Deception_A Secret Billionaire Romance

by Lexi Whitlow

  “I’m sorry, Akeeb, this will have to wait,” I say. “I have to get to New York as soon as possible.”

  He looks alarmed. “Of course, my friend. Is there anything I can do to assist you?”

  “I could really use your laptop for the next hour.” I take a deep breath. “I’ve got a lot of work to do, and if I screw it up, I may lose everything.”

  The co-pilot breaks my concentration with the announcement that we’re beginning our descent into LaGuardia. I sit back and rub my eyes; I’ve been staring at my laptop screen for the better part of a day at this point.

  It took almost four hours to charter a private jet from Lagos to Madrid, then two hours in the air, then another charter to New York City. This is going to put me two days behind the story by the time I land, and I’m already exhausted. Worst of all is that Sarah’s not returning my calls. I even asked Nathan to try approaching her, but there’s a wall of silence around PinkBook right now. Not that I blame her—when you’re under siege you circle the wagons.

  I was able to dig up what was happening, and I spent hours on the flight kicking myself for not seeing it sooner. Lawrence somehow found an investor to pony up the money for a massive stock grab, which is why he worked so hard to make the company look bad. He’s been in the ears of dozens of major shareholders, telling them he’s willing to buy their shares if they want to jump ship. I can just imagine the pitch: his family is in it for the good of the city, and they believe in long-term investment, so they’re not worried about turning a profit right now. He makes himself look like the hero by taking their worthless shares off their hands, likely via a shell corporation.

  It’s a hostile takeover, plain and simple. I should know: it’s been my stock in trade for years now. And for the first time, I’m seeing it from the other side.

  And the woman I love is caught in the crossfire.

  I sigh and run my fingers through my hair. The thought has been eating at me since I first read Nathan’s email. I used to think that I was doing people a favor by dismantling failing companies. Only the strong survive, and that applies in business even more than in nature. Or so I thought. When I imagined all of Akeeb’s relatives being put out of work by shutting down the refinery, I didn’t think about profit margin, I thought about how devastated their families must have been. To lose your livelihood, your ability to provide for your family, must leave you with a horrible feeling that you’ve lost control of your life.

  If anyone should understand that, it’s me. But I pushed it down inside me with every billion I made. I thought that, if I just had enough money, I could erase the kid that I used to be and finally become a man so powerful that no one could possibly push me around ever again.

  And all it cost me was everything worthwhile in life.

  Finding Sarah has shown me that business isn’t just numbers, profit and loss. Wealth isn’t measured by private helicopters and smart homes that automatically flush the toilet for you. Wealth has to be about people. I have more money than anyone could spend in ten lifetimes, and yet, until I found her, I had no real joy in my life. Your mantel may be covered in trophies, but if you don’t have anyone to remember the games with, what value do they have?

  And if you don’t have the woman of your dreams by your side, what good is money?

  I buckle in and close my laptop as the jet begins to circle towards the airport. I’ve put everything into place that I can think of, but I don’t know it it’s going to work. All I know is that, if it doesn’t work, I may lose the only thing in the world that really means anything to me.

  21

  Sarah

  What are we prepared to do, Sarah?”

  Jenna asks the question that’s been eating up my every thought for the last forty-eight hours, as if it had never occurred to me. I want to lash out at her for it, but I see the anguish in her face and quickly realize she’s just as stressed as I am. We founded this company together, and PinkBook is as much her as it is me.

  We’re in my office with the other Gang members and a team of lawyers, poring over options and possibilities. But with each passing hour, the news gets worse, and our options shrink.

  “Where are we at now?” I ask Leanne, the head of our legal department. The others suggested bringing in expert counsel from outside, but I told them that PinkBook is its people, and I trust them. That includes Leanne.

  “Stock is at its lowest point yet,” she says. Her tone is businesslike, but I can tell she’s as worried as we are. “If it continues like this, whoever is buying has the advantage. I’d guess that we’re looking at a position where they’ll be able to take the majority of shares by end of day today.”

  I let out a heavy sigh. “And there’s no way we can raise capital to counter it ourselves?”

  “Not in the amount of time we have. And, to be honest, Sarah, you’d have a hard time finding a lender willing to overlook that data breach. It was the kiss of death.”

  “And we still don’t know who’s taking up these shares?”

  She shakes her head. “This shell corporation will remain in play throughout. Whoever is behind it will eventually have to make themselves known if they want to take control of the board, but until then, it’s anyonymous.”

  Tillie puts a hand on my arm. “I hate to say it, Sarah, but I think you have to just accept the fact that Justin is the one behind this.”

  I round on her, feeling my chest blaze at the suggestion. But when I see the look in Jenna’s and Candice’s eyes, it’s clear that they’re wondering themselves.

  And tell the truth, Sarah—aren’t you wondering, too?

  “I won’t believe that,” I say. “I can’t.”

  “I’m just saying it was an awfully convenient time for him to take off to Africa and break communication,” says Millie. “And you still haven’t heard from him.”

