“Okay. What is it?” His pointer finger went to his temple as he leaned on the chair.
“Henley brought some things to my attention last night.” I started. His brow raised in interest and I continued. “She had done some research and found some things that were off about Hatchett.”
“Besides his gout?” Jude chuckled.
I frowned and stared at him. “It’s serious. Look, the whole operation is a Ponzi scheme. His company, the investments… everything was a fucking scam.”
Jude widened his eyes I was sure the same way I had, and stared at me dead pan. I did the same and took in my own words. Saying it for the first time made everything so real.
“Shit.” He finally said.
“Yeah. Shit.”
“And we’re sure she’s right?”
“She definitely isn’t wrong. I don’t know where all of information came from, but it’s good. She’s a better lawyer than we thought.”
“What do you want to do?” He leaned back in the chair and huffed. Neither of us wanted to do anything, quite frankly.
“The first thing we have to do is cut our losses. Just cut off the investment and cut it even for how much we went in. That way the company isn’t impacted, and it can even be written off in back taxes.” I thought quickly.
Having Jude there fueled my ideas, his brooding face helped me think a lot, honestly. It was how we made most of our investments in the beginning, and started everything up.
“Sounds good. Put it in play.”
“On it.” I did some clicking on my computer to send the right stuff off to financial. They knew not to make a fuss over it.
“I still can’t believe Henley found this out.” Jude said.
“Yeah. She’s something else man, we never would have caught it.” I said. Jude nodded and grinned slightly.
“I always knew she had potential.”
I cocked my head. “Couldn’t have been able to tell with the way you treated her at first.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. Henley saved our asses, so things have changed.”
I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, she did. So what do you want to do—"
“There’s no question what I want to do, Maverick.”
I nodded in agreement. Neither of us were prepared to let Henley go now. She was too good an asset, too valuable to us, both in and out of the boardroom. She was ours before, but now she was the best asset we ever acquired.
19
Henley
I felt like I had a purpose, helping Maverick and Jude. I had no idea how things went, and I wasn’t prepared to ask them either. I felt it was good to just distance myself and so I spent another Friday without them
. Of course, I actually left the apartment.
I woke up early and less than cheery faced, but still went to a quick yoga session with a coupon I found online. It was nice, and I felt healthy and relaxed. Once I got back home I did some cleaning and watched television before I made breakfast, even trying a new breakfast pizza recipe.
“Aww you cooked for me?” Denton startled me in the middle of my cooking and hugged me from behind. He smelled like his usual sharp cologne and hair gel.
“Uh huh. I guess I did. And it’s healthy, so don’t worry about that.” I handed him one of the prepped pizza slices and watched him taste it. I wasn’t a perfect cook, but I could follow a recipe; so I was pleased to see him enjoy it.
“Thanks babes. This is great.” He poured a cup of coffee to go with it and sat on the couch with another plate.