The dim light didn't make it easy to read on the fine, high-quality paper that Bournham Industries was known for in its letterhead, but eventually Krysta’s eyes widened. Lydia could tell the second that Krysta read the salary.
“Holy f**king shit!” she screamed. “You’re going to make that much money?”
“Yup.”
“Do you guys need clerical support? Because I want to put in for a transfer if they pay that kind of money.” She looked at Lydia with a giant grin on her face. “And besides, it looks like I know the director of communications for European operations, don’t I?”
Krysta’s squee! would have given away their location to anyone who was searching for them, and they jumped up and down, embracing, as Lydia’s eyes filled with tears. This was real. Now that she’d talked to someone else about it, now that she’d shared the letter with Krysta—this was real.
“You’re going, right?” Krysta asked, pulling back suddenly as if realizing there was an option.
“Well…I…uh…” She said the words that would make it not just real, but true. “Yes. Yes.” Before she could equivocate she spat out the words. “Yes. I’m going. Absolutely. I don’t have anything holding me back.”
Matt, she told herself. Matt. What about Matt?
And then Krysta said the words aloud. “Yeah, it’s not like Matt’s, you know, anything serious or worth altering your career over.”
“No. No,” Lydia said, covering a swirl of emotions that she couldn’t even imagine trying to name right now. “He’s definitely not someone who has that kind of impact on my life. He certainly shouldn’t affect whether to take a mega-promotion like this.”
Krysta’s face softened, her hand on Lydia’s elbow. “It’s okay, Lydia. It’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling.” And then her eyes hardened and she leaned in, two inches from her face, their noses practically touching. “But no matter what you feel for him, you’re going.”
Mike knew that by now, Lydia had read the letter that went in the package from Human Resources. Joanie and HR had made swift work of his middle-of-the-night decision. He just hoped Lydia had a valid passport. If not, he could get her in to the Boston office tomorrow before the end of business with the Passport Agency for an expedited one. The sooner the better. Tripling her salary would make her the highest-paid employee in the European operations office. But, then again, that wouldn’t be too hard. There were only five employees there as of now.
By the time she got on a plane, upended her life, and settled in there she’d figure out, quickly, that there was some sort of sham element to all of this. He knew she was smart and sharp—and to add insult to injury, once that tape went live, if she chose to go he would know that she went out of anger and that she went knowing it was a consolation prize, not something that she earned.
He wished that he could be there right now to watch her face, her excitement, as she received the offer packet. In the end, while helping her to escape the scrutiny of the video really was the most compassionate move, in the long run, that stripping away of that moment of glory where Lydia triumphed on her own merits—or thought she did—could be the single biggest mistake of his life. He knew it, but did it anyway.
Jonah had given him a handful of hours but he knew that even Jonah couldn’t control this. At a minimum, the video guys knew, someone in a controller room knew, there were interns and admins and all sorts people in the chain who, with whispers and texts and emails and Facebook pages and tweets, would make this go live sooner rather than later. It was like the nervous finger on the trigger of the weakest soldier, with guns pointed at a crowd, from tragedies like Kent State to fiction like Les Miserables. It wasn’t that intent would lead to the unleashing of agony; it would be that simple collision of too many voices, too many eyes, too many torn allegiances and of one tiny fissure in the universe that would simply open.
Even Michael Bournham couldn’t control that. Jonah damn well couldn’t. So, as Mike made a series of phone calls that involved everything from canceling meetings to getting his hair dyed back to its regular color to cashing out certain investments, to finally having a lovely conversation with his mother, he knew that he was racing against the clock, his preternatural calm driving him toward a fate he didn’t know, but one that felt freer, less inhibited.
With a near complete abandon that he imagined Jeremy felt on a regular basis creeping into him, he imagined that video was about to do to Lydia the exact opposite of what it had already done to Mike before it had even been released. Pregnant in possibility and dilating by the second, its birth would give him a new life—because the same force that gave him decency, that made him do the right thing with Lydia, that made him protect her now to the extent that he could, and that stripped him of the killer instinct when he most needed it, that decency had finally reached a tipping point in him. Growing larger and larger, crowding out the adaptive sociopathy that he’d cultivated over the past decade, and now he was just back to being Mike.
“Bespoke or be nak*d.” It was time to get nak*d.
Chapter Three
“Mike, Mike. Hey, I swear to God, man, it wasn’t me. It was some teenage intern.” Miraculously, Mike had been given an entire day—or most of one. The video had been unleashed in the middle of the night, during one of the three hours his exhausted self had managed to sleep. The clock next to his bed said 7:52 a.m. The story must be breaking across all the morning news shows now. Matt Lauer would dissect his sex tape. Worse—Kathy Lee Gifford.
Jonah’s voice was panicked and overwrought, and he stumbled over his words in a way that made Mike grin. That stupid a**hole. Did he really think that if he had something like this he could keep it under control?