  “Leanne won’t let me!” I cry. “All communications in and out have been shut off.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” says Leanne. “We can’t have people leaking anything more out of this office, and I don’t want any distracting information coming in until this crisis is over. I have lines to the outside, and all inquiries in are being funneled to my team here. Everything else is secondary.”

  My stomach feels like I’ve swallowed acid. I desperately don’t want to believe that Justin is behind this, but I just can’t be sure. And through all of this, I don’t know what we can do to save the company. No matter who becomes the major shareholder, it’s going to mean changes to PinkBook. The four of us will be out, and I have no idea what will become of the company. Or us.

  “What if we just sell our own shares?” asks Candice. “We can still save our own skins, can’t we?”

  She can’t meet my eyes when I turn to look at her. Even Jenna is staring down at the carpet.

  “You really want to just abandon ship?” I ask. There’s no anger in my voice, no accusation. Just sadness.

  “What other choice do we have?” Jenna croaks, trying to fight back tears. “We built everything we have into the company, and if we don’t do something now, we won’t just lose it, our shares will be almost worthless. We’ll have nothing left to show for any of it.”

  Leanne gives us a grave look. “I hate to say this, but Jenna is right. The shares will continue to drop in price, but you also have to keep in mind the fact that the shares you four have will essentially be worthless at the end of this. Once there’s a new majority shareholder controlling the company, your shares will be worth something on paper, but they’re only worth something in real life if you have a buyer.”

  “And no one will touch a raided company with a ten-foot pole,” I say, my lips numb.

  One of Leanne’s lawyers cradles the receiver after a brief phone conversation.

  “Two more senior project managers have walked out,” he says. “That makes six members of the executive staff so far.”

  My stomach churns. To believe for so long that we were a family, only to see it all fall apa
rt like this. Worst of all is that I finally realize that this is the kind of chaos that Justin has fed on his entire career. It’s how he’s been able to build his tower of gold—a tower that’s as empty as my heart feels right now.

  “There is another option,” says Millie. “But it’s not ideal.”

  “Go ahead,” I say. “If there was ever a time for a Hail Mary, this is it.”

  “I could buy your shares from you.”

  The three of us look at her, dumbfounded.

  “What are you talking about?” Jenna asks.

  “I’ve got money,” says Millie. “Tim’s been doing well in the market for a few years, and I’d be willing to buy your stock at the price we’re at now. I’m willing to just be a shareholder in the restructured company; I mean, it’s a given that they’re going to force us out. At least this way, you’ll walk away from the situation with something instead of nothing.”

  I can see Candice doing the math in her head. “It would be a fraction of what the shares were worth six months ago.”

  Tillie flashes an angry scowl. “But a hell of a lot more than they’ll be worth at the end of the day! If you don’t want to do it, then fine! I was just trying to save you from being ruined!”

  My heart is kicking like a mule in my chest right now. All our years of hard work, the nights where we’d order in pizza and do coding until the sunrise, laughing and dreaming together. And this is what we’ve come to, all because some bastard wants what’s ours. Suddenly the life I left behind in Indiana seems idyllic by comparison. You prospered by the sweat of your brow, and no one could take away what you had.

  I look to Candice and Jenna, and the fear in their eyes is probably mirrored in my own. Something or possibly nothing? The lady or the tiger?

  “This has always been a democracy,” I say, swallowing back tears. “We only do this if we’re united. Agreed?”

  They look at each other, then back to me, nodding.

  “What the hell?”

  Leanne’s voice cuts into the moment, jarring me out of my thoughts.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “Forget it for now,” Millie snaps. “We’re brokering a deal. What are you three going to do? The price is only going to keep dropping.”

  I ignore her and take a seat next to her at the conference table. The numbers are whizzing by on the screen of her laptop, and she’s reading them like Neo read the Matrix code.

  “What is it, Leanne? Another threat?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, frowning at the screen. “There’s a new buyer coming in.”

  “A new one?”

  “Another shell corporation is sweeping up shares, almost as if its competing with the other one. And it’s driving the prices back up.”

  “What?” Millie blurts. I look up to see the color draining from her face. “That can’t be right.”

  “The first buyer is slowing down,” she says. “They’re surprised by the move, too. The price might be getting too high for them.”

  My head is spinning at all this. “What does it all mean, Leanne?”

  “It means that there’s a fight going on for PinkBook,” she says. “And it looks like the different sides really don’t like each other.”

  She stares at the screen in silence, giving us updates, for the next half hour. Millie tries once more to buy our shares, but the three of us continue to ignore her. We want to see how this turns out.

  “I think it’s over,” Leanne says finally. “The price has stabilized and the buy-up is over.”

  “So what exactly happened?” I ask, baffled.

  “Two sides fought, and it looks like one side ran out of money. Or guts. Maybe both. The selloff has ended, which means people regained some confidence in the stock at the end. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that the initial buyer’s plan to tank the stock failed.”

  “It had to have been Justin Lucas!” Millie cries. “Who else could it have been?”

  Jenna and Candice share a glance that makes me wonder if they agree.

