by Claire Adams
“I do think I should head into the office and see if there is anything I need to do. I can’t afford to lose my job.”
The reality of my situation was still there. No matter how much fun I was having with Brandon, and even if I knew the message had not been sent from him, I needed my job. To keep my job, I had to ensure that no other accounts were affected.
“I understand. Is there anything I can help with?”
“Figure out why this person would come through the Dating the Rich app to get to you. That would be very helpful.”
“I’m on it,” he laughed. “I’ll let you know if I figure anything out.”
“Have you met anyone else off the site?” I hated to ask, but it seemed like a logical connection if he was being targeted through it.
“No, I’ve answered some messages through there, but I hadn’t set up a date with anyone except you. Del, ask me anything – I will answer you truthfully I promise.”
“Where did you meet women at before you joined the dating site?”
“At bars and the usual spots like that.”
“All right, I’ll see what I can find out. I suggest you think back through the women you’ve had in your life and see which one has a broken heart. Hatred like this comes from love. Whoever is targeting you is close to you in some way – maybe a friend, ex-lover, or some other person that has a stake in the game. People don’t just come after a person so intimately unless there is something in it for them.”
“Okay,” he said quietly. “I just don’t want you to worry about it too much. Get your work stuff in order and I’ll handle the rest. And if you get anymore messages from the dating app, it is not me. I am going to delete the account right away.”
“I’ll talk to you later,” I said as I gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Call me tomorrow and we can talk about what we were able to find out. I don’t want to be worried about you all week long.”
He grabbed me and held on like he wasn’t going to let me go. I was perfectly fine with it. Being needed by someone other than my son was a feeling that had evaded me for years, yet it flashed through me like a familiar love I welcomed and felt at home with.
“I’ll see you sometime this week, won’t I?”
“Call me and we can make some plans, but take care of yourself and this mess. I can’t have you getting arrested for all this illegal activity you’re doing,” I joked.
Brandon walked me downstairs and waited with me while he called an Uber to pick me up. He had offered to drive me to the office, but I was fine with the car coming to get me. There was a lot running through my head and I needed to step away from Brandon before I was going to get it all straight.
“I’ll call you. Take care of yourself, and please let me know if you get any other weird messages. I’m worried that someone out there has the capacity to cause some real harm in my life and actually get me arrested.”
“Okay, will do,” I said and climbed into the Uber as said my goodbyes.
While the car pulled away, I replayed his last words to me in my head.
People who didn’t commit illegal acts weren’t afraid of getting arrested. I know that was the case for me. Even if someone was after me, or hated me, I never would think that I could get arrested because I didn’t commit crimes. My gut said there was more to this story, and I didn’t like it one bit.
Chapter Sixteen
Brandon
“I’m one hundred percent certain that someone is after me, and it isn’t the SEC.”
I had been reluctant to think that all the things that had been happening to me were on purpose; that just wasn’t the type of person I was. I gave people the benefit of the doubt for as long as possible before I gave in and started to think the worst of them.
Over the years, I’d had weird things happen before, and they were mostly chalked up to coincidences and other very lame reasons. Most people around me thought the worst of situations and I had paid them to think that way. My executives at my company had to always be planning for the worst and preparing for how they would handle things. Their preparation made it easier for me to look for the positives in situations, which was my job as the CEO.
Now things were different, though, and this was personal. Someone was clearly attacking me personally and possibly going after my financial accounts, as well. As much as I hated to think the worst, that message directed at Del had me thinking all sorts of crazy things.
“I’ve had my friend looking into things and he’s not finding much – which is both a good thing and a bad thing, I guess. He said there is no investigation into you, at least none that he could find.” Josh looked disappointed at the revelation.
“So, what does this all mean?”
“It means that you’ve pissed someone off who’s capable of some serious shit.”
“What do you mean?”
“Either you really aren’t under investigation and that was a real life bad guy who showed up at your door, or you are under investigation and it’s under some sort of clearance.”
Josh had a point, and it was exactly what I had been thinking. I’d been replaying my last few relationships, thinking about the women who I might have wronged and even thinking about the business partnerships I’d been part of. Nothing came to my mind. Was it possible I was so out of touch that I actually didn’t even realize who I had hurt? It was looking more and more like that was the case.
I only trusted Josh and a few other very close people in my life. It shouldn’t be too hard to find who was doing these things because I kept my circle of friends rather close and didn’t let new people in very often.
Many of the wealthy, young guys I knew did a horrible job of keeping their lifestyle quiet. They were throwing parties every weekend and buying bottles of champagne when they went to the clubs. I wasn’t like that. I didn’t live my life like that.
Whether I was poor like I had been growing up, or rich like I was now, I liked my semi-quiet lifestyle and wasn’t too flashy about it. Yes, sometimes I went out with the guys and got a VIP room and splurged, but I wasn’t being plastered across the tabloids like the others, and I was pretty damn proud of that.
