I only wonder why this parkette is different for all of three minutes, then the mystery is solved. Two big burly security guards who work the floors of my department store are standing at the exit I took. Above their heads is a closed circuit TV camera pointed in this direction, and even from this distance, I can read the notice informing the public that all activity is recorded twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I suspect that junkies, prostitutes, and dealers don’t like being monitored.
As I sit taking in the sights and sounds, I begin to think about the other issue that’s been occupying my mind. This student loan. I’m doing all the right things, working extra hours, saving every spare penny. But with just a couple of weeks to go, it’s clear to me that even if I worked around the clock, I won’t have enough to make that first payment. I start to get curious about the details of my student loan terms. Is there a penalty for late payment? How much more would that be? Is there’s anything else I can do to defer what I owe, or spread it out?
Using my phone, I log into my student loan account to search for information. I need a lifeline.
Something is different on the home screen.
I stare at my phone for so long that the words seem to swim around the screen. Or maybe I’m dizzy.
There’s a green box below my name and student loan number.
Thank you for your payment.
What?
What payment?
I never made one. In a panic, I scroll down to the section that tells me my total balance owing. The little box that has kept me up at night, the part that usually says I owe more money than I’ve made in all of my part-time and summer jobs combined. It should show as $151,278.27, but it doesn’t.
Above that little box, there’s a line that shows my payment as $151,278.27, not my balance.
My balance is $0.00.
What in the world is going on?
Maybe it’s a glitch. It has to be. Or they’re rearranging the layout, and numbers don’t yet appear where they belong. That has to be it. To be sure, I call up Dahlia. She has the dogs she’s petsitting with her today, but I’m fairly confident she has enough flexibility to pull away for a short phone call. Dahlia’s also a Columbia U student, and on the partial student loan track in her pre-vet program. I’ll ask her to check what she sees on her screen after logging in.
Our phone call is cut short when my roommate tells me her loan balance looks normal. I tell her I have to go back to work, but really, I sit on the faded green park bench, stunned and confused.
Is this Caleb’s doing? Is it an administrative mix-up? In my unsettled state, I send a text to Caleb, asking if he has time to talk. His reply is cryptic, letting me know he’s heading out of town but that he’ll be thinking of me. It’s interesting, the way he manages to avoid giving me a straight answer, and is about to make himself scarce for the next few days.
What is he up to?
Fourteen
Caleb
I look out the window of the firm’s private jet. I’ve been uneasy for days.
I may have made things right between Rose and me, but something still lurks, nudging at the corner of my psyche.
I’m a hypocrite.
No better than I was before we fixed what was broken between us.
In fact I’m worse.
How can I claim that I’ll protect her at all costs when she’s taking such a huge risk for Knights Capital?
For me.
I want to call it off. We can find another way. A strategy that doesn’t involve Rose potentially committing a crime.
But I’m in no position to raise the issue with my partners. Not while I’m on a six-hour flight to Europe to close a big client.
As VP of Investors Relations, it’s my job to bring in the most desirable of corporate and private interests from around the globe.
All the more reason to tell the guys to call off the search we assigned to Rose. I can’t be there to hold up my end of the deal, to protect her, and I sure as hell can’t hope Dylan or one of the guys will readjust their priorities to put her first.
I smile at the irony. She’s on board, and I want her to stop immediately.
The second I’m back in Manhattan, I’ll fix it. I plan to pump the breaks and remove her from any exposure before it’s too late.
Fifteen
Rose
I think I found something. I’m pretty sure I did, but I fucked up the whole plan. In my defense, scheming is new to me. As is being a corporate spy. No matter how smart I am or how much education I have under my belt, sneaking around doesn’t come easy.
On top of those excuses, doing it in a vacuum, without Caleb’s or his partners’ guidance, I feel a little lost.
It starts when my pile of items waiting to be shredded turns into a mountain one day, right after a board meeting for all the executives of Levine Holdings. It’s not every day that the entire who’s who of my company’s top brass shows up. I only see them because the room with the shredder is a few feet from the elevators, and for some reason, it’s so hot in there that I had to leave the door propped open with a trash can, to not pass out from heat exhaustion.
One by one, they file by, sparking my curiosity. My only complaints are that I’m not invited, and I’m too far away to eavesdrop. It doesn’t help that the meeting runs through the lunch hour.
Of course, I return after lunch to find the mountain. I correctly assume it’s from the exec meeting, confirmed by the multiple copies of printed agendas.
After skimming a read through the first thick bound reports, I find what I think I need.
But then I freeze.
What part of this close to hundred page report has the pertinent info? Will it be best to snap a photo of each and every page? I don’t want to screw up. Not when I’m so close.
But something is better than nothing. I use my best judgment and take pictures of about ten pages with the burner phone, send a text of them to the only preprogrammed number in the phone. Then I slip the report into a slot behind the heavy table on one side of the room, and hurry to the ladies’ room.
