Page 6 of Mr. Billionaire's Second Chance

Chapter Two

Preston

I walked into my uncle’s office to find Mr. William Wolfe typing away at his computer, sipping on his espresso like it wasn’t the middle of the day. He looked up and gave me one of his charming smiles.

“You look surprisingly calm, uncle. Do you know about the meeting I just had?” I asked.

“My assistant informed me. Come on, Preston. This kind of thing always happens when a business becomes so damn prestigious people just can’t handle it anymore. Welcome to the big boy’s table. There’s going to be a lot more problems where this came from, I can tell you that. You just need to make sure you’re not losing sleep over it. Your father dealt with this kind of thing so many times in his life. You’ll be fine.”

“Personally, I’ll be fine, sure. But do you know what’s going to happen to this company if word about this gets out? This was my father’s business, William. I care about this company more than the others.”

“Calm down, Preston. We’ve been doing things by the books. We don’t cut corners, and no one is stealing anything. Besides, I heard the girl they sent isn’t even qualified to conduct this sort of thing. It seems to me like you really don’t have anything to worry about,” said William.

“Who did this? We need to find out and fast. If this investigation gets into the wrong hands, they’ll find something that wasn’t there to begin with. You know how this goes. We can be doing everything right and they can still find enough to sink us,” I responded, shaking my head.

“I’ll find out. Look, I don’t want you worrying about this. From what I heard, she seems like your type. I’m sure you can charm her, distract her long enough so she wraps this up pretty quickly.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“Why not? You can’t be losing your touch this early in the game, Preston. You’re a Clarke after all.”

“So are you, even though you prefer your mother’s name.”

“Believe it or not, she had more stature than my father ever did. Look, I don’t want to discuss family business now. Whatever happened, you know that I loved your father as a real brother. Now, tell me why exactly you can’t just wine and dine this one until she forgets all about her little job.”

“I was seeing her for some time a few months ago. Things were fun for a while, but I uh, I never called her back,” I admitted.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. You’ve been down this road many times before. Toss a few gifts her way, maybe some flowers. She’ll come crawling right back.”

“I’m not sure that’s going to work this time.”

“Well, it better work, because I heard she’s getting the corner office. If we don’t do this right, this is going to be one hell of an audit. I'll tell you that,” said William.

I sat in the bar of my apartment building that evening with a glass of scotch in hand, trying to figure out which one of our competitors could be responsible for this. I knew I’d have to do a little digging of my own to find out exactly what they all knew because if Katherine managed to find anything before I did, I’d be fucked. I wanted to be angry, to tell her off for stepping foot into my office trying to take control, but I couldn’t. She was too damn beautiful and too damn distracting for me to even get a word in edgewise.

I knew that if I ruffled her feathers a little too much she’d be more inclined than she already was to find something worth taking to her client. And her client had to be someone from the inside, a member of the board or an executive, nobody from the outside had the authority to order an audit. It dawned on me then that she knew exactly who had called this in, but getting her to give them up would be too difficult with the way things were now. Maybe William’s right. Maybe I need to get close enough to her, mend the colossal bridge between us, and then she may just tell me what I need to know. I can’t let this be the reason I lose my father’s company.

If she found anything incriminating it wouldn’t just be the loss I’d have to worry about, but I’d have jail time to deal with too. I finished the last of my scotch before ordering another, and that’s when I heard a familiar voice approach from behind me.

“Preston Clarke.”

“Chris? What are you doing here, man?” I asked. I was happy to see a familiar face after the day I’d had.

“I came to see you. I got into town a few hours ago. Business as usual. I heard about what’s been going on down at the office,” he said.

“There’s no way. It’s barely been a day since this shit started and people are already talking about it?”

“Sharks love to talk. Word has already reached Miami. Looks like you’re going to need to line up a few people to fire because someone’s got a damn big mouth,” said Chris.

“I’ll deal with it.”

“You’re going to need another drink. Then I’ll tell you where I heard this from.”

The waitress came around to bring us both more whiskey. It was finally starting to hit me now, and for that I was glad. I didn’t want to think about this anymore, but I needed to figure out where this leak was coming from.

“Leave the bottle,” I told the waitress. Her eyes widened at me, but she nodded, leaving with the empty tray at her side.

“You going to tell me which one of my employees I need to be worried about? I mean, it’s already too late if the word’s out,” I said, gulping down every last bit of my drink.

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