“Yeah. He was a great CFO. Too bad he had to leave,” Jack said.

  Nate glanced at him as he set up his next shot. “I also spoke to Carol Morton—you know, our old human resources director.”

  Now Jack eyed him, brow furrowed. “Are you thinking of asking them to come back?” Then he gave a strained laugh. “Because their old positions are filled.”

  “Since I wasn’t here when they left, I figured they were long overdue for an exit interview.” At his second attempt, Nate hit a hole in one, if such a thing existed in office, putting green golf.

  “They both had exit interviews.”

  Idly rubbing the smooth head of the club, Nate steadily regarded him. “Yeah, but not with me.”

  Jack’s wariness turned to discomfort as he shifted on his feet. “Okay, so what did they say? It has to be something or you wouldn’t be here.”

  Eyes narrowed at his friend, Nate straightened to his full height. “They said you forced them out. You undermined Jacob with his direct reports and staff, and you hired Will, who basically took over Carol’s duties and elbowed her out. They said they saw the writing on the wall and left before they were officially shoved out.”

  They had been the only two Black executives in the company before he’d left for France, and within a year, they were both gone. After talking to Duncan, Nate knew it couldn’t have been a coincidence and it became imperative he speak to them. It had taken him two hours to track them down and get their side of the story. Something he should have done when he’d initially been told about their departure. After all, he’d interviewed and handpicked them for the positions himself.

  “Wait.” Jack held up his hand, his expression one of mild shock and genuine surprise. “Are you insinuating what I think you are?” Before Nate could answer, he continued. “Because remember, I’m the guy who helped you with the exchange program. Me,” he exclaimed, stabbing his index finger against his chest. “No matter what they’re saying now, I didn’t force them out. They left on their own.”

  “Then I guess it was just a coincidence that Allan’s the son of your mother’s divorce lawyer and Will’s brother just happens to own the gym you invested in six years ago?”

  When Nate had interviewed Allan Randall to replace Jacob as CFO, Jack hadn’t said anything about the connection. And as for Will Mathers, their current human resources director, Nate had had nothing to do with his hiring. He’d been in France, and as far as he was concerned, the company was in capable hands. But the connections were easy to find if you were looking for them, and he’d spent the past hour doing exactly that.

  “What exactly are you accusing me of? Come on. Spit it out.”

  It had been a long time since Nate had seen his friend like this, his face flushed and eyes sparking angrily.

  Good, because he was angry too.

  “Not only did you force them out, you did the same to Alberta.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. No one promised Alberta shit. Her problem was that she wasn’t qualified for the job she wanted. Acted like it was owed to her. But instead of being grateful for the job she had, she starts spewing garbage, hires a lawyer, and sues the company.”

  “So she should be grateful? Why? Because she came out of the STEM program and was hired here straight out of college?” It was all starting to fall into place, the way his soon-to-be ex-CTO’s mind worked.

  “Dude, she’s making north of ninety grand and she owes that to this company. To you.”

  Nate’s vision was starting to go red and he felt his head exploding. “She owes me nothing—you got that? Not a goddamn thing. She’s here because of her own hard work. And let’s get another thing straight. She was qualified for the senior project manager position, until you changed the job title and added a certification requirement. A requirement, I might add, that Brent Houseman was given the chance to obtain at the company’s expense before he was promoted to the position.”

  That was the other thing Nate had learned: Jack had been behind all of it. It had been done under his direction and with his explicit approval.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I told you, she wasn’t promised a promotion—”

  “Don’t lie to me.” Nate smacked the club hard against the floor, punctuating his anger. “I spoke to Duncan. I know you’re lying. Now all I want to know is why. Why did you work overtime to make sure Alberta didn’t get the promotion she was promised? The position she deserved.”

  Irritation flashed in Jack’s eyes and his voice cooled ten degrees, his entire posture taking on a defensive crouch. “Who said she deserved it? Because she’s a woman and a minority? Do you know how many other college graduates just like her aren’t making close to what she makes? Some who won’t make that much in their lifetime?”

  “What are you saying—she should be grateful for what she has and not strive for more? Because that’s what you fucking did? Because that’s what I did? Because that’s what most white men in this industry do? Goddamn you, Jack, for being so much like your fucking parents. I thought you were better than that, but it’s obvious you had me fooled.”

  “Oh, give me a fucking break. Just because I didn’t think she deserved a promotion doesn’t mean there’s a white robe and hood hiding in my closet.” Now his friend was all scorn, going for the obvious stereotype because it was easy to ridicule the card-carrying racists.

  “Not only are you a racist, but you’re a sexist too.” Everything Kennedy had said about him was true. “Which I can’t have in the CTO of my company. You’re fired.”

  Jack glared at him. Then, with a dark, humorless laugh, he shook his head and treated him to a disdainful look. “It’s Kennedy, isn’t it? This is where this is coming from. What, she convince you I’m the big racist boogeyman?”

  “Keep her name out of your mouth,” Nate warned, his tone ominously flat.

  Jack’s expression hardened. “What happened? She find out she was an affirmative-action admission at Columbia?”