“Del said something to me that made a lot of sense. Whoever is doing this has some seriously hurt feelings and that means it has to be a woman I’ve had a relationship with. There’s not a dude out there who would go to this level of trouble if I pissed him off. Guys are much more likely to just punch me in the face.”
“What about a guy who was with the girl you hurt?”
“Like a new boyfriend? Why would any self-respecting guy bother? No, it’s got to be a woman. Maybe she’s capable of manipulating a man into doing what she wants him to, but it’s a woman behind all of this.”
“What about your ex-wife?” he asked.
It was a reasonable question, but Josh didn’t know Rose like I knew her. She and I got along much better now that we were divorced than we ever got along while married. Rose didn’t have anything to be upset with me about, either; we had decided to separate mutually. Sure, she was hurt and angry because our dreams of a happily ever after life ended, but it was so long before that I couldn’t imagine that she would still be angry enough to mess with my life.
Rose and I had been separated for several years by this point; it didn’t seem likely that she would suddenly start trying to chase after me or cause trouble in my life. My gut was saying the person causing issues was highly skilled in computers, and that wasn’t Rose – she could barely log into her cell phone without help.
“No way. We get along fine. I don’t see a reason for it.”
“How about that you sold your company for over a billion dollars and didn’t give her any of it? If I was an ex-wife, I’d be pretty pissed off that my husband sold his company only a few years after our divorce and didn’t give me any of that money. She supported you when you were poor and then you waited until the divorce to run off with all the money,” Josh said dramatically as he waved his hands around and p
retended to be an upset ex-wife.
“No, that’s not what happened. I was still running my company when we divorced. I hadn’t even imagined I would sell the company. She’s not angry about that. Anyways, she’s getting remarried soon, so there’s nothing to worry about with her.”
“I don’t know, man. That new guy of hers seems shady to me. I definitely don’t think he works for the government. He reminds me a lot more of that thick-necked thug who showed up here than of a professional who has a government job.”
“She said he does undercover work. Who am I to argue about what he does? I don’t really care, as long as he treats her right. I don’t like the guy, but he doesn’t seem interested in revenge.”
“And, you don’t think an ass wipe like him couldn’t cook all of this up to get back at you? I’ve seen guys do some pretty crazy things for the women they love.”
“Josh, there’s no point in it. There has to be a strong motivation, and as much as I don’t like Carlos, there’s nothing between the two of us. He is moving on with my ex-wife and I’m happy for them. What purpose would any of this have for him? I just don’t see it.
“I think we need to look up that girl Kimberly I picked up last month. She tried calling me at least a dozen times after my night with her. You should have heard the nasty voicemail messages she left.”
“A one-night stand isn’t going to go to this sort of trouble for you, though, dude. I mean, you might be a good catch, but would she really freak out this much?”
“There could be others. I’ve pissed off a lot of girls, I’m sure. They hide it well and not many go to the trouble of leaving nasty voicemails, but I know there are some angry women out there.”
The truth was, I knew there were some hurt feelings in my relationships recently. I didn’t want to think about how I’d hurt these girls, but if I was being honest with myself, I knew I had. Some of the women I’d brought home would talk about going on dates with me in the future, they’d laugh about how their family would freak out if they met me; I ignored all that talk. When our night of fun was over, I moved on and expected that eventually they would, as well. I stayed oblivious to the knowledge of how any of the women actually moved on. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to feel bad.
“Okay, I’m going to get my buddy working on it some more. Did you end up going to the police or your lawyer?”
“Nope, I think we need to handle this. It’s sounding like scare tactics and no actual threats. I’m not too worried about it.”
It was a lie.
I was worried about all that was going on, not because I cared if someone hated me, but I cared that they had contacted Delilah. She was the only good thing that had happened in my life in a very long time, and I wasn’t going to let whoever was behind all of this get between what she and I were building. When they contacted Del, that was the last straw. I wasn’t going to hold anything back; I was coming after them.
“Let me call him and see if he can just come over and talk to us. I think you and he can work together and figure out what the best next step is. He’s been around some crazy shit as a private investigator; he knows a lot and nothing really surprises him.”
“Sounds good.”
He called in a favor with his friend and the guy arrived at my house less than two hours later. His hipster suit made Josh’s friend look more like a marketing agent than any sort of investigator – but I didn’t know any investigators, so I had no idea what they were supposed to look like.
Being a billionaire had its advantages. When you called someone and wanted to hire them for a job, those people dropped everything else to come make you happy. It was a perk of my fortune and I knew it, but I still really liked it. I probably hadn’t had to wait longer than a couple hours for anything since the sale of my company; I was getting spoiled by my wealth and I felt it.