That’s where the plan fails. I’m not supposed to keep the report after taking the shots, and I’m supposed to flush the phone down the toilet so that I’m not found leaving work with evidence. But with Caleb away, I’m afraid to discard of it. What if no one is on the other side of that text?
This report, this phone, they’re all I’m sure about. Returning to the shredding room, I hide the phone in the same spot as the report. I know it’s a mistake, but so is this entire spying thing I got myself into.
I leave work at my usual time. Before I arrive home, I see a text from Jackson, the guy Dahlia’s dating. It just reads, “Got it. Thanks.”
But the next day at work, as I step off the elevator, two big men in suits are with Brenda, my boss, standing there waiting for me.
I’m so bad at this, that I automatically assume they found the report and phone. I almost rat myself out. Thank fuck I hesitate when I’m asked why I took it.
“Took what?” I ask.
Apparently, my boss mistakenly brought the reports to me for shredding when they were supposed to be disposed of by one of the senior managers because of the sensitive nature of the contents.
“Sorry I can’t be more helpful,” I say. “I was doing my job. But I’ll look around just in case I find any others left around.”
After they leave, I finally can breathe, but I don’t dare go anywhere near that narrow opening behind the table where my less than legal booty is stashed. And the phone. Not until I see my boss, Brenda leaving for her late lunch break. I stuff the report through the shredder, stick the phone into my bra, and practically run to the ladies’ room. This time, I get rid of the evidence. If anyone had found it, I would’ve been so screwed.
The problem is Brenda’s suspicious of something. Maybe it’s because of how I’ve been acting all day. Maybe it finally hit someone around here that when you give a budding talent unchallenging work day in and
day out, they become the biggest risk for betrayal.
She returns from her lunch break and sits me down in her office.
“During today’s meeting, the executives voted to terminate our internship program,” she informs me, ripping off the Band-Aid. “As your position is an unpaid placement, and in accordance with our security measures, there is no formal notice period. There is no requirement to establish cause. I’m afraid that I’ll need to ask you to clear out your things and hand over your entry card to security.”
As I leave the building less than fifteen minutes later, I can’t tell whether my being fired is a blessing or a curse. By the time I descend into the subway platform to head home, I decide it’s a good thing. I just wish Caleb would find a way to contact me.
Sixteen
Caleb
“Step on it,” I tell the limousine driver who picked me up at the private airstrip at JFK airport.
The shit hit the fan while I was gone, and now that I’m back, I plan to restore everything to how it should be. My first priority is Rose. I learn from Dahlia via Jackson that Rose was let go from her internship. To me, it’s quite possibly the best outcome for her. If her boss suspected Rose was involved in anything underhanded, they could’ve easily taken things further. For all anyone knows, Levine Holdings was already monitoring her.
It’s the reason I specifically told Dylan and Jackson to make sure Rose didn’t proceed.
Wires got crossed, and in the meantime, she found out what she did.
But I meant it when I said I wouldn’t put her in the middle of anything risky.
As the thought crosses my mind, I find Dylan’s number in my phone and call him.
“How was Europe?” he answers on the second ring.
“I closed the deal, of course. There’s some paperwork the lawyers are working on, but it’s all in the bag.”
“Sweet.”
“Listen, can you tell me how the fuck no one told Rose to put the brakes on her search?”
“Long story short, there was a minor communication breakdown.”
I read between the lines and figure Dylan either didn’t get my message, or didn’t contact Rose in time. “You dropped the ball, didn’t you?”
“I kinda did, but Jackson and I just went through what she sent to the burner phone.”
“And?”
“Your girl has some kinda radar for smoking guns, my friend. It’s more than what we need to prove Gerald has been in on this shady shit for a lot longer than this Mont Blanc deal has been in the works. He had a direct hand in some of the strategy within Levine Holdings, and in both of the subsidiaries in question.”
“Fuck. Even with the shit storm in the pharmaceutical arm of Pantheon?”
“Yes. The man’s knee deep in guilt.”
“Do the Knights know?” I ask, referring to Jace, Jackson and their father, Joseph, who has been friends with Gerald Buchannan for decades.
“I’m afraid they do now. They plan to meet Gerald in a day or so.”
“Remind me to stay the hell away from that meeting.”
“You and me both, dude,” Dylan agrees.
“Listen, I know what Rose found is crucial, but…we need to get rid of the trail back to her.”
“That’ll be hard.” There’s an audible pause on the line as he seems to think about it. “There’s no other way we could’ve gotten our hands on that evidence. The top dogs at Levine Holdings were instructed not to include any of it in the discovery process.”
I understand that we need this info, but I won’t let Rose take the fall for us, not now or later on. I’ve done my homework. There’s a five-year statute of limitation on non-capital federal offenses like corporate theft. “Look, man. The point is if we use it, especially now that Rose was fired, it’ll be clear as day that she had a part in it. We need to find another source.”
