Page 97 of Tempt Me

“I need to see her.” I raised my voice higher than was acceptable in an office where people were trying to work. “She needs to hear what I have to say.”

“She does not,” Winslow hissed, “need to hear any more from you. Bruno, escort her out. In fact, escort them both out. Hannah, you’re fired too.”

“You can’t do that!” I didn’t know my voice went that loud. “Hannah’s done nothing wrong!”

“She let you in, didn’t she?” He reached toward my neckline and snatched off the visitor badge. “Get them out of here, Bruno.”

“What the absolute fuck is going on out here?” Jamila stood in her doorway with her hands on her hips looking like an avenging goddess. “Have y’all lost your damn minds?”

“Jamila, I need to talk to you. All I need is five minutes. Please?” I clutched the satchel that hung from my shoulder.

She glanced down at her smartwatch. “Five minutes. Starting now.” Turning, she went back inside her office, and I followed. So did Winslow, Hannah, and Bruno.

Jamila eased into her chair like she carried the weight of the entire building on her shoulders. In that moment, I realized she did. Not only did Hannah and Bruno owe their jobs to her, but Felicia and everyone outside that door did too. She might have been trying to prove herself worthy to her nana, her mother, and everyone else who hadn’t believed in her, but as a result, she’d built a business that employed hundreds of people and made money for thousands more. And I was about to make her life a whole lot more complicated.

I stood in front of her desk, feet planted as wide as my narrow skirt allowed. “Last time, I came in here with some pretty flimsy accusations. Today, I have proof.”

I reached into the Saint Laurent satchel I’d borrowed from Mother and pulled out the papers I’d printed from Billie’s attorney’s email. “This is a statement showing Winslow’s stock holdings and options.”

“What the hell is that supposed to prove?” Winslow tried to snatch the papers from me but stopped when Jamila held out her hand for them.

She scanned them, nodding. “Nothing I didn’t already know.”

“Right, but here’s where it gets interesting. In his recent divorce, Winslow kept only the Jamilow stock holdings. They represent approximately half the couple’s wealth, and Billie kept the other assets.” I handed over the next set of papers.

“Where did you get that?” Winslow snapped. “Those documents are private.”

“A friend gave them to me.” I leaned forward. “Winslow owns a significant amount of Jamilow stock outright. He also has unexercised stock options that would almost equal your own holdings, Jamila. He could exercise those options to buy up that stock for pennies on the dollar.”

Jamila rolled her eyes. “I think we all know how stock options work. It’s nothing nefarious. Winslow earned those options as part of his executive compensation and as one of my earliest employees.”

“But,” I said, “since his divorce, he doesn’t have enough cash to exercise those options, much less buy additional shares at market price.”

“Wait,” Jamila said, a smile curling her lips. “I thought you were a fashion designer-florist-chef-PR consultant, not a financial expert.”

“I’m a Jones.” I shrugged. “This is what we talk about at dinner. Anyway, what’s most interesting is this recent transaction in Winslow’s bank account the day after his divorce was final.” I dropped the last paper on her desk. “A deposit for twenty million dollars from an offshore account owned by Pavel Thakor.”

“What?” Jamila wasn’t smiling anymore. Her eyes went wide.

“Not only did Winslow accept a bribe from your competitor, but I suspect he’s planning to use it to exercise his stock options and possibly buy additional shares. He plans to take on a majority interest in Jamilow. My guess is that he’s planning to remove you as CEO and possibly attempt a hostile takeover by Moo-Lah. And I suspect he had something to do with the development issues too.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Winslow sputtered. “Jamila, are you going to believe this child? She prances in here in her designer clothes with some papers she shouldn’t have—who knows if they’re legitimate—making claims she can’t otherwise substantiate.”

Jamila rose slowly. “Did you, Winslow? Did you accept money from Pavel Thakor? From Moo-Lah?”

“No, I—” He clamped his mouth shut. “I need to speak with my attorney.”

“Why?” Her voice lost all its volume, all its brashness. Thatwhywas a young girl overburdened with the care of two rambunctious younger brothers asking her mother why she wasn’t coming back, asking a church deacon for an easier way, asking her nana to believe in her.

My heart broke for her. For what I’d had to show her about a man she’d thought was her friend.

That man stood in her office, jaw set. “Jamilow could be so much more. You never wanted to succeed the way I knew we could. You had all these fairytale ideas about helping people in crisis and educating people out of poverty, but our business would best serve people who already had cash to drop on a paid app, those who bought things we could advertise and who had the net worth to take advantage of a partnership with FA. You could never see the vision of all we could be.”

I regretted leaving my knives at culinary school. I arched a razor-sharp eyebrow. “You mean all that Jamilow could be if you were in charge?”

“Exactly.” He had his hands on his hips, taking up space he didn’t deserve.

I glanced at Jamila. She stared, unbelieving, at the papers that had upended her world. She needed time to process it all.

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