Yet, I wasn’t going to be the person to tell people to treat me like everyone else. Who wanted to be treated like everyone else? If that happened, I’d be ignored and pushed off for weeks or months and nothing would ever get done.
“Hey, I’m Billy Stalling. I hear you’ve got an issue on your hands.”
“You can say that. I’m not sure how much of my current issues are connected or not. It could all be connected, or maybe none of it at all.”
I went on to describe all the strange things that had come up in the recent weeks. Each issue on its own seemed to be no big deal, except maybe the large man in the suit who had shown up at my house. But when I said them all aloud, they started to sound like I had a rather large problem building up that could explode at any moment.
I told him about the women in my life, the business partners, friends I’d talked to recently, and everything else I could think of. Josh chimed in and filled in details where I skimped and the investigator took notes the whole time. When we had finished telling him about everything, Billy looked through his notes and underlined areas before turning toward me to ask some more questions.
“Tell me about the girl who works at Dating the Rich,” Billy said while he wrote down some more notes.
“She’s a great girl. Funny, easy to talk to, she’s a lot like me. I don’t know, what do you want to know?”
“All these issues seemed to start popping up when you met her. What part could she be playing in all of this?” His question hit me in the gut like a sucker punch. I hadn’t expected him to question Del or her motives. She was such a kind person, so loving and devoted to her family. I absolutely didn’t think she had anything to do with the mess that was going on.
“What? No. Why would she have anything to do with this?” I said defensively. “Delilah is a widow, she takes care of her son all by herself, and she’s by far one of the best women I’ve ever dated.”
“Please know I don’t mean any offence here. I’m hired to dig into everyone and figure out what’s going on. From what I know about Dating the Rich, there is a large following of women who are scam artists. I’m not saying this girl is; she could very well be exactly who you say she is. I’m just letting you know I’ll need to include her in my investigation.”
My eyes darted over to Josh, and I knew he was in agreement with his friend. Josh had been warning me about the website and Del since I first started talking to him about it. I understood their concerns. Sure, there were women on the site that were trying to land themselves a rich man and would do anything necessary to make it happen.
I knew Del, though. I knew her better than either of these guys and she wasn’t like that. She hadn’t joined the website to hook up with guys; she was simply doing her job when I’d messaged her.
“I messaged her. She didn’t reach out and contact me. She didn’t chase after me or try to get me to ask her out. It was my initiation that started our contact. She was even here with me when one of the messages was sent to her. She showed it to me in her email. This is not Del causing all of this. I know it.”
“Did she have an overly provocative profile picture up?” Billy asked.
Josh raised his eyebrows at me and mouthed the words, “I told you.” He had told me, and I didn’t think he was right then – and I still didn’t. Delilah wasn’t that kind of woman. She was honest and kind, not a manipulator like they were making her out to be.
My blood pressure was rising the more we talked about everything that was going on. We were wasting time by turning the questioning to Del; instead, Billy needed to be getting information on the other women I had recently dated.
Love life decisions weren’t always my best decisions. I was much better at making business decisions.
In business, there was an ability to keep everything neutral. Numbers guided my decisions in the business world. With numbers, you had a right and wrong answer. Sure, there were different ways of analyzing the numbers, but I still felt very confident in making these decisions.
I was not as confident in my love life. My gut was a soggy mess when it came to falling in love. I knew it and had protected myself fr
om that mess for years. But as Billy mentioned the possibility that Delilah wasn’t who she said she was, I couldn’t imagine what that heartbreak would do to me.
Normally, my confidence in my own opinion was high enough to squash anyone who got in my way. I wouldn’t have thought a moment longer about the ideas that Billy and Josh had brought up regarding Del.
But since losing my son, I had a distinct lack of confidence in my own ability to see things when they were going wrong. I hadn’t seen his illness in time to make an effective fight against it and that devastated me and my trust in my decision-making skills.
“Yes, she had a bikini photo,” I reluctantly answered Billy’s question. “But that doesn’t mean anything. I know her. I know she’s not involved.”
“I’ll research her, if that’s all right with you? Nothing more than doing a little background work. It’s highly possible that everything about her checks out just fine and we will move on to looking at the other people we’ve mentioned.”
“Fine, research her,” I said as the anger built up inside of me. “Research whoever you want. I don’t care. I just want to go back to my normal life. I just want to not have to worry about this stuff anymore.”
“It will only take me about twenty-four hours to get the preliminary data, but it could be as long as a week to get it all. I’ve got a lot of contacts within the FBI; I’ll be able to find out if there is any real investigation. But so far, I think this is probably something more personal.”
“I need details. Don’t come back to me with half-assed answers; I only want to hear about the details if you have strong proof. Do you understand? If this is someone close to me, I’m not going to confront them or make a big scene if I don’t have hard evidence.”
