Red Alert/Red Notice (The "Super Jerk" Prequel)

20 - Get the Balance Right

^^Above, chapter title credit: Song by Depeche Mode.^^

{Raina}

"You think Felicia would see right through me?" I ask Geoff for probably the tenth time since I decided I wanted to cause her as much pain as she's caused me. He's reassured me every time that if done right, then she wouldn't even know what hit her.

"Raina," Geoff says through a sigh, his hands stopping mid-rub. He's got my feet propped in his lap, and he's been kneading them for the past twenty minutes. "We've been over this. Felicia's blinkered by ambition and false glory from Ridley. I don't think she'll even notice."

"I wish I believed that." I look down at Cam, sitting on my legs, and run my fingers over his hair. He blinks up at me, sticking two fingers in his mouth and sucking.

"She won't be suspecting you, I have a feeling. She seems to want what Ridley wants, and that's power over me." He rubs his thumb over the top of my foot.

"But if our theory's anything to go on, she wants the both of us gone." I know Felicia has a barely contained envy for me, because Geoff seems nearly impervious to her advances. And I can break him down with one look.

"Yeah, that's still a problem," he says, sitting back against the couch pillows. "And when you think about it, there's really no way to confirm, unless we want her onto us."

"She'd do anything to get to you, wouldn't she?" I catch Cam's fists, rubbing them together.

"I hope that's rhetorical." He runs a hand down to my ankle and squeezes it.

"It might be, but I think I know a good place to start." I sit up, pulling my legs in. "I think it's time I had a talk with her face-to-face."

≈

It takes some phone-tag, but I finally nail down a time and place to meet Felicia. Eckles — although I've increasingly been referring to him as Howard in my head — said there's a Mexican restaurant that she really likes on the corner of East 78th and Second Ave. When I call them, they tell me I don't need reservations, I can just walk right in.

I schedule it for the day after we arrive in the city in a week, for the first official executive meeting since the merger. In a split-second decision I decide I should take at least one of my kids with me. Then at least she can't try anything. I know Ettie would ask questions, so it's Cam that gets to go. And this way I have an excuse to smack her if she tries to hurt my son.

Geoff grins when I tell him. I don't know what there is to be grinning about, and I scowl.

"What?" I have to resist the urge to snap at him.

"I just think you're extremely unconventional, that's all."

"Meaning?" I raise an eyebrow.

"Bringing Cam is genius. So is meeting her in a restaurant she likes. She might be able to seduce men, but when it comes to other women, she's no match." A corner of his mouth goes up. "Especially you."

"Now you're just flattering me," I say, trying to keep my tone neutral even though I'm secretly glad that he agreed. And that he actually said my plan could work.

"Am I?" He takes my hand and kisses my knuckles. "Or maybe I'm truly grateful that I have such a resourceful and clever wife."

"Believe me, if my best friend hadn't died, this never would have happened." I can't exactly make light out of it yet, considering it's only been seven months.

"Oh, I know. But then again, we never would have been able to make Felicia suffer either."

≈