The Miami Millionaire

by Dawn Tamayo

  Victoria looked at her watch again, she had been sitting there for well over an hour now, nearly two, and tried not to notice Andrea looking at her questioningly.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to call down to you in your office when Jake comes in?” Andrea asked again.

  “No thank you, I will wait. Jake didn’t have an early morning meeting did he?” Victoria asked sure that Jake wasn’t due to have a meeting until ten thirty in his office. She shifted her position but remained on the chair outside his office adamant she wasn’t going anywhere until she had spoken to him. Apart from needing to speak to Jake she also wanted the security cameras to see exactly where she was just in case Jake wondered what she had been doing since she arrived in his building.

  Passing the time Victoria took out her phone and looked at the latest news updates and celebrity gossip. She scrolled through picture after picture and then stopped as she saw a photograph of Jake with a beautiful brunette draped in his arms with a caption next to it, “Playboy Jake Cumberland leave Mangos with up-and-coming actress Natasha Montage.” Victoria’s hands shook as she looked at the photograph again and continued to read, “Recent rumours of the infamous Jake Cumberland being off the single’s market seem to be untrue as last night the most eligible bachelor in Miami burst back onto the Miami night-scene with full force, dancing with numerous attractive women and finally leaving Mango’s night club around four o’clock this morning with the beautiful Natasha Montage. No need to guess where they were heading at that time in the morning, and who could blame either of them!”

  Victoria put down her phone feeling sick and looked at Andrea. She was in two minds whether she should actually sit and wait for Jake and explain everything, or just leave him the paperwork she held in her hands. She picked her phone up again, not wanting to see anymore but not being able to avoid it either, and looked at the photograph again - Jake was looking down and laughing with the beautiful actress as he held her in his arms, the beautiful woman’s body pressed up against his and her arms encircled his neck. Victoria flicked through the next couple of pages on her phone wishing she hadn’t as she saw Jake putting his hand up trying to shield himself and the actress from the flash of the cameras as they got into a waiting car together.

  Victoria took a deep breath and tried to steady her shaking hands.

  “Are you alright Victoria?” Andrea asked seeing something was obviously wrong.

  “Yes, I’m fine.” She lied. She felt stupid enough as it was, she didn’t need anyone else pitying her for her stupidity! She thought the time she had spent with Jake meant something to him, but obviously she had fallen for his seductions. She had even thought he meant it yesterday when he told her he loved her, but obviously not considering he was out with another woman last night! Victoria put her phone away and willed herself not to let the tear that stung her eyes escape. She was not going to cry, she needed to sort the practical things out first before she dealt with her thundering painful heart, so she decided that whatever Jake did was up to him, but she would not have someone think she was dishonest and deceitful when she wasn’t. Victoria sat and waited for near on another hour until Jake finally walked through the lift doors looking like his usual smart self, dressed in his perfectly cut grey suit, white shirt and blue tie. She sat looking at him thinking how incredible he looked - had she not seen the photographs for herself then she would never had known he had been out partying until the early hours of this morning!

  Jake took one look at Victoria sitting on the chair outside his office door and realised that instead of being in a deep drunken sleep this morning he should have called ahead to security and told them not to let her into the building. He cursed himself quietly but kept on walking straight towards his office, totally ignoring Victoria, and opened his office door.

  Victoria jumped out of her seat as Jake walked closer.

  “No!” Jake’s voice bellowed as hard as thunder and Victoria stopped where she was, looking at Jake as he paused at his office door.

  “Jake please, just hear me out.” She looked at his pleadingly.

  “No.” He turned to Andrea, “Get Bruno from Security to come up here immediately please.” And then he went into his office and closed the door firmly behind him as if Victoria was not even there.

  Victoria looked at Andrea as she picked up her phone and dialled down to security. She couldn’t believe Jake was actually going to have her thrown out of his building! This had gone way too far. Quickly she walked into Jake’s office and closed the door behind her.

  “Get out Victoria. You are lucky I haven’t called the police.”

  “No, just your security!”

  “Who will be here to remove you any minute now.”

  “Well you can listen to me first then. I did not steal your file, I was trying to get it back for you.”

  “Yeah right!” Jake said sarcastically as he sat down behind his desk and leaned back in his chair.

  “Look Jake you can believe what you want, but only when you have all the facts. I didn’t tell you anything while it was happening because I had too much to lose. I know I have lost everything now, along with so much more that you have any idea about, so I have nothing else to lose. So just listen to me, just hear me out, and then think what you want after that.”

  Jake rubbed his neck and considered it for a moment. Fair enough he would listen to what she had to say but nothing was going to change the fact she had played him for a fool. For how long? He had no idea, but he had fallen for it, and fallen for Victoria in the process too. He nodded.

  Victoria stood in front of Jake’s desk and placed an envelope right in front of him.

  “What’s this?”

  “Inside that envelope is a confidentiality agreement preventing Mark Cavendish from repeating a word of what is in my file, your file. That is why I was at his hotel last night.”