  “It could have been Darryl Lawrence,” I say, but even as I do, it falls hollow.

  “He doesn’t have the money for that,” says Candice. “He was trying to raise capital all over town to save his company from being taken over by Justin.”

  “How do you know they weren’t in on it together?” Millie asks, her eyes frantic. “What if their feud was really just a way to get into PinkBook, destabilize it and pull it out from under us?”

  The floor seems to move under my feet as the realization strikes home. What Millie is saying makes a sick sort of sense.

  “My God,” Candice breathes. “What if—what if everything with Darryl was just him trying to stop Justin’s takeover of his own company? What if Justin agreed to let him off the hook if Darryl brought him PinkBook instead?”

  I drop hard against the edge of my desk, sending a jolt of pain up from my buttocks into my lower back. My breathing is sluggish and makes me feel like I’m drowning.

  “It makes sense,” says Millie. “Justin played you from the beginning. He plaid me and Tim, too. All of us. My offer still stands.”

  Leanne sidles up to me at my desk and puts a hand on my shoulder.

  “What do you want to do now, Sarah?”

  God help me, I just don’t know. And it’s tearing me apart inside.

  22

  Justin

  Evelyn at reception looks like a deer in the headlights as I step off the elevator into the PinkBook reception area.

  “Uhm,” she says. “Mr. Lucas. Hello.”

  “I need to see Ms. Bauer,” I say. “It’s urgent.”

  “Yeah, uhm, she’s kind of busy—”

  “Whatever it is, this is more important.”

  A man in a grey suit and a severe haircut appears beside me.

  “Mr. Lucas, PinkBook’s lawyers are asking that all guests reschedule their appointments today. This is an extraordinary circumstance.”

  I bite back the comment that wants to come out and take a deep breath. He’s a lawyer, I tell myself. It’s what they do.

  “I understand that,” I say. “But if I don’t get in to see Sarah Bauer, there may not be a PinkBook left after today.”

  He must see something in my expression, because he picks up the reception phone and dials. A few moments later, he waves me towards her office.

  “I’ll accompany you, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t care if you ride piggyback as long as I get to talk to her.”

  Sarah’s office is chock-a-block with people, most of whom I don’t recognize, but they all have one thing in common: they’re staring daggers at me as I walk in.

  “Get out of here!” Millie shouts, her eyes blazing. “I’m calling security!”

  I rush to Sarah, but she pulls away and won’t make eye contact. Even though I was expecting it, I can’t believe how much it hurts to be spurned like that.

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch—”

  “I’d appreciate it if you spoke to me, Mr. Lucas.” A middle-aged woman in a brown suit stands and positions herself between me and Sarah. “I’m Leanne Addison, PinkBook’s chief counsel. I’ve been monitoring all incoming and outgoing communication for the past twenty-four hours.”

  “Then if you check, you’ll see I’ve emailed and called numerous times,” I say. “I assume you’ve been monitoring the meltdown?”

  “Of course.”

  “I was behind the second stock sweep. And I kept on buying when the price started to rise.”

  “Bullshit!” Millie barks. “You were behind both of them! You used two shell corporations to double your stock and stabilize the price! You bought at rock-bottom, then you manipulated the price to drive it back up! That’s a felony!”

  “Millie, please,” Leanne urges, then turns back to me. “It’s a valid point, Mr. Lucas. How do you respond?”

  Every instinct in me is telling me to take control of the situation, and intimidate these people int
o doing what I want. It’s been my modus operandi for years, and it’s made me wealthy beyond imagining. And yet my heart keeps telling me that these people are confused and scared, and one of them is the person I never, ever want to see that way ever again.

  “I appreciate what you’ve all been through,” I say. “But you’re wrong about this. I believe that a shell corporation under Darryl Lawrence’s control was behind everything that happened at the start of day today, and that Lawrence himself was responsible for every leak that led to the destabilization in the first place. As soon as I figured out what was going on, I created a corporation of my own to counter him; unfortunately, I had to build it on a transatlantic flight with spotty internet service, so it didn’t get into the game until much later than I wanted. But the end result is that the stock finally rallied, and Lawrence didn’t get what he wanted.”

  Sarah finally turns to me, and I immediately wish she hadn’t. The hurt in her eyes is almost too much to bear.

  “You bought the shares?” she asks quietly. “You tried to steal our company away from us?”

  “I tried to keep it from being stolen by Darryl! Don’t you see that?”

  “Just one more lie!” says Millie. She takes a breath to continue her tirade, but I silence her with a raised finger and the coldest glare I can muster.

  “Do not say that again,” I warn. “I won’t stand here and have someone accuse me of trying to ruin the woman I love. Do you hear me?”

  Apparently they do, because the whole room goes silent. They’re all staring at me.

  Then I realize what I just said.

  Sarah’s eyes are saucers. “Justin, I—” She turns away again. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  “Believe that,” I say, my soul as naked as it’s ever been. “If you only believe one single thing I’ve ever told you, believe that I love you.”