  “Fuck you.” Nate had never come closer to laying his former friend flat on his back. Instead, he tightened his hand around the head of the club until his knuckles turned white.

  A coldness entered Jack’s eyes. “I’m the best fucking CTO you’ll ever have. Have fun trying to replace me.” His friend had always thought a lot of himself.

  “I’ll try not to put too much of my back in it,” Nate said dryly. Financially, his ex-friend would be fine. The company stock he owned would be more than enough to make sure his annual country-club dues were paid for life.

  “I’d think very hard about this if I were you. There’s no coming back from this. Once I walk out that door, I’m gone,” Jack said in final warning.

  Rounding the putting green, Nate returned the golf club to the rack. “I wish you’d thought about that when you started playing God, picking winners and losers without a fucking thought of the damage you were doing to the company and everyone involved.” Alberta, Jacob, and Carol might just be the tip of the iceberg. Who knew where else and how many times he’d tipped the scales. “Now you have thirty minutes to pack your things and leave.”

  How long had this been going on? He’d have to take over the investigation now to make sure they got to the truth.

  “Damn, Kennedy really has you by the balls,” Jack sneered.

  Nate exited the office without responding and immediately called the head of IT to tell him to disable Jack’s security credentials for all the systems ASAP. Then he called his head of security to ask him to escort his ex-friend out of the building in twenty-nine minutes.

  He and Jack were done.

  25

  They’d been hacked.

  Kennedy didn’t know whether to laugh or roll her eyes. She did both.

  When a response finally came, after a mind-boggling fifty-two hours, that had been the explanation from Phillip Draper and Samuel Weber. As for the company itself, the day before ECO Apparel had put out a statement that said it was investigating the authenticity of the emails. They didn’t want to act rashly and all of that blah, blah, blah.

  When it came to business, the agency hadn’t acquired one single client since the leaked emails became public and her—and now her face—a household name. A curiosity. While most of the attention remained focused on the two men, the number of calls from local media for an interview with her hadn’t ceased.

  Kennedy blamed that on the way ECO Apparel was handling the situation. What they should have done was immediately issue an apology. An abject apology. Not so much for her but for the sake of the company. Second, they should have announced that both men would be placed on unpaid leave during the investigation—which shouldn’t take more than twenty-four hours. Once the emails were authenticated, the men should have been fired. They’d quickly fade from the spotlight and so would she. And maybe then business would resume as normal. Instead, she remained on tenterhooks, wondering if the agency would survive the scrutiny.

  Should it survive?

  Her conversation with Joseph Russo was like the shifting of tectonic plates and she was still reeling from the ongoing aftershocks. What he’d asked her to do was far more egregious than the things she did for her clients. At least, that was what she tried to convince herself, but the more she thought about the differences, the more blurred the lines became. Although one was illegal and the other was not, the variegated shadows of gray between the two didn’t cast her methods in a good light.

  Once upon a time, she’d told herself the ends justified the means. That, technically, she wasn’t doing anything wrong and no one was getting hurt. And while that might still be the truth in a narrow vision and scope, what effect was it having on society as a whole? Why not let the companies take their lumps and learn from their mistakes the hard way, instead of her coming in and cushioning the fall? But more than anything, she didn’t want Token to be seen the way the likes of Joseph Russo saw it. As an agency so bereft of morals it would knowingly take the side of a liar and help manufacture evidence against an innocent victim—and a Black woman at that. It was the exact opposite of their mission statement and goal.

  Maybe a pause in business wouldn’t be a bad thing. It would give her time to think things over and decide the best way forward. This was something she’d have to discuss with Aurora, but her gut was telling her it was time to make some changes in the kind of services the agency offered.

  And as if that wasn’t weighing enough on her mind, Nate was never far from her thoughts. She was still smarting from the scholarship revelation and couldn’t quite pinpoint why it was hitting her so hard. Why it felt more like a betrayal than what most people would see as a gesture of lottery-winning proportions.

  Legs stretched out on her couch, Kennedy opened the social media app on her phone. She’d been following the #HackVillains hashtag, otherwise known as You About to Lose Your Job. Her story hit the national news, only to be quickly supplanted by the email of a top sports agent whose client—an NFL player—had recently come out as gay. The use of the F word had been shocking enough, but when the agent had blamed his public disclosure on the growing permissiveness of society, he’d all but guaranteed that not only would his remarks elicit a swift and furious backlash, he wouldn’t have a job by the morning. He was fired by the agency within hours of the first report.

  Then she saw it, the breaking news headline as big and bold as ever.

  ECO APPAREL DISMISSES EXECUTIVES OVER EMAIL LEAK—SAHARA: “MY FRIEND DIDN’T DESERVE THIS.”

  Kennedy’s heart thumped and her breath suspended.

  Sahara? What did she say?

  After hitting several paywalls, she finally found an article without one containing her friend’s full response to the firings.

