Page 22

“Tyson,” I called as Laurent helped me down from the Sprinter van in front of Le Rêve, “I’d love to chat with you if you have a moment.”

Tyson paused his stride halfway across the parking court, his mouth in a hard line. I knew that this was not a good time. But what I’d learned thus far had only left me with more questions.

I squinted in the direct sunlight. “It won’t take long,” I promised.

He kicked off his shoes and pushed through the front door, leaving me fumbling with the straps of my stupid wedges. By the time I’d stepped out of them, he was gone. I scurried down the outdoor staircase to the lower floor, where I found the door to his lair ajar.

“Tyson?” I called out as I stepped inside, allowing my eyes to adjust to the dark after the brightness of the day.

A crack of light shone along the edge of the partially open door to the patio, so I headed in that direction, my eyes once again adjusting to the change in light as I stepped into Tyson’s garden.

The space was lush with a variety of leafy plants and succulents, the walls covered in creeping vines, green grass sprouting between the square pavers.

A fan spun in the wooden slat ceiling, above two white couches that faced each other in front of a gurgling fountain.

He sat on the couch facing the view, so I took the one opposite. “Phone,” he said, holding out his hand.

I took out my phone and turned it off, then set it on the table between us.

“You seem awfully chummy with the butler,” he scoffed.

As anxious as Tyson made me, at least I didn’t have to keep up my veneer of congeniality around him. I hardened my gaze. “You told me to use him, so I am.”

“So? What have you found out?”

“Why didn’t you tell me Samira was implicated in her first husband’s death?” I asked.

He crossed his arms. “I wondered how long it would take you to figure that out.”

I swallowed, refusing to give him the satisfaction of my aggravation. “You had her reputation cleaned up online.”

He shrugged. “And?”

“Did she do it?” I asked.

“Are you asking me if my wife’s a murderer?”

“You’re the one that thinks she might be blackmailing you,” I pointed out.

“No,” he said. “My wife’s not a murderer.” He uncapped his bottle of water and took a swig. “Unless, of course, she is.”

My muscles twitched with the desire to smack him.

“Is that all you’ve discovered?” he asked, emphasizing the word “discovered” in an obvious attempt to belittle my job title.

“I was thinking about who might hold a grudge against you, outside your inner circle,” I said evenly.

He crossed his arms, his jaw tightening. “And?”

“Do you remember Andie? Ian’s girlfriend?”

“The Australian girl? Barely. She wasn’t exactly memorable.”

It was true we’d never spent a lot of time with Andie, and it had been more than a decade since we’d seen her. But still. “I know she went back to Australia, but we’d be remiss not to at least look into her.”

He was already shaking his head. “It’s not her.”

“How do you know?”

“She’s dead.”

I raised my brows in shock. “When? How?”

“Not long after Ian disappeared. Her car went off a bridge.”

“Shit,” I said, unnerved. “Are you sure?”

A sharp nod told me that no matter how dimly he might remember her, he’d checked, and thoroughly. Tyson was nothing if not cautious.

“That’s so…sad.”

“Is it?” he asked, his eyes full of meaning.

I shook off his implication, abruptly changing the subject. “What happened at the meeting today?”

“The city council put a hold on the permit, pending further investigation.”

“I gathered,” I said evenly. “Why?”

“Monterey tightened environmental regulations recently, and the city decided to hire their own inspector, who provided a report that differed significantly from the one our inspector had supplied.”

I raised my brows as he continued. “Someone on the council here got hold of that report, and they’re now demanding that an independent inspector be contracted to perform an environmental assessment before the permit to break ground can be issued.”

“Why were the results of the assessment in Monterey different from what was reported by your inspector?”

“I don’t know. That’s not my area of expertise.”

“No,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “But you told me long ago that your area of expertise is recognizing brilliance and harnessing it for your own purposes. Did you not hire a service you thought was brilliant?”

“I hired a service to perform the job at a level that suited my needs,” he said.

A level that suited his needs. The depth of his duplicity hit me like a truck.

He was so worried about the Monterey report leaking and all the other centers wanting to perform their own independent assessmentsbecause they would all find discrepancies.

Centers would need to be shut down all over the world, adjustments made at great expense to the company.

That is, if he even had the technology to produce the kind of environmental reports he needed to keep De-Sal afloat.

I met his confrontational gaze, holding on to my composure by a thread. “Do Cody and Allison know this?”

“They do now.”

“But they didn’t before today?”

He shook his head, and it dawned on me what a colossal mistake Cody and Allison had made in leaking that report without knowing the full story.

They’d believed it was a one-off. That it would slow down development in St. Barth’s, pushing back the potential contract with France just long enough that Tyson would consider bringing on the investor that would allow Allison to pay off her debt to the bank.

They had no idea that whatever company Tyson had hired was a sham, working under his thumb, and every De-Sal center in the world would be affected.

Instead of slowing down the construction of a single center, they’d potentially brought the entire company to its knees.

“What does this have to do with my blackmailer?” Tyson demanded.

“You think the blackmail comes from your inner circle, you have to consider motive,” I pointed out. “Which means you have to consider all angles. So yes, the unilateral decision you made that could tank your entire company has to be considered.”

“It’ll be fine,” he growled. “I’ll figure it out. Like I always do.”

There was a hint of fatigue in his voice, and for a fleeting moment, I caught a glimpse of the man inside the monster he’d become, before his mask slid back into place and he tilted his head, his dark eyes penetrating. “I always win. By whatever means necessary. Don’t forget that.”

Shit, you couldn’t write this stuff. It was like he’d taken lessons in vice from a comic book villain. If it weren’t so real, it would be laughable.

“We’re on the same side,” I reminded him.

He didn’t reply, gesturing to the door as he rose. “I won’t be at dinner tonight, but you should go. They’ll talk more if I’m not there.”

But I wasn’t going to be dismissed so easily. The shock of his accusation yesterday had worn off, and I’d had time to strategize. “You claimed yesterday that you have evidence I created the SADEP,” I said calmly. “Show me.”

He didn’t move.

“Show me, or I’m going home, and you can figure this shit out on your own,” I said, crossing my arms.

His swiped his laptop from where it rested on the counter, clenching his jaw and dropping back into the chair he’d vacated. My heart rate sped up as his fingers flew over the keys. I’d been hoping he was bluffing, but apparently that was not the case.

Finally, he spun the computer toward me and hit Play on the video that filled the screen. I saw a blur of motion as a camera whipped from the computer monitor in Tyson’s dad’s office to me in my bikini, a strand of red, white, and blue plastic beads around my neck.

The video Ian had shot on the Fourth of July, nearly eleven years ago.

Onscreen, I stared at Ian in shock, asking him what he was doing.

I watched horror spread over my face as he told me from behind the camera that he was admiring my work and demanded we cut him in.

I saw me pull out my phone and text Cody and Tyson to come upstairs, watched as I pleaded with Ian, telling him the money was for my mom’s cancer treatments, until Cody and Tyson burst into the room and the phone blurred again before the image cut.

I gaped at Tyson, processing what I’d just seen. “How’d you get this?”

He just scowled at me.

“Where’s the rest of it?” I asked.

“I think this is plenty to prove your guilt.” He snapped the laptop closed. “I need to get to the gym. Let me know what you find out tonight.”