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“Right, I’m fine. Look, I have a question for you.” She snapped. I frowned slightly, noticing the shortness in her voice. I had never heard Henley sound like that, and I immediately wanted to know what was wrong, but she seemed to have a different urgency in her voice.

“Yes?” I smiled, intrigued by what she could have to ask me.

“What do you know about Hatchett Enterprises? I know you’re in business with them on this latest investment.” She cut right to the chase and didn’t waste time. But I immediately wondered how she knew that. It wasn’t a matter of public record yet, and I thought only Jude and I knew about it.

“Um. Okay. I don’t know, we’ve had some small deals with the owner before. Why?” I gave her a simple answer, not disclosing much. I realized again that Henley was a smart and educated young woman, a licensed lawyer who could probably find out anything with just a little digging.

“Henley? Are you there?” I pried, as she had suddenly disappeared. I heard her breathing on the other line, but didn’t get much out of her.

“Yeah, I’m here.” She inhaled sharply as if afraid. “I think you’ve been involved in a Ponzi scheme.”

My fingers went dead around the phone as I took in her words. So many questions rant through my head, and I didn’t know where to start. Was she working for someone, getting inside secrets on us? Had we been set up?

Henley was smart, but she wasn’t manipulative, so I hoped that wouldn’t be the case. But I took in her words and tried to find a way around it. I knew she wasn’t going anywhere though, so I knew I had to tackle this head on.

“What makes you think that?” I asked her, as generic as possible.

“I don’t think, Maverick. I know.” She snapped again. I was taken aback but chuckled nervously.

“Okay. And how do you know?” I revised my question.

“I did some digging, a lot of it. And I found some background information on this Derek Hatchett person, behind Hatchett Enterprises. Anyway, he has been buying and selling parts of his own company for years and then branched out into creating false trusts so other companies would do the same thing. And you did—your initial stake from three million to thirty million has been sitting in their fake company thing just accumulating these false trusts for weeks now.”

I took in her explanation word for word and tried to calm my mind from screaming about it. I knew something was off, I just knew something didn’t seem right and now I was sure of it. Henley wouldn’t lie and that was a hell of a lot to make up, so I knew she was right. We had been played and now we were fucked. Unfortunately, not by Henley.

“Wow. Okay.” I sighed.

Henley did the same and I heard some noise on her end, “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. It’s how they’ve gone unnoticed. When they are done driving the cost up, they liquidate, cut their losses and strip for fake assets. The companies that invested lose, and they keep all profits. The whole thing is a scam.” She spoke quickly, and I heard the passion in her voice. I knew she was good as a corporate lawyer, but she was investigative too. Better than I expected.

“Yeah, I can see that. Thank you for bringing this to me.” I told her. There was silence on both ends. I realized I hadn’t spoken to Henley since I stuffed her in our town car and then dropped her off at her apartment, and that was after we had that wild sex in a coat closet, for crying out loud. And now she was talking some serious shit and I was seeing her in an even better light.

“Yeah. You’re welcome… so, what will you do?” Her voice softened.

I took a deep breath as I thought. But there was no way I could make a decision in the moment, not without thinking it over more or talking to Jude.

“I don’t know, Henley. I have to discuss this with Jude. Thank you again for bringing it to my attention.”

“No problem, I knew I had to say something and I doubted you two would willingly enter into something like this. At least I hoped not.” She laughed once uneasily.

I smiled softly, “That’s kind of you.”

“I suppose. Look I gotta go, I’ll… talk to you later, I think.” I could practically hear her biting her lip.

“You will, I promise. Now you know why we’ve been so absent. I’m sorry, we’ll get this all figured out. ”

“Bye.” She hung up before I could say anything else. I sensed she was angry with me, but I needed to handle this first. And stressed out.

I sighed and decided to table the issue until the next morning. I could speak with Jude about it while we were in the office and it was appropriate. Now, I just wanted a somewhat relaxing night and it wouldn’t involve stressing out about work.

I got up from my desk and changed into my swim trunks to use our roof top pool. We had to blow over a lot of regulations to get it installed, but it was worth it in the end. I liked not having it out in the backyard because that’s where the garden was. We kept our grounds nice, and Jude didn’t care much but we had hired a designer anyway.

I took a long swim in the pool to relax and clear my head and I still didn’t see Jude all night. I retreated to my room and showered before settling into my silk sheets to try and get a good night sleep. It was no fucking use, I tossed and turned until my alarm went off at five, and I got up for my morning workout. Our gym fit like a sky room, and the sun shined through as I went through a weight circuit, skipping cardio because I didn’t feel like it. I had my usual egg white breakfast and coffee, dressed in a gray suit to match my mood, and then headed to work.

The office looked the same, everyone was acting normal, and had no idea the company was in the middle of a shit storm. I guess we were good at being secretive. I dreaded talking to Jude so much that I checked all my emails first, and replied to the important things first. I had a few meetings scheduled that I just rescheduled for later, and planned to go over things with them once Jude and I came to a decision. Finally, I shot him a text and he arrived in my office minutes later.

“What do you want, man?” Jude said his usual greeting and sat on my desk. Which he knew I hated.

“We need to talk. It’s serious.” I looked at him pointedly. He blinked and nodded once before sitting on the chair opposite my desk.


Tags: Nicole Elliot Romance