“Why do you always defend her?” She inched closer to him, scrutinizing his expression. “You like her.”
“She’s my friend, Jade. We went to high school together.”
“Oh please. You had no idea who she was, so don’t act like it’s some long lost Lifetime Television reunion special. What could you possibly see in her? Is it her chunky body? Do you like your women plump? Or is it her little doe eyes and the way she bats her eyelashes adoringly at you, worshiping the ground you walk on? Tell me, Vincent, what is it about the little mouse that gets you all hot and bothered?”
“Stop it, Jade,” Vincent warned.
“Why should I? I was just asking a question.”
“Careful what you ask for. You might not like the answer.” Vincent’s face was rigid, his jaw clenched as he watched Jade seethe with anger.
“She’s not even attractive,” Jade mumbled as she checked her reflection in the window and combed her fingers through her hair.
“Jade.” He couldn’t wait any longer and tried to start the difficult conversation, but Jade was granted a small reprieve when her phone rang.
Irritated that in the middle of an argument she would answer the phone, Vincent sat down and spun his chair, turning his back to her. He had no interest in a single word she was saying. He simply wanted her to go away. As she clamored on and on in hushed tones and then louder cackles of laughter, he turned to face his desk and decided to busy himself. He replied to an E-mail, all the while mentally preparing the complex speech he would give Jade when she hung up. It was time to part company.
“Are you sure about that?” He heard Jade say in a raised tone. She gasped and held up a single finger to Vincent when he met her gaze. She continued listening intently to the mystery person on the phone. “Thanks for letting me know. Sure, I’ll ring you later. Ciao, baby.” She dramatically snapped the phone shut and sat down in one of the chairs beside Vincent’s desk.
He turned off his monitor and sat back in his chair, steeling himself for her latest drama. “Jade, I really think it’s time we—”
“Vincent, we need to talk,” Jade interrupted.
He could tell she would not stop until she had her say, so he deferred to her. “So talk.”
“I think you have a mole here at Hunter.”
She kept talking, but Vincent wasn’t listening. His brain stopped functioning the moment he heard the word mole. Any thoughts he had of breaking up with Jade were pushed aside as his mind worked to process this shocking information. A mole, a spy, a traitor. Someone in a position of trust was betraying his family. A list of suspects immediately popped into his head, and his cousin was at the top in big, bold letters. Jade’s whiny voice kept droning on and on, interrupting his train of thought. Finally, he held up his hand and yelled, “Enough!”
Jade froze with her mouth open, mid-word.
“Why do you say that?” Vincent bit out each word as he leaned forward across the desk, his intense gaze daring her to try and withhold any information from him.
“W-well like I said, that call I just took, it was from Lauren, one of the girls I was down in Jamaica with these last few days.”
“And what the hell does this Lauren know about Hunter?” Vincent snapped, not caring about being calm or polite.
“Listen, this is all hush-hush.” Jade got out of her chair and sat on the edge of his desk, tipping her head to reveal her big secret. “So, Lauren is sleeping with someone fairly high up over at Reid. The girl’s a whore, spends most of her time on her knees if you know what I mean.” Vincent’s lack of a response and infuriated glare made Jade shift uncomfortably. “She wouldn’t tell me who exactly, because she knows we’re dating and doesn’t want to get the guy in trouble. At least I think it’s a guy. She could be bi; you never know these days.”
Vincent rolled his hand at her, encouraging her to get to the point. “And?”
“I’m getting to it,” she snapped right back at him. “While we were in the hot tub, she let something slip about how her agent got her the gig with Tony Walker for the print ads of his national shoe line last week.”
“She had the job that long ago? This happened the first day you arrived in Jamaica? How was that possible? We hadn’t …”
“You hadn’t even given your final presentation. It gets worse. She was complaining about it because she has to go to Alaska for a week to do the shoot.”
Vincent’s entire body coiled, his muscles clenching as he tried to control his anger. “Alaska? Snow? Reid’s idea was centered around a winter shoot too?”
Jade nodded her head. “As soon as she talked about Alaska, I was suspicious because I saw your mock ups that night at your apartment. i remembered you’d talked about snow acting as the clean palate of it all. None of it made sense, but then I got to thinking, what if there was someone leaking information to Reid.”
Overcome with anger, Vincent began pacing the room like a caged panther. The power he showed with each graceful stride made him look deadly.
“Who’s feeding them the information?”
“She didn’t know. She never admitted they were being fed information. I pumped her full of tequila that night to get her to talk. She kept claiming she didn’t know anything about who came up with the Walker idea, and after five shots, I tend to believe her.”
“So, what was that call about?”
“Oh, well, when she got home, her boyfriend, being the thoughtful guy he is, wanted to spend some time alone with her because he had missed his girlfriend who had been gone for three days. After he,” Jade made a gagging noise, “welcomed her home, she dragged a little more info out of him.
Men are so easy to get information out of after sex.”
Unamused, Vincent punched his fist into the top of his desk. “What did she say, Jade?”
“She said two days before they were set to give the Stone presentation, David walked in and demanded everything be changed. Her boyfriend was pissed because they all had to scramble for forty-eight hours straight making the changes he orchestrated.”
A colorful string of profanities flew from Vincent. “He’s done this twice. This is going to end, now.” He grabbed the phone and began furiously pecking on the numbers.
“Wait,” Jade ripped the phone out of his hand and slammed the receiver back into the cradle.
“Damn it, Jade.”