Oh my God.
What is he talking about?
But Ethan doesn’t say anything else. He reaches over to the tablet on the coffee table and pushes some buttons and turns it toward me.
I get up, my knees on the couch supporting me.
I squint. It’s closed circuit television and it takes me a minute to realize…
Oh. My. God.
It’s Ethan’s office.
And that’s me. At his computer.
“Walter, his terminal looks similar to what we went through, but I’m going to need you to walk me through it,” I hear myself saying on the video.
I don’t know about you, hun, but I’m starting to get really worried every time I see myself on a screen. First it was whatever went on in Times Square. Taking a glance at the television, which is on mute right now; the crowds are chanting and celebrating and cheering and lining up to buy Illicit Escapes. Wicked Wear is most likely out of this market for a very, very long time.
It’s almost as if this whole thing were…
“Planned?” Ethan asks me, and I snap out of my reverie.
“That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” he asks me with a smirk.
On his tablet, I look at myself furiously clicking at the keys and talking to Walter through my earpiece.
He knew!
He knew this whole time! And yet he kept me around. He knew I was betraying him as he made love to me. He knew my goal was to deceive him the entire time.
“Yeah, babe,” Ethan says to me. “That day I left the prototype on the table…I thought you’d take it to Simon,” he tells me.
“You played me?” I ask him, all my sorrow at deceiving him starting to melt away. “You’ve been fucking playing me the whole fucking time?!”
Yeah, I’m pissed. He’s been lying to me the entire time. While I’ve been falling in love with him and feeling sorry for deceiving him!
My hand raises up and I know where it’s going.
I’m going to slap that fucking smirk off his face right now.
And I would have too, if his hand hadn’t raised up and caught mine. With the strength of ten men, he pulls me closer.
“No, I don’t fucking think so, babe,” he says as he pulls me to him and I smell his cologne mixed in with his man smell and I realize that he’s won. “And yes, I fucking knew. But I had to make a decision as to what was best for you. And for us.”
He’s tamed me. The Man Chaser.
He pushes me against the back of the couch and presses himself on me. His mouth finds mine.
He’s rough, his hands running over my body, claiming what he’s won. What he owns.
That bastard!
I’m sorry. I can’t get over the fact that Ethan Kane knew this whole time.
That he let me make such a fool out of myself so he could have a laugh. Why would he do that?
This is all I can think about, but my body is already responding to his kisses, pressing up against him and kissing back as I find the nooks and crannies on his body and wiggle into them. My hand travels to his crotch and I can tell he’s already hard. A few good squeezes in, I let myself feel indignant again.
No!
I need to know one thing!
Pushing him off me slightly, I look at him.
“How long did you know?” I ask him. “And did you have to decide?”
Ethan is almost about to jump me again, but I see him think better of it and sigh.
“I knew you were somehow trying to steal the device from the moment you were in my office,” he tells me. “I didn’t know it was Simon till you told me. I knew it could potentially have been Simon, but I didn’t want to rule out maybe it was someone else. Maybe you were working for Arsen Hawke or someone else.”
I’m silent as he continues. “When you didn’t take the device and you actually brought it back, I began to think that you weren’t actually trying to steal on your own, but someone was either paying you or forcing you to do it,” he says and I nod. “Which is basically what you confirmed ten days ago.”
“And then?” I ask.
“I knew that eventually if you were being forced to do this, there might come a day where you’d have to fucking choose between yourself and us,” he tells me, his eyes deep and soulful and even through my anger, I can see full of love. He shrugs as he continues. “I didn’t want you to have to make that choice. So I made it for you. I prepared the Trojan Horse script that would stay hidden and only run upon command if needed. As it turns out, it saved us from each other.”
My head is spinning, babe.
I need to sit down.
To think of what’s going on.
How Ethan has just saved me from Simon. But I know you by now, and I know you’re wondering about Simon. He doesn’t seem like the kind of person that takes kindly to being made a fool of. He’s definitely going to retaliate.