Infatuation - A Club Destiny Novel (31 page)

Thank you,

McKenna Thorne

By the time Tag finished
reading the article, his vision was blurry from the red haze that
had consumed him. That little fucking weasel was still harassing
McKenna. Not only that, she didn’t bother to tell him about
it.

Why would she? Oh, right, she wasn’t
speaking to him, so the last part actually made sense.

Leaving his coffee cup and
his tablet on the table, Tag grabbed his car keys, his phone and
his wallet and was out the door. It was long past time for him to
pay someone a visit.

Two minutes into his
drive, Tag’s cell phone rang, and he hit the button to activate the
blue tooth. “Murphy.”

“
Where are you?” Logan’s
deep voice filled the interior of the car.

Why did the man always start the
conversation with that question?

“
In my car,” he said
vaguely.

“
I need you to meet me at
XTX.”

“
Sorry, can’t do it. I’ve
got somewhere I need to be,” Tag responded.

“
Meet me at XTX in fifteen
minutes, Murph. No excuses.”

The call ended, and Tag
slammed his hands against the steering wheel. His temper was
getting the best of him these days, and he was pretty sure he knew
why. Those damn McCoy twins were starting to piss him off. But it
wasn’t like he had much of a choice, so he pulled over, made an
abrupt illegal U-turn and headed toward the XTX offices.

This better be good, that’s all he knew.

~*~*~

McKenna hadn’t known where else to turn, and
somehow she ended up at XTX, requesting to speak to Samantha McCoy.
To her surprise, not five minutes later, Logan showed up, but Sam
was nowhere to be found.

Now she was sitting in an empty conference
room, a glass of water on the table in front of her and her nerves
in a serious state of uproar.

It wasn’t like she didn’t know who was
responsible for tearing up the Sensations, Inc. offices. Seriously,
Stephen Crawford made it way too easy. That didn’t make what he did
any easier to swallow.

From the moment she
reached the main door of her office, McKenna had known something
was wrong. Seriously wrong. The fact that the door was unlocked and
standing open was probably her first clue.

Instead of turning around
and walking back out to her car, McKenna had morphed into the girl
in the scary movies who proceeds into the unknown, despite knowing
better. The only difference between her and that naive young girl
was that McKenna pulled her handgun from her purse before she
entered the office. Maybe not the smartest move ever, but she knew
how to use it, so she at least wasn’t walking into the unknown ill
prepared.

What she saw before her stole her
breath.

The entire office had been
ransacked. Completely. Everything in there was trashed.
Everything.
All of the
desks, phones, chairs, computers, filing cabinets... everything had
been overturned, and some of them had even been thrown through
walls.
Through.
The. Wall.

After a quick assessment,
McKenna debated on what to do. The only thing she knew to do was to
call Whisper. After briefly informing her assistant of what
happened, she instructed her to call all of the employees and tell
them not to come in. From there, she locked the main door,
practically ran to her car and began driving until she was pulling
into the parking lot of XTX.

Once Logan came down to
talk to her, she managed to explain to him what was going on. He
interrupted her briefly to make a phone call, and she heard him
telling Alex McDermott the details before instructing him to have
someone sent over to Sensations, Inc.

She didn’t know what good
that was going to do now. The damage was done. The only good thing
was that he had decided to take out his rage on her office
equipment, rather than her employees.
He
being Stephen Crawford. There was
no doubt in McKenna’s mind that he was the bastard
responsible.

When the door opened,
McKenna looked up from watching her fingers fidget nervously, fully
expecting to see Logan standing there, but to her surprise, he
wasn’t the man staring back at her. Suddenly, as though he jump
started her heart, she was overcome by an uncomfortable pounding in
her chest.

“
Where’s Logan?” How she
managed to produce words, she didn’t know.

“
He’s talking to Sam,” Tag
explained as he shut the door behind him. “They’ll be here in a
minute.”

McKenna nodded her head. She would wait for
them then. She had absolutely nothing to say to Tag. Not one
thing.

So maybe she had a million things to say to
Tag.

But she wouldn’t.

“
Why are
you here?”
Or maybe she
would.

Her brain was fuzzy, her
palms were suddenly damp, and her heart was still pounding. All
from the mere sight of Tag Murphy in all of his sexy
glory.

Not that she had forgotten
how incredibly attractive he was, or how intense his presence could
be. No, she’d thought about him each and every day for the last two
weeks, secretly hoping he would call. He never did.

“
Why didn’t you call me?”
Tag questioned her as he sat down in the chair beside
her.

He was way too close. Close enough for her
to inhale the spicy scent of his cologne, mixed with the heady
scent that was unique to Tag.

Instinctively, her
eyebrows darted down into a frown, her head cocked just slightly,
and she stared back at him. Why hadn’t she called
him
? Was there something
wrong with this man?

“
Today
, McKenna. Why didn’t you call
me
today
?” Tag
clarified.

She knew exactly what he meant, but she
played along, masking her emotions but never taking her eyes off of
his. “I didn’t feel as though this were any of your business,” she
told him honestly.

And that was the truth.

For the last two weeks,
McKenna had been wracked with a multitude of emotions ranging from
heart wrenching pain to blood boiling anger. None of which she
particular cared for. And yet here he was, sitting beside her as
though nothing had transpired between them. Acting as though her
first reaction should have been to call the one man who had
deliberately, and hurtfully, pushed her away.

The door opened, and Logan
and Sam walked into the room, saving her from having to answer
Tag’s questions. That didn’t stop him from continuing to pin her
with his unhappy gaze.

“
McKenna,” Sam approached
quickly, “I’m so sorry this happened.”

