Partners (Fire & Lies - One) (11 page)

“
I don’t
know what you’re implying here. This just shows two people
flirting,” she stated, looking up at the glint in Michael
Goldsmith’s eyes before she glanced at Sebastian whose eyes were
averted. She then looked to her father who didn’t appear very
impressed at all. “It’s just flirting,” she repeated, her voice
smaller and less unsure than it had been before.

“
Keep
watching, Chloe. It gets better,” Michael said, jumping the video
ahead slightly to show Aiden’s car pulling up outside his house.
Her mouth dropped open as her heart began to thud against her
chest. She knew what came next.

Seeing herself
with her legs wrapped around Aiden’s waist as he carried her to his
door, stopping to kiss and grope and rub themselves against each
other, Chloe needed to shut her eyes and turn away. They had
cheapened what went on last night by filming it.

With her eyes
glassy with emotion, she turned to her father. “I can’t believe you
had me followed,” she accused through gritted teeth. His response
was silent and his demeanour remained stoic, implying that she had
brought this upon herself. Inhaling deeply, she tried to regain
some sort of control on the rage that coursed through her body,
causing her to shake with the need to strike out and slap that
tablet out of Michael Goldsmith’s hands. Her nails dug into her
palms, breaking the skin as a growl came out of her throat. “That’s
enough. Turn it off.”

Michael
smiled. He was one of those men who became more attractive as he
aged, with straight white teeth, salt and pepper hair and a charm
about him that those who didn’t know his real personality fell prey
to more often than not. But Chloe knew him all too well, and his
smile sickened her.

“
Are you
sure? It only gets better. There’s some rather interesting
up-against-a-wall action, and the one where he has you bent over
the kitchen bench and pulls your hair is my personal favourite. If
you weren’t an engaged woman, I’d call Aiden Price a very lucky
man. Does he know that you’re engaged Chloe?”

She looked
away, dropping her eyes to the floor in a scowl.

“
I didn’t
think so.” He pressed the iPad up against her chest, forcing her to
take hold of it. “You can keep that. For prosperity’s sake, because
I’m sure that this was just a single incident that won’t be
happening again. It would be very embarrassing to both you and our
family if something like this got out only two weeks before the
wedding. And I can’t imagine what would happen to Mr Price. I
understand he’s preparing to open up a club of sorts. It would be
terrible if those permits all fell through. And if that isn’t
enough to dissuade you from contacting him again, I’m sure he’d be
rather upset if his sister’s–”

“
Don’t,”
she growled over the top of him, her face burning with
embarrassment and anger.

Goldsmith’s
eye narrowed slightly as he assessed her quietly. “Good girl,” he
said, seeming satisfied that she once again knew her place.
Shifting gears, he turned to her father, shaking his hand as if a
business agreement had just been met. “I’ll leave it to you from
here, Terry. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you on Sunday at the
club.”

“
Absolutely. And thank you for bringing this to my
attention.”

“
Just see
that it doesn’t happen again. There’s a lot riding on this wedding
and I’m sure that we’re both in agreement that a…security guard.”
He said the words as if they tasted horrible coming out of his
mouth. “Isn’t good enough for your daughter’s future. Especially
when this union has been on the cards for so long.”

“
You have
my word,” Terry said, nodding at both Michael and Sebastian
courteously as they turned to leave. Chloe continued to stand in
the centre of the room; her body still set with anger as she glared
at them as they walked past and gave her a perfunctory nod. She
thought she’d seen somewhat of an apology in Sebastian’s eyes. But
she couldn’t be sure. She barely knew him to read him, and very
soon, she had to marry him.

When the
Goldsmiths had left, leaving father and daughter alone, Terry
turned to Chloe and smiled a smile that was far from joyful. “I’m
not a blind man, Chloe. I see many things that go on in this
office, and I also see many things that go on outside this office.
Did you really think you could start something with Aiden without
it getting noticed?”

