Hate to Love You (Strong Brothers 4)

“She sent her because she knew more about the inner workings of the company than anyone else besides us,” Hunter said.

"Someone needs to talk to her," Carter said, his voice more measured than Hunter’s, but still filled with concern.

"He's right. We need to find out what she’s up to before we tell Gran," Ryan agreed.

"I'll go talk to her," I said, shutting down all the emails. I figured I'd text down to the IT team to get a record of everything on the machine and then to scrub it clean. Maybe we just get rid of it.

"I think someone else should go." Hunter said, standing back to let me out from Andi's desk.

I glared up at him. "Why?"

He pursed his lips at me. "You know why, Noah. We need somebody who's going to be able to stand up to her."

I scoffed at. “You don’t think I can stand up to, Andi. What do you think I’ve been doing for the last three years?"

"I think what Hunter is not so eloquently saying, is that if you have feelings for her that it might make things difficult. One of us should go."

I was getting seriously pissed and sick and tired of having to fight and scrap for respect. Why would I come work here when they clearly didn’t believe in me?

"You don't have feelings for her?” I charged back at them. “She's been with this company for a long time, surely you feel something." I pushed Hunter out of the way. "I know what I'm doing. I will get to the bottom of this. I'll do what needs to be done and then I'll go tell Gran all about it."

I didn't wait for them to stop me and instead headed directly for the elevator and down to my motorcycle. I wasn't lying to them. I was going to confront Andi about all this.

When I pulled up to her house, I noticed a slick looking car in her driveway. She was either spending her newly earned money from Chen or had company. If it was the latter, it wouldn’t matter because Andi and I were going to talk now.

I made my way along the walk next to her house and could hear talking inside. I realized her windows were open, so I stopped for a moment to listen in.

"Oh, I'm quite confident, thanks to Noah,” Chen said.

He had some fucking nerve. Once again, he was putting the blame on me. My heart stalled in my chest as I wandered. If Andi was going to buy it again. Of course, the irony of the moment wasn't lost on me as I was here to accuse her of being the hack as well. What sort of future would there be for us if we could believe the other person would betray the other.

"Noah has nothing to do with this."

My heart soared like it never had before. And in the next instant came down again, as I knew the tables were now reversed.

Except they weren't. Andi was a lot of things, but she wouldn't betray my Gran. I knew that deep down in my gut. I thought back to what my father said about trust and realized this was the moment that our relationship was going to be made or broken. How I responded to this would determine whether or not Andi and I had a future.

"He's done a number on you, hasn’t he? Well, soon enough, you will know the truth. When your beloved Margaret Strong turns on you, along with all the Strong brothers, you'll know that what I'm telling you is the truth."

I frowned as I realized he was right. My brothers were currently suspicious of her.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"As we speak. Noah is uncovering proof that you are part of the hack. Of course, we know that's not true, but Noah is planting evidence against you. Why do you think he showed an interest in you? He’s not a man to fall for a woman, and yet he’s been wooing you for weeks, all as part of the plan."

Jesus fuck, he was still trying to make me the bad guy here. It was time to put an end to this once and for all.

I walked up onto the stoop and pushed the door open, but leaned against the doorframe. "Are you going to tell her about how you set her up?"

Andi looked at me, her eyes wide with shock and worry.

I straightened and stepped into her house. "Looks like an interesting little meeting going on here. I feel like I should be a part of it."

The only indication that Marcus’ was annoyed with my appearance was the slight clinch of his jaw. He hid it well behind a smarmy smile. "No, I'm so glad you could make it. I take it that you finally found proof of my and Ms. Walker's deceit."

"What?" Andi shrieked. "I haven't done anything."

“I found it,” I confirmed.