  Jake opened the envelope and looked at the agreement and nodded his head.

  “I had no idea Mark was coming to Miami, and when he sat in my office he told me it was so we could finalise things between us and he was going to buy me out of my share of our house. He brought me the papers to sign. If you don’t believe me those papers are in my desk, they were prepared by a solicitor in London.” Victoria took a deep breath and steadied her voice. “Mark did tell me he still loved me and he did try to persuade me to stay engaged to him, but I told him no. He asked me to go to dinner with him but I turned him down, that was when you walked into my office. I left him in my office for just those few minutes when I was talking to you explaining the situation. Everything was exactly as I told you then.”

  Jake placed his elbows on his desk and rested his chin on his fingertips listening intently to Victoria. He didn’t want to believe she had done what she had, but he couldn’t see any other explanation for it.

  “Later that afternoon I received a text from Mark saying he had taken a file from my office and if I wanted it back I had to go to dinner with him that night. He wanted me to hear him out and obviously I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say, but I had no choice. I had to go when I realised what file he had taken.”

  “So Mark stole the file and you had nothing to do with him taking it.”

  “That is correct. I don’t think he had come here intentionally to do it. He is a lying rat but I don’t think he would do that.” Victoria really wasn’t sure what she thought about Mark and his plan, she still felt split as to whether he had planned this all along or whether it was just a spur of the moment opportunity he jumped at.

  “Go on then, continue.” Jake’s voice was flat and hard.

  “When I realised Mark had the file I cancelled our dinner arrangements and I went to meet him at the Four Seasons hotel. But he didn’t keep to his end of the bargain and I could see that he wasn’t going to give me the file because by now he had realised how valuable the information in it was to you competitors.”

  “That doesn’t explain how you ended up in his hotel room.” />
  “Yes it does. He stormed out of the restaurant with the file and I followed him upstairs to make a deal and get it back.”

  “What was the deal you struck?”

  Victoria looked at Jake. Seeing him look at her like she meant nothing at all to him was cutting through her heart and she wasn’t sure if she wanted Jake to know just how much she had just given up for him. How much her stupid mistake had cost her. To Jake half of the deposit money for a house in London wasn’t much, probably holiday money for him, but to her it was an absolute fortune and now it was all gone - she had given it all up to save Creative Technology Holdings a real fortune and her job.

  “That doesn’t matter, that is between Mark and me. All that matters is that I got your file back and I made him sign a confidentiality agreement so he cannot speak a word of what he saw and what is in that file.”

  “And this?” Jake put his finger on the other agreement.

  “I had a confidentiality agreement drawn up for myself too at the same time. I didn’t get to sign the agreement your legal department was going to draw up yesterday and I want you to know I would never speak a word of your new product line outside of our professional relationship.”

  Jake looked at the second agreement and then nodded. He wasn’t sure how much he really believed Victoria. He needed time to think about what she said and take another look at the photographs, but right now he couldn’t bring himself to do that. He thought he should have called the police last night and let them deal with Victoria and Mark. Let them investigate it and turn his back on Victoria, but he couldn’t do that. If she had stolen from him it would totally destroy what little trust he had left before now, he would never be able to trust anyone ever again and it would break his heart, but even so he couldn’t call the police on her.

  “So what does this mean now? I know I messed up by leaving my drawer unlocked, and leaving Mark in my office. I know it was my mistake but I really didn’t see all this happening when I was thinking about you at that time. Which I also know was a big mistake too now.” She said with the photograph of Jake and the actress laughing getting into a car together playing in her mind again. Victoria knew she and Jake were finished, if not by this business with the file then by him being with another woman this morning obviously going off to a hotel or back to her place. “But now you know I didn’t steal the file and I was trying to get it back, what will happen with regards to your advertising and marketing account in London with Churchill, Turnbull & French?”

  “Ah, down to what really matters Victoria? Business and your job!”

  “Well let’s face it Jake, we both know that you and I are finished.” She looked at him matter of factly, intent that he didn’t see just how much pain she felt inside - her stomach cramped and her heart felt like burning ice, but her face stayed poker straight and she refused to lose her dignity.

  Jake winced inside, Victoria didn’t sound like she had even the tiniest bit of regret or sadness that they were over, and what they had was now at an end. Maybe he wasn’t so wrong about her after all, but his gut instinct told him she hadn’t plotted to steal the file, that much he was sure of – if she had wanted to do that then she would have taken the file herself and just blamed it on Mark after he left the office, there was no need for Mark to take the file and pass it over to her later. No, he didn’t think Victoria did this, but he still didn’t know what to think of her and Mark, or how much of what she and he had together was real - because he thought it had been something totally amazing.

  Jake’s intercom buzzed - the people for his ten thirty meeting were on their way up to the board room.

