Don’t Love, Don’t Lose

“And I did some digging into him. It took some real doing, but it looks like he has a few unsavory habits that go beyond his browsing tastes. Expensive ones. Look at his trips to Vegas and Atlantic City – he’s in debt. He’s in deep debt. He keeps enough money in his checking account to keep his credit, but he owes a lot of people money. I found records from casinos, but in the last few months, he’s been into poker games.”

“I assume he hasn’t been lucky.”

“Sanders bought out his debt from one of those guys. He currently owes Sanders about a cool quarter of a million dollars.”

Anthony looked surprised, and she was a little mollified. At least he looked suitably surprised. That was something.

“Sanders is making him do this.”

Jasmine shrugged.

“I wouldn’t really judge that he’s as innocent as a lamb, and I bet Sanders didn’t have to twist his arm too hard. I have no actual proof connecting the two except for the debt. I found that because he got sloppy and sent an email from his system, using his personal mail, to Sanders. Not to Sanders’ usual ID – a fake one. But look at this. AssRend@… It’s just his name jumbled.”

“Yes, it’s not even clever or funny. He got sloppy. He got sloppy when he logged into his email id, too. I tracked two log-ins to his IP – one from his office, one from his home.”

“You hacked into Richard Sanders?”

“I left no trails. You should have more faith in me, Tony. You should’ve had more faith in me all along. But better late than never. Now, are we going to do the rest of this together, or are you going to shut me out again?”

Anthony grinned and shook his head.

“Come here.”

Jasmine grinned and she didn’t hesitate. Her head and her heart were both light, and when she ran into his arms and hugged him tight, she let herself go.

When he kissed her this time, she poured her whole heart into it. She didn’t hold anything back. Her knees trembled, but she didn’t care, because she was safe in his arms. He would hold her. He would always hold her up. And she would hold him.

“I missed you,” he told her fiercely.

“I missed you, too. If you ever do anything like that again, you will be so sorry.”

“Nothing you could do could make me as sorry as I was feeling until I saw you coming through the door, looking like a furious goddess of vengeance. I missed you, Jasmine. I love you.”

Her heart melted when he said the words, and she welcomed him when he pulled her close and kissed her again.

This – this was what she had almost given up because of fear. This was what had almost been taken away from her.

Never again. She would never risk losing it again. This was life. She would hold on to it, and she would never again be afraid of living.

“When this is all over, I’m going to make sure that you marry me.”

Jasmine couldn’t believe she said it, but she wasn’t sorry. She wasn’t mortified.

“Pushy.”

“You have no idea. You started this. And I’m going to make sure that we finish this. We’re going to be together, Tony. We’re meant to be together. This isn’t going to change that. I won’t let it.”

“We won’t let it,” said Tony, and he kissed her again as if he couldn’t stop, as if he needed to, over and over again, to be sure that she was there and she did belong to him.

As he belonged to her, thought Tony, her joy a wild, free thing in her heart.

She could do anything. She could take on the world and win.

But first, they had things to do.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked, finally, when he had her in his lap and they were both in his chair.

He grinned.

“I think we will make Joshua Harris an offer he cannot refuse. And then we will take Sanders down.”

Jasmine grinned.

“I hoped you’d say that. But I want to be there when we take Sanders down.”

He nodded.

“You will be,” he promised, and Jasmine believed him. Now there was more than love. Now there was trust, and there really were no secrets.

“What is the meaning of this!”

“Sit down, Sanders,” suggested Anthony, his voice flat, but his eyes amused.

Jasmine had her hand in his. She wasn’t sure if she would’ve had the courage to do this without him.

Doing everything on her own wasn’t strength after all. Sometimes trusting was strength.

No, she wouldn’t have had the strength to barge into his office like that, past security, and face him down. Not alone.

“If you know what’s good for you, you will go and take him with you,” spat out Sanders.

“But we came all this way, and we have something for you.”

She sat down without waiting for an invitation. She wouldn’t get angry.

Anthony squeezed her hand and sat down beside her.

“Here are a few documents that I need you to sign. Everything is all in order. They’re sale agreements – every single property that you bought out from under me or tried to sabotage. You will sell them all back to me, at eighty percent of what you paid, because I’m a fair man.”

“You are mad. You are both mad.”

But she saw fear now. She saw fear, and realized that he wasn’t the giant she had thought he was. It was pitiful that she had let him rule so much about her for so long. For over a decade and a half, almost two decades really, she had let him rule so much about her. No more. It was done.

There would be no more of it.

“Joshua Harris.”

The fear was more than just a flicker. It was clear now, she could see it. She could smell it.

They could crush him if they wanted to. But they wouldn’t. They had made that choice. They wouldn’t sink to his level. But they would make sure that he kept his words, and they would monitor his business practices. That was the price he would pay. It was more than money to him. It would hurt him where it hurt the most – his pride. She thought it was fitting. He had taken her pride away from her once. Now she could choose how much she would take from him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do I know a Joshua Harris?”

“Assrend. What a silly name to use for an email! You should at least have used the rest of your name and done a pun of some sort. And then you log into it from your own system, from your own network, without even using a VPN. That is sloppy – very sloppy. I warned you against doing something like that a long time ago. I guess listening to somebody like me was humiliating for you then, and still is now.”

Now she saw the sweat beading on his forehead despite the coolness in the office. Oh yes, now he was scared.