Chloe’s cheeks
flamed as she realised how closely her father, and it seemed, the
Goldsmiths, kept tabs on her. “No dad. I just…I care for him...a
lot.”

His eyes
softened and he nodded his head in understanding. “And were you
going to invite him to your wedding?”

“
No! I… I
was. I don’t want to do it anymore, dad. I’m sorry. I thought I
could but this isn’t me, and Aiden makes me happy. I want to be
with him.”

Walking to a
cupboard that was built into the wall, Terry pulled out his jacket
and slipped it over his arms, looking in the mirror to check his
collar and straighten his tie with a calm that didn’t quite go with
the situation.

“
Life isn’t
always about what we want, Chloe. Not when your quest for happiness
affects so many other people. You will keep your promise. You will
play your part in the success of this company–as a Donovan. A
person is only as good as their word, Chloe, it will pay for you to
remember that.”

Chloe’s
features fell. “You’d have me marry a man I don’t love?”

He walked
over to his daughter, placing his hands on her upper arms as he
peered down into her face. “What you’re feeling for Aiden right
now, it won’t last forever. True love and the idea of a soul mate
aren’t real. But you can learn a kind of love with time and
patience and understanding. Everything else is just the fancy of
fairy tales and little girl’s dreams. Be sensible here, Chloe.
We’re talking about your
future.
We’re talking about
our
future. If you back out on this deal now then you’ll be hurting
us all. Family first–remember?”

She blinked
her eyes rapidly, gripping tightly at the iPad she still held
against her chest, her heart holding strong to every look, every
touch, every whispered emotion between her and Aiden. She didn’t
want to let go, but she had to. She closed her eyes, inhaling
deeply as those dreams shattered like glass, piercing through her
heart and causing her soul to bleed for a love and a life she’ll
never have. Inhaling, she opened her eyes and nodded. “Family
first. I haven’t forgotten, dad. I’ll keep my word,” she
whispered.

“
Good. Then
I won’t expect to hear of anymore reports of the two of you
together.”

Leaning
forward, he kissed her on the cheek and headed for the door,
turning back just before he opened it.

“
And Chloe
– this probably goes without saying, but Aiden won’t be working
here anymore. And if this continues, he won’t have a job anywhere.
Not in this industry anyway.”

“
I get it,
dad. It won’t happen again,” she said, gritting her teeth as she
did her best to keep her calm until she heard his office door click
shut. It was then that she let a solitary tear fall down her cheek
as she gripped at the iPad so hard that she heard the screen
crack.

One night. One
perfect night. That’s all she managed to have with Aiden. She
closed her eyes, remembering the way his body had felt when it
moved against hers–how his mouth had kissed every inch of her body
while he whispered words that made her quiver. She had never felt
more worshipped or more connected to another human being than she
had last night.

It had been
foolish of her to think that she could have come to her father with
her tale of love and have him understand. He had always been of the
mind that like married like. She had been destined to marry
Sebastian Goldsmith for years. It was all about the name. All about
the prestige. For so long, she had loved being a Donovan. She had
loved the power that came with such a name, the doors that it
opened and the worship it provoked.

This was the
first time she’d wished herself normal.

Reaching up,
Chloe wiped at her tear of self-pity and took a deep breath before
heading back to her own office. Hating herself more with every
passing moment because while her father’s request seemed archaic
and cruel. It was Chloe who had said yes.

PRESENT,
12 days before the job

“HEY BOSS,
we’ve got a meeting at a new venue to do club security and there’s
a bunch of potentials on your desk for that recovery op we’ve got
planned for next month,” Jared says, as soon as he sees me walk
into the office the next morning.

I nod my head
as he rattles off a list of things that are scheduled to happen
today and continue to head into my office, prepared to start
dealing with the masses of paperwork that come with dealing with
your own business. I really need to get some sort of office staff
in here to help out with all this stuff. Price Security has been
far more successful than I thought it would be, and I’m beginning
to feel like I’m drowning in paper, phone calls and endless
meetings. I rarely do any security work besides the club and the
jobs I can’t entrust to the others. I’m too busy running things
here.