The despair in Sam’s brilliant green eyes
had a lump forming in McKenna’s throat. This is the exact reason
why she shouldn’t have come here. In no way would she ever blame
Sam for anything that happened. Sam wasn’t going to be that easy on
herself though.

“
It’s not your fault,”
McKenna stated around the knot that threatened to choke
her.

“
But it is –” she began,
but gratefully Logan stopped her by interrupting.

“
Cole is on his way over
to your office. I gave him the key you gave me,” he explained as he
pulled a chair out for Sam to sit in. “Alex and Luke will be here
in a few minutes.”

McKenna glanced around at
the three of them, but her eyes landed on Tag. He had an expression
on his face that she didn’t recognize. She couldn’t tell whether it
was disbelief, or disdain. Regardless, Tag didn’t look happy to be
there, and more importantly, he didn’t look happy with
her.

“
Do you have security
cameras at your office?”

Security cameras?

It took a second to figure
out what Tag was talking about because she was apparently way too
wrapped up in trying to figure him out.
Oh, God
. How did she forget she had
security cameras?

Since this was actually a
good thing, McKenna wondered why Tag looked a little out of
sorts.

*** ~~ *** ~~ *** ~~ ***

Alex and Luke walked in as Tag was asking
the question, but he didn’t spare either of them a glance. The way
McKenna’s eyes widened, obviously in realization, he knew the
answer before she said anything.

“
I do,” she replied, her
eyes darting between the five people staring back at
her.

The answer was a good one
as far as Tag was concerned, but there were two possible problems
with it. One: her security cameras had been destroyed along with
the rest of her office. Or two: they were still intact, and they
now had something to hold against Stephen Crawford. Although he
hoped it was the second, Tag knew that it was in his best interest
– as their lawyer – not to listen to the rest of the conversation.
But he couldn’t seem to convince his legs to get up and walk out of
the room.

“
Where are they?” Alex
asked, standing off to the side with his arms crossed over his
chest.

“
They are recorded via a
web feed. I had them installed a few years ago after our first
break in,” McKenna explained.

First
break in? How many did the woman have?

“
They’re hidden really
well for this exact reason,” she continued.

“
Someone bring her a
laptop.” Tag instructed, not looking at anyone else in the room
except for McKenna.

From the moment he walked in, she had seemed
to be holding up fairly well, even though he noticed the slight
tremble in her hands that she was working to keep hidden.

As soon as their eyes met
when he walked through the door, Tag witnessed that invisible mask
slide into place, effectively hiding any emotion she might be
feeling. Her pride was a tangible thing, he knew.

“
I’ve got a meeting to go
to, but if there is anything I can do, let me know,” Samantha
stated suddenly, her voice disturbing the heavy silence that hung
in the room. “McKenna, again, I’m so very sorry –”

This time McKenna was the one to cut her
off. “Sam, this isn’t your fault. None of it is. I’m insured, so
everything’s covered, although I’m sure my insurance company isn’t
going to be too happy with me this time.”

Tag couldn’t seem to get past McKenna’s
comments that this was a reoccurring event.

Sam nodded her head and turned to walk out
of the room, but not before Tag saw the sheen of tears in her eyes.
He didn’t blame her.

All of a sudden, it seemed
as though everything was beginning to crash down around them. Even
with a renewed hope that they had evidence of Stephen Crawford
doing this, which they might be able to hold against him, they
still weren’t out of the woods yet.

Tag knew from a legal perspective,
countering the blackmail wasn’t going to be the best avenue to
pursue, but he also knew he wouldn’t be able to convince Logan or
Luke of that. No matter what they did at this point, these pictures
were going to get out and honestly, every attempt they made to stop
it only bided them time.

After McKenna found the
website where she could access the security camera feed, the laptop
was handed off to Alex. While the rest of them waited patiently to
see if there was anything they could garner from it, Tag opted to
interrogate McKenna a little, although he could see how unhappy she
was to answer his questions.

“
How many times has this
happened?” he asked. “Or better yet, when is the last time this
happened?”

“
Not in a long time up
until recently, but never to this magnitude,” she answered,
glancing back and forth between him, Logan and Luke.

Realizing he was changing
the subject, Tag moved on to the other question bothering him.
“What prompted you to write that article?”

“
I don’t know.” McKenna
shook her head and looked down at her hands. “I think his last
email just pushed me too far.”

“
I want to see that
email,” Tag demanded, knowing his tone wasn’t in the least bit
polite.

“
I’d like to see it too,”
Logan chimed in.

McKenna pulled out her
cell phone, scrolled through what appeared to be her email and then
typed in something. A second later Tag’s phone beeped along with
Logan’s with an incoming email. He didn’t hesitate before reading
it.

It was then that he was
grateful for his overabundance of patience because what he read
infused him with a blinding rage so violent he damn near crushed
his phone with his bare hands.

“
Did you give this to the
police?” he managed to ask, though he could feel the muscles in his
neck straining as he fought the urge to lash out at someone for
allowing this to happen to her.

McKenna shook her head.
“How would that help? It would only bring light to this situation,
and until Luke and Logan figure out what they want to do, I wasn’t
about to be the one to raise any more interest.”

Tag didn’t like the answer. Not one fucking
bit.

Based on the shit Crawford
was spewing, McKenna very well could be in danger, and as much as
he liked and respected Sam and Logan, Tag wasn’t capable of sitting
back and allowing this to go further. If Crawford was the one who
tore McKenna’s office apart the way she described, the man was on
the edge. And, if they weren’t careful, he was about to go
over.