something I shouldn’t know.”

Alex waved a hand in the air. “Oh, we’ll wait until next week for the family secrets. Right now, we simply want to know what everyone in the office is chattering about.”

Piper blinked several times. “I’ve only been back a few hours.” It wasn’t even noon.

Alex smiled and stayed silent.

Chase folded his hands together and waited.

Piper felt the need to confess a crime she didn’t commit. “You two are really good at that.”

“Silence is a great tool,” Alex said.

Piper put the pad of paper and the pen on the edge of the desk since, clearly, she wasn’t going to need it. “There’s a general hum of worry about if the two of you are going to sell your shares of the company.”

“Even management?”

“The big bosses are always the first to go in a takeover,” Piper said.

Alex glanced at her brother.

“And?” Alex asked.

“There is a rumor about your employment with Regent.”

“Told you,” Alex said to Chase. She turned to Piper. “I resigned from Regent this morning. I was a part of their acquisitions and mergers, which can be determined by looking through their employee database. Feel free to clarify that to anyone asking over the water cooler.”

“You want me to be a part of the gossip mill?”

“We want you to spread the facts,” Chase said. “This one anyway.”

“However, I signed a corporate confidentiality agreement with Regent long before my father’s death. So, while we are in this office, if something slips that perhaps I shouldn’t have shared, I . . . we expect that you uphold the same agreement to us.”

“Us personally,” Chase added. “Not only Stone Enterprises.”

The intensity of both Stone children had the hair on Piper’s neck standing on end. “I can’t see any of that as an issue.”

“Great. Now, how much of our father’s personal life did you manage?”

Piper considered the question and wondered why they were interested. “I arranged his travel and booked accommodations for his companions.”

“Women?” Chase asked.

“He had a lot of nieces.” Piper smirked. “I sent flowers, messages, gifts . . .”

“You had access to a personal credit card.”

“Yes.”

“Is that in here?” Chase asked, pointing to the computer on the desk.

“It’s on my computer.”

“We’ll need access.”

“That should be simple enough,” Piper said.

“Did you ever send money out to anyone on that account?” Alex asked.

“No.”

The two of them exchanged glances again.

“Is there something specific you’re looking for?” Piper asked.

It was in the moment of silence that followed that Piper knew there was something these two weren’t revealing.

Alex recovered first with a smile and a shake of her head. “There’s so much about our father that we didn’t know. I’d personally like to know if we should expect a grieving lover to come out of nowhere making demands.”

Piper sighed. “I guess that could happen.”

“Were the women in his life local?” Chase asked.

“On occasion.”

“How many were there?” Alex asked.

Piper shook her head. “I didn’t count. I kept my head down and did my job.”

Chase ran a hand through his hair.

“Why does it really matter?” Piper asked. “The man’s dead. Any promises he made to the women in his life, unless it was documented, isn’t going anywhere in court.”

“There’s no guarantee he didn’t write something down that he didn’t give to his estate attorney,” Chase pointed out.

“Your father was an orderly man. Very cut and dry. I doubt he would have left anything out there to chance. If he bequeathed something that wasn’t specified in the will, it will be written somewhere for you to find.”

Chase pointed to the computer on his desk. “I haven’t found anything personal in here.”

“Oh, you won’t. He gave me the charge of organizing his . . . indiscretions. If anyone looked at his computer, they wouldn’t find it. Not that it mattered, I suppose, considering he owned the company. Maybe you’ll find something different on his personal computer at home.”

Alex rolled her head back. “Of course. I didn’t think of a home computer.”

Chase leaned forward. “Did he work from home a lot?”

“Oh, yeah. In fact, he really only came in here a couple of times a week.”

That seemed to surprise them both.

“Did that make it difficult for you?” Chase asked.

Piper felt her body easing back in her chair, any discomfort in talking to her new bosses floated away as the conversation continued. “He had me come by his home on occasion . . . which I didn’t think anything of until . . .”

“He got handsy,” Alex finished Piper’s thought.

“Yeah. I made my assistant come after that. Eventually your father gave up the idea of seducing me and didn’t demand I come by the house that often. There have been circumstances that I was there. But only when he was meeting with other staff or a business associate.”

“Safety in numbers.”

Piper shrugged. “I never really felt unsafe . . . He made comments, made a pass, or three or five, until he let it go. That didn’t stop him from looking.”