  Kennedy is a dear friend and she didn’t deserve this. No one deserves to be talked about like that. What’s even more upsetting is that I know these men. I worked with them, and I had no idea they held these kinds of views. Kennedy worked with them, and I witnessed their interactions, and she was always a consummate professional. She’s incredibly smart, and to quote an earlier statement from someone who knows her better than I do, she’s as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. She didn’t ask for any of this. Speaking as her friend, I’m asking the media to please respect her privacy at this time.

  Pressing a palm to her chest, Kennedy did her utmost to stave off the tears—she hadn’t yet removed her mascara and eyeliner, and didn’t know whether they would hold up under a drizzle of tears, much less a storm—as she was overcome by emotions. She blinked rapidly and gave a tearless sniff. When she’d first met Sahara, she’d immediately picked up on her overall goodness and decency. In the years that followed, Kennedy was able to experience her unflinching loyalty firsthand.

  Not wasting another second, Kennedy picked up the phone and called her. As soon as she answered, Kennedy spoke to her from the heart. “You. Are. A. Doll. What did I do to deserve you as my friend?”

  “You must have won the friend lottery.”

  “Well, if I don’t say this often enough, I want you to know how much I love and adore you.”

  “Aww,” Sahara crooned. “I love and adore you too, sweets. Now you’re going to make me cry.”

  Kennedy gave a hiccuping laugh. After days of her stomach being twisted in a knot, she felt it loosening. “Don’t you dare cry or you’ll turn me into a spigot.”

  “Spigot? Is that the thesaurus word of the day?” her friend teased.

  Kennedy laughed. “How to prove you know me without saying you know me.” Her love of words—she was a big reader, after all—wasn’t a secret to all those who knew her.

  “Seriously, that man of yours is something else. Makes me think my type meter is broken. Maybe I need someone like him, you know, someone who worships the ground I walk on. Shouldn’t you be showing him your appreciation right now?” she teased with a suggestive waggling of the brow tone to her voice.

  Wait! What? “Are you talking about Nate?”

  Sahara huffed in amusement. “How many men do you have? Unless you’re sexing it up with another tech hottie, and let’s face it—another one doesn’t exist. Of course I mean Nate.” She paused. “You have seen his statement, haven’t you?”

  A breath of air rushed past her lips. “No. I didn’t know he put one out.”

  At her dazed admission, her friend chortled. “Who did you think I was talking about when I said I was quoting an earlier statement?”

  Sahara was ten steps ahead of her. Kennedy scrambled from the couch to grab her laptop from the desk in the corner of the kitchen. Placing it on the counter, she typed in his name, and an article posted an hour ago popped up first on the search results.

  Her breathless “I found it” could only be attributed to anticipation and nerves.

  “I was going to send you the link but never mind,” Sahara replied.

  A quick tap on the link and the article came up. Her eyes zoomed straight to the block of text.

  In the eleven years I’ve known Kennedy Mitchell, she’s always believed in the goodness and decency of people. Whether her faith was misguided or not is yet to be determined. However, my faith in her is unequivocal. She is talented, ambitious, intelligent, and as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. The men who maligned her aren’t fit to kiss the ground she walks on. And that’s as much oxygen as I’m going to waste on them.

  I prided myself with creating a diverse and inclusive workforce, and I thought I had the numbers to back it up. It wasn’t until my company was sued that I realized numbers aren’t the only things that matter. No matter how diverse a company is, if it’s not equal in opportunities for growth and advancement, the problems stemming from racism and sexism will continue to persist. I’m grateful to Kennedy for helping me see that. Her dedication to equality and fair play makes her the best at what she does. The perspective she brings to her work is invaluable, and I can’t thank her enough for helping me with my blind spots.

  On a more personal note, Kennedy is an incredible woman, and if you’re lucky enough to have someone like her in your life, don’t squander it. I certainly don’t plan to.

  Kennedy’s breath quickened, her heart thudding loud in her ears. Everything he’d said about her... The things he’d admitted about himself. She didn’t know what to say.

  “You still there?” Sahara asked, breaking the silence that had gone on for several long seconds.

  “I’m here,” Kennedy whispered, her hand not quite steady as she held the phone to her ear.

  “See! What did I tell you? Your man means business. He wants the whole world to know how he feels about you. I want the kind of man who would do that for me,” Sahara said, her tone half teasing, half wistful. “It’s instant foreplay.”

  Kennedy let out a shaky laugh, her thoughts churning as she returned to the living room and sank down onto the couch. “What blind spots is he talking about?” she mused. It had to be about Jack. His was the only name she’d mentioned in that context during their argument.

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  The question had Kennedy squirming in place. “I haven’t talked to him in a few days,” she replied in a small voice. Then she told Sahara about the scholarship, Jack, and the resulting fight.

  “If you want my opinion, his friend sounds like a jerk, and hopefully, Nate has figured that out. Now, about the scholarship... I don’t know, sweets. I can’t work up too much outrage over that.” She then hastened to add, “Not that I don’t understand why you’re upset about the way he did it, but why were you okay with taking the money from some faceless entity but it’s a problem now that you know it was from him?”

  That question had plagued Kennedy the last two days. She tried to convince herself it was the underhandedness of it, but she quickly realized that wasn’t the crux of it. “I thought I’d earned it on my own.”