I’d lie to say I’m not nervous. My pulse vibrates in my ears as I tear the envelope open. I let the content slide onto the table––a memory stick, and a written report.
This could’ve easily turned creepy, so I had to draw a line.
I asked for a few surveillance clips, the official business information, and PI’s analysis based on that.
I take a sip of coffee and check the report first.
Jaden’s business is filed as an Internet Publishing Company. It owns several web properties and a couple of apps.
Amongst the assets, a magazine, a messaging app, and a curator’s site.
After selling his first website, he cashed out on a second web property. A website very similar to mine, curating content that's monetized with ads.
That site alone brought in more traffic in a few months than my own website the entire year.
He sold it for a lot of cash, that sale alone fueling the flurry of web properties he owns right now.
He learned fast and acted even faster. A rare quality.
A smile tickles my lips.
I scan the document further.
He lives in one of the luxury skyscrapers with high-end condos downtown. High-worth, tech tycoons live there.
Young, eligible men.
With shaky hands, I plug the memory stick into my laptop.
A bunch of photographs pops up, and for a moment, I’m unsure if I want to go through with this or not.
I take a few deep breaths before clicking on the first folder and reviewing the pictures.
Taken with a long lens, the snapshots have captured moments of his life these past ten days. The second his image comes into focus, I find myself gasping.
I slowly trail my fingertips over the photographs as if I want to touch him and feel him. Feel the new him. The man is clad in a suit and a dress shirt. The man with his hair combed back, his blue-gray eyes holding so much magnetic power.
Some of the close-ups make my heart skip beats.
Those intense, hypnotic eyes harbor now subdued power.
No more ‘living on the fringe’ glint he had in his gaze the first time I met him.
This power comes with money.
So, I was right.
It’s right there in his eyes. I can see it. Feel it. It’s not the same for everybody. In some people, it looks like greed; in others, it feels like turmoil. Some people fear losing all that power, while others wear it naturally.
That’s him.
He looks detached and in control.
As I sift through the pictures, other people pop up. And that was the whole point. To find out who he really is. Who he has become.
I wanted raw, unedited information. I wanted facts.
One hard fact is the beautiful brunette who kept him company the first night I met him.