“At this late stage in the game? Impossible.”
“I don’t give a fuck if it’s impossible,” I shout. “Destroy it now. We’ll figure out some other way.”
“Like what?”
“Like let’s put our heads together. Think about it. Is the evidence what matters most? Or is it our knowledge that it exists?”
“Man, I don’t fucking follow you. It’s been chaos in risk management. I can’t spare a single creative cell in my body for this.”
“Dylan, dude, I’m suggesting a bluff, idiot. What I’m saying is we get rid of what we found, and simply allude to knowing about it. Call it a leak, or that someone at Levine or Mon Blanc slipped up during discovery, and now we know what went down. You feel me?”
“Fuck, yeah I think I get it. Someone will need to sell this to Joseph. He’s ready to nail Gerald to the wall.”
“I’ll get Jace and Jackson on board to argue my point. You can bet your ass that none of them would put their women in the crossfire. I may have gone along with things before, but it’s different now.”
“Yeah, I hear ya,” he agrees, letting out a low grumble of a laugh. “You and Rose weren’t knocking boots when we started down on this road. Shit, that reminds me. Something else happened while you were gone. It’s about Rose.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Joseph got a little ahead of himself. You remember his sister in law runs some educational foundation?”
“Uh, I guess. What does that have to do with me or Rose?”
“I think he pulled some strings and had her non-profit take care of your girlfriend’s student loan.”
“What? How did something like that even make its way onto Joseph’s radar?”
“My guess is Jackson, via Dahlia. I don’t know the details. Find out from Jackson.”
“Does Rose know?”
“Yes. Well, no. She found out about the student loan being paid off, but she doesn’t know who took care if it. You’re probably the main suspect, in her view.”
“Fuck.” It’s not that I wouldn’t take a step like cover someone’s debt. I would. But the last thing Rose needs right now are surprises like that. Surprises that look or feel like she was paid off for spying.
“Haven’t you been reading your messages?” Dylan asks, but doesn’t wait for my answer. “Look man, I’ve got a mountain of shit to do. Talk to your woman, but have a chat with Jackson or his old man first, so you have your facts straight. I gotta go.”
I lean back on the leather seat of the limo after Dylan end the call. Fuck, I can’t even imagine what Rose must be thinking now. I wouldn’t blame her if she’s mad as fuck. First, we initiated a financial transaction without her knowledge, then she helps us track down a crucial set of evidence, and she ends up fired from her internship for no apparent reason?
Taking a breath, I run a frustrated hand through my hair. I need to see her. I send her a text, not expecting that she’d reply right away, considering she’s probably on her subway ride home or already at her place, mourning the abrupt end of what she believed was solid, relevant career-related work experience. But her reply is almost immediate, so we exchange a few messages.
Me: Hey. I just got back. Are you free?
Rose: Hi! Welcome back. I’m on my way to Brooklyn. Made a stop, though.
Me: I can pick you up.
Rose: No need. I’m close. You heard, didn’t you?
Me: Just got caught up. Yes.
Rose: My career opportunities were opened up for me without my knowledge. :)
Me: Don’t you worry. Better things are in store for you.
Rose: Yeah, I’m not so sure. So… see you later this evening?
Me: Or afternoon, if you’re up for it.
Rose: I am. I missed you.
Me: Same here. See you in a bit.
I have my work cut out for me, but fuck, I miss her so fucking bad. We’ll get to all of this damage control, but first, I have to show my woman how much she means to me. I don’t care if anyone thinks I’m moving too fast.
She’s mine.
As far as I’m concerned, what we have ha
s been years in the making.
Seventeen
Caleb
We’re meant to be.
The thought sounds like such a washed up cliché, but I believe it without a doubt. The sight of Rose walking toward the steps of her apartment building fills my chest with possessiveness and a primitive need. As the driver pulls up beside her and I lower my window, I’m tempted to forget everything and fuck her in the back of this limousine.
I wasn’t gone for that long, but I fucking crave her. And I know that even more now because for the first time, while I was gone, I didn’t even think about another woman, let alone sleep with anyone. It may be the longest I’ve gone without. And now, seeing her, I’m so fucking hard, so ready to end my short-term celibate status. As she climbs into the back seat with me, I pull her close, meet her waiting kiss, and force myself to work on providing her with all the other updates, Those need to be covered. I need to get them out of the way so I can have her all to myself tonight, and if she’s willing, for a long time after that.
I ask her to give me time to work through my list. Yes, I fucking made a list of shit to tell her. I owe it to her to be forthcoming, and while I was out of the country, she patiently waited, reserved judgment, and put her trust in me. To me, that show of faith means more than she’ll ever know. After my phone call with Dylan, I also spoke to Jackson, who brought me up to speed so I’d be prepared to give her facts and absolutes rather than ‘maybe’ and ‘possibly.’ It’s the least I can do.
The Billionaire and The Virgin Intern (Seduction and Sin Book 5) Page 6