“About that investment– ”
Click. Good riddance to that cockroach.
Mike had spent those glorious few hours with Lydia pretending that he hadn’t realized the cameras were on, pretending that he really could have a life with her. And Jonah had pretended, too—pretended that he had even one iota of power in a game that was so many levels above his head that he couldn’t even see the game board, much less touch the pieces.
This was how it all fell apart. Some nineteen-year-old college student got his hands on a Michael Bournham sex tape and uploaded it to YouTube, which had taken it down, but not before someone else had captured it and sent it on to TMZ and Gawker. The cat was out of the bag. Jonah wasn’t the only one who hadn't realized he was playing a game too many levels above him. Mike had forced himself to watch the video, frame by frame, sigh by sigh, movement by movement, reliving it not only with his eyes but with his heart—and other body parts beneath that. It was tantalizing, he had to admit. They couldn't have made a more appealing video if they had tried. It was like watching an amateur YouPorn tape, but without the raunchy vulgarity of it all. This was two people being intimate for the first time, and reveling in it.
For that he was not ashamed. For nothing was he ashamed, because on the whole, he had done absolutely nothing wrong to anyone except Lydia, the woman he’d opened himself up to with one minor caveat. He’d lied completely and utterly about his identity. Trivial, right? A bitter laugh escaped through his nose, along with a sigh that said more in breath than he could ever hope to say in an apology to her.
Jonah wasn’t the only stupid a**hole, either. She was ignoring all of his phone calls, texts, emails—and he couldn’t blame her. He would probably do the same if the roles were reversed. Mike had come to the very obvious and simple conclusion that he would hate her guts forever and a day if the roles had been reversed.
Assuming she felt the same made this all the more crystal clear.
A decent guy would back off and acknowledge that he’d hurt her and she needed time. A decent guy would stop calling, would do everything he could in terms of damage control, wouldn’t text her best friend, and certainly wouldn’t drive by her apartment hoping to catch a glimpse of her. A decent guy would never have pretended to be someone else while making love to her. And so, while Matt Jones had been Mr. Decency all along, in the end, it was Mike Bournham who was the biggest a**hole of them all.
He grabbed his car keys, ready to head out and swing by her apartment one more time because, if he was going to be a major a**hole, he may as well take it all the way, when Jeremy buzzed. He checked his texts:
I’m on my way up the elevator in your building.
Hmm, this could be interesting, Mike thought.
“Lydia, are you on your computer?” Krysta's voice had a strained, strangled tone to it, one of caution and suppressed horror. A chill shot up her spine and her throat closed up as she reached for her mug of coffee. Grandma walked in wearing a red bathrobe, hair standing straight up and tufted around her ears, bleary-eyed and mumbling something about the f**king loud garbage trucks and not respecting people who worked graveyard shift. Madge poured herself some java and disappeared into the living room.
“No. Why?” she choked out. “Is something wrong? Did something happen?” What could be on the computer or television that would be so awful?
“Do me a favor,” Krysta said slowly. “Don't get on the internet or watch television until I get there. I am about five minutes away.” Click.
Swallowing the rest of her coffee, she was in the middle of pouring another cup when Madge walked back in, eyes wide open, eyebrows lifted. “You got something you want to share with me, Lydia?” she asked, leaning against the counter, her eyes intrigued and manner quite suspicious.
Pouring in some half and half, Lydia gave back what her grandma dished out. “No, Grandma. What do you think I want to share?”
Madge grabbed Lydia’s hand and pulled her into the living room. Pointed to the television. Smirked, then lost the look, her face shifting to a confused compassion.
When her eyes focused on the television screen, Lydia saw the over-makeupped morning show hosts laughing about Michael Bournham's latest sexcapade. Rolling her eyes, she took a sip and said to Madge, “C’mon, Grandma. He’s the company owner. It’s not like I know him.”
The hosts panned to a video clip, a dark security-camera snippet that clearly showed two people making love. On a couch. In an office. Deftly, Madge reached for Lydia’s coffee cup as her muscles went to jelly and it slipped out of her hand. Grandma saved her from scalding her thighs and shins.
That was her. Her and Matt. Making love (f**king) last night in the office. Long brown hair poured down like chocolate against her back, swinging as she gyrated against him, on top and in command as he had—
“Sit down, honey. Breathe,” Madge urged, her fingers wrapping around Lydia’s wrist. Breathe? Oh. Yes. She’d stopped. Was that why the world had begun to fade to nothing behind little grey pinpoints? Her light blue flannel pajama top felt harsh and cold against her skin as she bent over, chest tightening, every muscle between her ribs aching with the effort to force herself to let the air out of her.
Somehow, her autonomous nervous system kicked in and she resumed basic respiration, her brain scrambling to make sense of the video clip the morning talk show was repeating over. And over.