Alex shook her head, disgust written on her face. “Very unacceptable.”

“What do you think prompted him to fire you?” Chase asked.

Piper hesitated before shaking her head. “I don’t really know.”

Alex turned her attention to Chase. “We’re going to have to go to the house.”

“Not with Melissa there.”

“I think she’s supposed to be out by now,” Alex said.

Piper felt a little like an outsider listening to a private conversation. Not that it stopped her from making a comment. “Wait, your dad didn’t leave the house to his wife?”

Alex shook her head. “No.”

“That’s a crappy move.”

Alex chuckled. “Yeah, and not public knowledge. Let’s keep it that way a little longer.”

Piper made a locking motion in front of her lips.

“I’m sure his computer is password protected,” Alex said.

“Do we have a professional hacker on staff?” Chase asked with a tsk.

“You don’t need a hacker,” Piper said.

Both sets of eyes were on her.

“He constantly locked himself out of his computers. I put a fail-safe in both so I could get in.”

Alex started to laugh, which put a smile on Piper’s face.

“I’m really glad you hired her back,” Alex said.

Piper met Chase’s gaze. His eyes softened, and a slight, rare smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

Julia stopped by Piper’s desk thirty minutes before five. “Hey.”

Piper smiled up at her. “What’s up?”

“A couple of us are going to happy hour. You should come and celebrate.”

“That sounds great.” And it did . . . but.

“Perfect.”

“I can’t.”

“What? Why?”

Piper’s mind scrambled for every excuse but the truth and settled for a classic. “I have a lot of stuff here that needs to get squared away.”

“You’re not expected to work overtime,” Julia said. “Bobbie is taking the kids to his mother’s for dinner for her birthday. C’mon.”

Julia and Bobbie had been divorced for four years. Leaving Julia to raise her now seven- and five-year-olds on her own. Bobbie stepped in on his scheduled weekends, but only when his current girlfriend didn’t bitch. And she always bitched.

Piper moaned. “I really can’t. Getting all this straightened out is only going to make my job easier.”

“But—”

“Sorry, Julia.”

“Then Saturday. It’s his weekend.”

Piper hesitated.

“What about that place on Sunset?” Julia said quickly.

Piper cringed. The last place she wanted to go was the nightclub on Sunset. “How about a rain check.”

Julia shook her head. “No. You’ve been putting me off for weeks.”

“I was fired.”

“Even before then.”

Piper knew her friend enough to understand she wasn’t going to drop this. “Fine, but I’m the DD. And we’re not going to Sunset.”

Julia smiled ear to ear. “Perfect. You pick the place.”

With that, her friend bounced away.

Piper watched her leave, knowing she’d dodged a bullet for another day.

“You don’t have to stay late.”

Glancing up, Piper realized that Alex had heard the conversation.

“I know, I just . . .” She glanced down the hall at Julia’s retreating frame and then lowered her voice. “I really don’t want to go. Truth is, I’m kinda tired. I’ve been lazing around for almost three weeks. I need to train my body to get up early again.”

Alex smiled. “In that case . . .”

“Yeah . . . Oh, by the way. I scheduled a doctor’s appointment for Monday. It’s in the afternoon. I can try and change it, but you know how doctors are.”

“Is everything okay?” Alex asked.

Piper waved a hand in the air. “Routine stuff. I was out of work. I figured I’d make all my appointments while I had the time.”

“Makes sense. That’s fine. I’ll let Chase know.”

“I can return for a couple of hours after.”

“No. Take off at noon. I’ll put more on Dee.”

Dee was currently not at her desk and down in the copy room, personally making sure the board meeting agenda was getting printed.

“Thank you.”

Alex stared down the hall for a moment, lost in thought.

Piper waited quietly for the other woman to move. Finally, she asked, “Are you okay?”

“Numb. I buried my father on Friday, and here I am five days later, scheduling an executive board meeting for his company before the weekend.”

The empty tone of Aaron Stone’s daughter put an actual ache in Piper’s chest. Her first inclination was to apologize for Alex’s loss, but then Piper remembered Chase’s response and held back. “That can’t be easy,” Piper said instead.

“No,” Alex said. “But it will get better.” And with that, she turned, went back into Aaron Stone’s office, and closed the door.

Piper sighed and whispered to herself, “We all have our crosses to bear.”