Page 32 of My Cruel Billionaire

“I mean, we might as well share everything with the teams, including the things we haven’t told them about this merger yet.”

“Oh,” I said, with sudden understanding. “Yes, maybe you’re right. Maybe it is time.”

I knew what he meant. There was one last batch of secret documents we had been holding back from our teams. Now, Evan wanted to share them with the teams. Share them with Jenna, by proxy.

My reluctance was mostly feigned. Inside, I felt a swell of excitement at the thought of working with Jenna again. Such a heady rush of emotion shocked me to my core. I didn’t normally feel that way, for anyone or any reason.

I got up and went to the huge watercolor painting of lilies on a verdant pond. There was a group of ducks on the pond, but if you looked closely there was a fox lurking in the reeds. A lot of the time, I imagined I was the fox.

I pulled the painting outward and it swung on a mechanical armature, revealing a hidden wall safe. I placed my finger on the scanner to get my prints recorded, and then punched in the security code.

The safe popped open without a sound and swung out with ghostly quiet. I reached inside to retrieve the rest of the documents.

Only to find the safe was empty.

Chapter Eleven

Jenna

“What do you mean, stolen?”

My voice echoed loudly off the walls of Michael’s office. Michael’s team sat across from my own, and all of them sort of looked shocked. Even more shocked than they had when the news of the merger were leaked to the press.

Michael’s expression remained as stony as a gargoyle hanging from the side of a church in gothic Europe. When he spoke, he could have been talking about the daily specials at the local diner rather than an act of corporate espionage. His tone was that calm.

“There was a set of documents stolen from my office. Currently we don’t have any clue about who may have perpetrated this act, but that’s a concern for the police, not this team. Our business is the merger.”

He tossed a thick file folder onto the glossy table. It landed with a perfunctory thud. The file seemed to be heavier than it actually was.

“What’s that?” Trent asked, squinting his eyes at the folder.

“That is as much of what had been contained in the stolen file as Evan Jones could supply from his end. It’s much thinner than the files which were stolen. It will be up to us to recompile all of the missing documents and restore what we have lost.”

“Is that even possible?” Joestar asked, stroking his graying beard.

“We will have to make it possible,” Chad said firmly, then looked up at Michael like a dog seeking praise for being a good boy. Michael ignored him as far as I could tell, and Chad soon dropped his gaze back to the table.

“We are in crisis management mode now,” Michael said. “The best we can do is minimize the damage caused by this theft.”

Joestar heaved a long sigh and shook his head.

“I just don’t understand.” His wizened face crinkled into a look of confusion. “I mean, how could this happen? Don’t you have security? And I would imagine the combination to your safe isn’t one, two, three, four, five or anything ridiculous like that?”

My lips twisted into a tight grimace. The way I remembered it, Michael didn’t trust anyone. DTA he used to say by way of abbreviation. Don’t Trust Anyone.

Michael was so paranoid about not trusting anyone but himself that he never wanted to allow cameras or recording devices, or remote-controlled locks anywhere. The only way to access things was in person. Meaning that there are no recordings of the person who cracked the safe.

One of the things we’d never seen eye to eye on in the past was this core belief of his that he couldn’t trust anyone. It sure looked as if he had not changed a bit in the last five years.

And yet, when we had sex, things had felt different. He seemed more engaged, more… intimate. I couldn’t reconcile the dichotomy of how tender he could be when making love with how ruthless and cold-blooded he was the rest of the time.

“I’m sorry, Joe,” I said, catching Joestar’s attention… and coming to Michael’s rescue. “With all respect, Michael’s security protocols are none of our concern.”

Joestar’s lips formed an inverted U as he digested my words. I decided to forge on to hopefully put the nail in the coffin of this particular subject.

“Besides, Michael is right. Our concern isn’t who stole the documents or even why they stole them. Our concern is to rebuild the document file piece by piece. That’s how we manage this situation, and that’s how we control the damage and fallout from it.”

Michael’s eyes darted over to me. His look was sharp, inscrutable. In other words, typical of Michael in a boardroom. Even though I was better at reading him than most people, he still remained an enigma. If he felt any gratitude for my coming to his rescue, he was hiding it very, very well.

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