“Okay.” I sighed. “We’re sorry about the doors, and about chasing you.”
“So, uh, you’re not going to call the cops on me?”
I choked back the desire to laugh as I realized that Marla thought we were going to have her arrested. She was probably terrified that she was going to get caught up in a blackmail case, and she probably thought she was going to go to jail for it.
“No,” I said. “You’re fine. Just lie low for a little while, okay?”
“Sure, yeah. I can do that.”
“Thanks, Marla.”
She nodded like a frightened squirrel. I smiled at her gently and then turned and walked away.
My mind was buzzing with all of this. I found Cole standing against the car, shaking his head and grinning at me.
“I can’t believe that worked,” he said.
I gaped at him. That arrogant bastard! “You mean you weren’t sure,” I said, incredulously.
“Hell no,” he replied. “We broke into that girl’s apartment. That shit’s insane.”
“Isn’t that what you did to the paparazzi guy?”
“He’s different. He’s a professional. Probably gets that all the time. This is some normal-ass girl we’re talking about.”
“Fortunately for us, she thinks she’s in trouble for the blackmail stuff. So I think we’re calling it even.”
Cole grunted and nodded. I leaned up against the car next to him.
“Your mom’s assistant,” I said softly.
“Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Why?”
“She’s Cindy Redson. She hires the most intense and ruthless people she can find.” He looked at me and grinned. “You know, people just like her.”
I laughed as we climbed back into the car. The nightmare wasn’t over, but we knew who it was.
There was a lot more work to do, and a bunch of divorce papers I still needed signed, despite all the insanity that had distracted me from that.
But for the first time since we had gotten the blackmail letter, I felt confident. I felt safe.
Because Cole was driving.
Chapter Fourteen: Cole
I followed Alexa back into the house, my mind a rush of anger.
The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. At first it almost seemed funny, but it was definitely anything but. Of all the people I thought it might be, I never would have expected one of my mother’s employees. True, she tended to hire pretty intense and ruthless humans, but I never thought they’d go after their boss’s children.
That took a particularly fucked up asshole. Unfortunately, I never paid my mother’s business one bit of attention, so I didn’t know a thing about this assistant. But if I had to guess, she would probably be just like a miniature version of Cindy, except young and ambitious.
Maybe she thought that blackmailing the two of us could somehow lead to her advancement in the company. Or maybe she just wanted the money and would quit once she got it.
But none of that made sense. She was only asking for a few thousand dollars and nothing more. She could have planned to push for more money, but why not go for a higher number from the start?
It just made no damn sense. I knew I was missing something, and it was right out of my grasp. I was so close to it and yet so damn far away.
I was pissed. I knew I wasn’t in a good place to mess around with Alexa, and so instead of following her upstairs, I went down into the basement to do another workout.
I settled right into my workout routine as soon as I got down there, not wasting any time. The whole blackmail thing, along with wanting to fuck my stepsister slash wife more than anything else, were all combining to keep my mind off my game. And I needed my mind on fighting now more than ever.
If I was going to fight Trent and win, I couldn’t have any distractions. It was the most dangerous fight of my life, and one single slip would ruin it for me. But it wasn’t like I could just turn my back on Alexa, even if I was that type of shithead. Despite everything about me, I kept thinking about being married to her.
I didn’t think it would matter, not at first. It was just a stupid game, after all, a way to fuck with my frustratingly hot stepsister. But as the days wore on and we got further and further tangled together, I found myself liking that we were married. Not in some lame, lovey-dovey, pathetic way, but it made our bond that much stronger. I didn’t want a wife or a real marriage, but whatever we had going on made our bond a little bit more interesting, more exciting.
I had worked up a decent sweat by the time Alexa came down the steps. She stood against the wall with her arms crossed, staring at me. Eventually I stopped my reps, taking a drink of water. She was wearing a thin white T-shirt, and I could have sworn I saw her nipples poking out slightly underneath the cotton fabric.