  He reached for the intercom, “Hold them off for a few minutes will you Andrea. Give them some coffee or iced tea and some small talk.” Then he turned back to Victoria. “My guests are here so I need to go, but one last thing Victoria. Why didn’t you tell me what was going on? If all this is true then why didn’t you just come to me and tell me Mark had stolen the file, and I could have dealt with it?”

  “How could I? It was my fault he managed to get his hands on my file in the first place, and the best way of getting the file back without anything leaking out was for me to deal with it myself. I hoped if I managed to get the file back then no one would know. You wouldn’t have known. If you brought the police in then Mark might have leaked what was in the file and the details of your new products would have been out, and I know how much money that could have cost your company. Besides, I didn’t know if you would believe me anyway, and by your reaction yesterday I think I was right.”

  “That’s hardly fair, I find you holding one of my most confidential files coming out of a hotel room with your ex-fiancé after cancelling dinner with me for him. What was I supposed to think?”

  “More of me than that!” Victoria walked to the door, there wasn’t much more for her here, “If you don’t want me to work on your account any more then I understand that, but please don’t take your account away from Churchill, Turnbull & French. I have set up some good campaigns for you in London, and they are all ready and waiting for you to give the okay to when you are ready to launch here in the USA. I know I screwed up, but please don’t hold it against the rest of the marketing team in London. I can hand everything over to Gina and it will work like clockwork.”

  Victoria hoped Jake could see the sense in not pulling his account away from them now at such late stage, at least that way she had kept her side of the bargain with Ben Churchill and would at least keep her job with them even if she didn’t get to work on CT Holdings’ account.

  Jake picked up the confidentiality agreements from his desk, shuffled them in his hands giving himself another moment to think, and put them in his drawer, “It’s too late to take this campaign to anyone else, we launch in just over a week and I don’t want any mistakes.”

  “There won’t be, I promise you. Gina is excellent at her job.”

  “No. You stay on this account and make it all happen as if this never did.” Jake said without looking Victoria in the eye.

  Victoria nodded surprised, she thought the last thing Jake would want was her working on his account, but then again it made good business sense since he didn’t know Gina. She sighed with relief – despite feeling like her insides had been ripped apart then chewed around, and having no money or home, now at least she still had her job.

  “I think there’s nothing more for us to say, and you can liaise with Andrea in the future for our campaigns.” Jake said as he stood up.

  Jake’s words stung like a thousand bees. So she was being dismissed and now he was telling her she was never going to see or hear from him again! She wanted to scream at him! Ask him how he could dismiss what they had so easily? She knew it had obviously meant less to Jake than her, but the way they made love and the times they spent together just talking and being close together must had meant something because she felt that connection between them, and she thought he had too.

  Victoria walked to the door and paused, “By the way Jake, how did you know I was at the Four Seasons hotel last night?” Victoria asked making Jake look back at her.

  A knock came at Jake’s door and Bruno opened it, “You asked to see me Mr Cumberland.”

  “Yes, wait outside please Bruno.” He nodded and stepped back outside closing the door behind him leaving Victoria and Jake alone in the office once again.

  “I had Mark followed when he left this office. Something didn’t feel right about why he was here so I asked Bruno to keep him under surveillance. Bruno phoned me last night when you were at the hotel and sent me some photographs.”

  “Fair enough I suppose, but then you will also know that what I told you is true. And on the subject of photographs telling the truth Jake, I guess we both got things wrong about each other didn’t we?” Victoria said as she opened the door and walked out.

  Jake stood still behind his desk and looked at the closed door as he tried to ignore the emptiness which consumed him - what did Victoria mean by tha
t? Then he heard his intercom buzz again, it was Andrea reminding him his guests were waiting and getting impatient.

  “Fine, I am on my way.” Jake said as he walked out of his office. He turned to Bruno who was sitting on one of the chairs outside his office door and nodded for Bruno to follow him “Bruno.”

  “Yes Mr Cumberland.” He said keeping in pace with his boss as Jake walked to the lift.

  “I want hard copies of those photographs and a full report on my desk by lunchtime.”

  “Yes sir.” Bruno said thinking he would make sure all the relevant information was going to be included within that report.

  Victoria walked into her office and put her bag down on her desk. She sat down in her chair and looked at her desk drawer. So much had happened in less than twenty four hours and she needed a few minutes to take it all in. Yesterday morning she was looking forward to dinner with what she had thought was the man of her dreams – her incredibly sexy amazing lover and one of the nicest men she had ever met. And now this morning none of that existed, even if it ever had!

  Victoria opened up her laptop and typed in ‘American Airlines’. There was nothing that needed to be done here which couldn’t be done in London now, and it was time to go home. She scanned the available flights and saw there were still a few seats available in business class on the flight leaving Miami for London that afternoon. She wondered if she could make it, she had just under five hours until she needed to be at Miami International Airport. Then she looked around her and realised that nothing was keeping her here anymore. Picking up the few files Victoria would need she slipped them inside her bag and picked up her laptop. Hastily she scribbled a note to Andrea leaving her office contact number in London and put it into an envelope and headed downstairs.