When I was
fired from the Donovan Corporation, I lost it. I was already angry
at the world for what had happened with Chloe, so to lose my job on
top of that, well, I had to take some time out before I went on
some sort of angry rampage through the city–I had wanted to destroy
everything in my path, and I almost did.

After I
smashed the fuck out of my Audi, Marli saw the state I was in, and
suggested, in her usual bossy sister manner, that I get away for a
while to calm down and regroup before I ended up ruining my life
completely.

For once in my
life, I took her advice. I went to the Greek Islands and found my
calm in a sea of alcohol and women. Women whose faces I couldn’t
remember if you paid me. Then by the time I thought I could face
the corporate world again, my resume was no good. The Donovan
Corporation had fallen by then, meaning that their name on my
resume wasn’t going to get me anywhere fast. The only solution I
could see was to open up my own security company. So I contacted
some of my old contacts and opened Price Security, focusing on
nightclub and event security, while doing some of the more
profitable recovery work on the side.

The clubs and
events are a hell of a lot different to what I’ve spent most of my
career doing. I started out in the armed forces and moved into
special ops training. I did a lot of surveillance, and I
specialised in infiltrating the security systems of our enemies so
our teams could get in and out without detection. There wasn’t an
alarm I couldn’t stop or a lock I couldn’t pick. When my service
was up, I used my credentials to land a job with Donovan
Corporation. It was a far cry from what I had been doing in the
field, but I was able to use my skills in threat assessment, and my
security knowledge to find the company’s weaknesses and weed out
any undesirable workers or clients. Essentially, we were locked up
tight and we were thriving–both on and off the books.

But then,
Terry Donovan told me that a merger was on the cards with Goldsmith
Enterprises. I wasn’t too keen on the idea because Michael
Goldsmith always gave me the creeps as a human being. But Terry
seemed to think it was best for business, explaining that the
merger had been something that was on the cards for a long time.
The goal was to join the two biggest companies into one massive
entity that would become the most powerful finance company in the
world.

I understood
his goal but I didn’t support it. There were certain things about
the deal that Terry wasn’t willing to share with me, and the shroud
of secrecy bothered me.

Before the
idea of the merger, Donovan and Goldsmith had been corporate
enemies, and Goldsmith in particular, had been hungry for the spot
at the top of the ladder. More than once, we’d caught them trying
to steal our clients and worse than that, we found out they were
using a broker to collect our stock in preparation for a hostile
takeover.

Terry had
laughed it off when I had taken my findings to him, claiming that
his company was way too healthy to be taken over so easily.
Besides, he owned stock in Goldsmith’s company as well–it was just
something they did as business rivals, he’d said. Then suddenly,
they were talking merger and Terry would never explain why.

In the months
before my ‘position was no longer required’, I hated the constant
dealings with that Goldsmith cretin and his son. I’d always thought
they were vultures, swooping in and pecking at the remains of
companies before tearing them apart and making a fortune out of
them. But now I know that they were worse than that. They were
weasels, scheming and plotting on one hand, while pretending to be
open and cooperative on the other. People like that make me sick,
and in the end, I’m actually glad to be away from the corporate
greed that once governed my life.

Now, instead
of background checks, assessing threats, and protecting high
profile individuals, I’m dealing with nightclubs and concerts, and
training the majority of my guys to keep drunken partygoers calm
and safe.

The rest of my
guys are my specialist crew. In total, I have around fifty guys on
my books, although only Jared and I run the office. I also have a
dozen guys who aren’t officially on my books–they’re more so hired
as contractors. These are the guys that have been handpicked based
on what they can offer out in the field–some, I knew back in the
day, and others have come recommended to me by a trusted contact.
These boys are my biggest earners, and when I have a job that can
use their particular skillset, I call them up.