“Both?” He stroked her skin, and that bile flooded her veins. “Let’s see... for what you’re asking, I would accept stock options. Unless you have something else to offer?” He tucked his chin, leaned over the table, and pressed his lips—and his tongue—against her skin.
She jerked her hand back. “You’re disgusting.”
“And you’re a liar. You don’t want Aubrey to help you postpone the direct listing because the financials aren’t in order.”
The revulsion of his tongue on her skin met with sickening fear. “What other reason would I have?”
“That’s exactly what I’m waiting for you to tell me.”
She was holding all the cards, and somehow he had the upper hand. She was out of her league. She wasn’t Mallory. She had no idea how to do this. She felt dirty. All Ilena wanted to do was go home and cleanse herself in the glass-tiled shower that she thought would make her house and life as perfect as it seemed on the pages of theBoston Homemagazine.
A sudden flash of bumping her belly—her pregnantbelly—against a marble-topped island beneath a set of industrial pendant lights that matched nothing in her kitchen and Ilena couldn’t breathe. Like some form of déjà vu.
She shook it away and gathered her resolve. She was going to have to tell Ethan the truth. She needed Aubrey on her side. They had to be a united front if they were going to stop Mallory from proceeding with the direct listing. Because if reasoning didn’t work, their combined votes could force Mallory out of AIM.
“AIM has a problem with its user base,” Ilena said, swallowing past the lump in her throat.
The server dropped off their wine, and Ethan pulled his phone beneath the table to make room. “Go on,” he said when the server left.
“We can’t go public. And I need Aubrey’s help to ensure Mallory understands that.”
Neither of them touched their wine as Ilena gave a high-level overview of the situation and how vital it was for the direct listing to be postponed—no matter what it took, including pushing Mallory out. She hadn’t planned to say the words, but they spilled out before she could stop them. And yet, somehow, it felt okay, even right, because the more Ethan knew, the better prepared he would be to support Aubrey when she found out about the computer error. The news would devastate her.
Ethan lifted his glass and took a long sip. “Let me see if I have this right. AIM’s newest and flashiest feature, the one that everyone says is thrusting the valuation into the stratosphere isn’t. What’s causing AIM to break records is, what, a software malfunction? One the company’s cofounders are actively hiding from the public? Is that about right, cofounder Ilena Cohen?”
Ilena shook her head. “Forget it, this was a bad idea. I’m leaving.”
“Are you sure about that? Are you actively refusing to explain AIM’s position on this to the public? Let it be known that Ms. Cohen had her chance to comment.”
“My... what?” Something wasn’t right.
Ethan lifted his phone. The counter on a recording app ticked up.
“You son of a bitch—”
He’d hit the red button to stop recording before she’d gotten the first word out.
“Delete it,” Ilena said, her heart racing at the idea of what she said coming out—what she said about Mallory. “Now. I came to you to ask a favor as a friend, one I shouldn’t have, I realize that now, but it was to protect AIM, to protect Aubrey, the woman you love.”
“Love’s a strong word, though, isn’t it? It doesn’t convey the reality of enduring all the mediocre meals she cooks and the even more pedestrian intercourse that can’t in good conscience be called ‘fucking.’”
Ilena’s heart sank. Mallory had never liked Ethan. Ilena hadn’t either, not really, but she’d tried to, for Aubrey. She thought she was doing the right thing. She wasn’t.
Ethan continued, “But love can make someone ignore sound advice like having a prenup. Even someone whose company is about to make their new husband a fortune.”
Ilena blanched. “You’re using her. All this time? For money?”
“You truly are the brains of the trio.”
“So it’s all an act? Your whole relationship?”
“It’s not entirely without pleasure, I’m not that much of a martyr. I dove in with Aubrey just to see where things might take me. What opportunities might arise. I had no idea it wouldlead to more money than you all deserve. True, it’ll take marriage, then eventually divorce. But we can save her from it—you and I. I’ll delete the recording if you sign half your shares of AIM over to me right now.”
The rest of those matches in Ilena’s stomach flamed into an inferno. “This is unethical—” He laughed at her—hard and full and with so much derision it made Ilena embarrassed, doubting herself. She forced herself to speak slowly, softly, even though it made her throw up in her mouth. “If you make that recording public it will destroy Aubrey. But it will also ruin AIM, which matters to so many people and—”
“All righty, then maybe you aren’t the brains of the trio.”
“You’re out to destroy AIM?”
