by Nella Tyler
“Monday is going to be epic,” one young trader said.
“Yeah, I think she is going to kill it. A total money maker,” another trader said.
I couldn’t help but overhear them and it made me happy for Alicia. She seemed like a good woman who had worked really hard to get where she was, I hoped the best for her and her IPO. I also hoped Rebecca could get me the information I needed before Monday so I could make a decision on whether to buy her stock or not.
I stood back and watched the chaos around Alicia as people asked her questions and she talked a little about her company. It was one of the only times people could get up close and personal with a CEO of a company, but in reality nothing they had to say was of any help on investment day.
CEO’s didn’t know how their company was going to do any more than the rest of the world. They, of course, had much more hopefulness that the IPO would do well. But in the end, the opinion of the general public was what mattered most.
Alicia looked really uncomfortable and like she wanted to leave. At one point, I even saw her turn away but that same man pulled her back and she continued to answer questions. It was painful to watch after about thirty minutes. So I did what I thought was best.
“Miss Warren, can you come with me? Mr. Taylor would like a word with you.”
I walked with authority up to Alicia and grabbed her by the arm and led her away.
Everyone knew Mr. Taylor was the CEO of Taylor Trading Incorporated and the biggest trading company on the market. The others quieted down as we walked away.
“Mr. Taylor?” Alicia smiled as we walked quickly off the trading floor and into the hallway. “You better hurry, he’s coming,” Alicia said as she looked behind us.
Sure enough, the man that had been at her side all day long had just come out the door to the hallway and was about one hundred feet behind us.
“Alicia, where are you going?” he hollered down the hallway.
“I’ll be right back, Bill,” Alicia said as we quickened our steps.
When we turned the corner, the two of us were into a full on sprint as we tried to make it out the door and into the street before Bill had seen where we went.
It was fun, like when you were young and ran away from the mall security guard. I laughed as we ran and Alicia did too. By the time we had made it outside, we were both in a full on giggle.
“This way,” I said as I brought her up one of the narrow side streets.
We continued to walk quickly and soon had made it to China town where we slid into a noodle shop and sat down.
We were both sweating, but I was very impressed with Alicia’s ability to run. She surely must run for exercise. She had not had any problems keeping up with me and I was almost in a full on sprint.
“So, who is Bill? A boyfriend?” I asked.
“Oh god, really, Evan. You think I like short bald guys?”
“Well, I thought perhaps he was a sugar daddy.”
As the words left my mouth, I knew right away I shouldn’t have said them. Of course she didn’t want anyone insinuating that she had some rich guy who was the only reason she was successful. I had to do some damage control and quick. The look on her face said that I was about thirty seconds away from getting slapped.
“I mean, he looks like the kind of guy who only has money going for him. Not that you would date a guy like that. Oh god, I’m sorry.”
I physically took my shoe off and put it into my mouth.
I sat there with my shoe in my mouth and just looked at Alicia with the best puppy dog eyes I could muster.
Finally, she broke down and laughed.
“Put your shoe back on. That’s disgusting.”
“Thank you. It did taste a lot like pee. Probably that alley we went down.”
I raised my hand for our waiter and ordered us some noodles and some ice water. I really needed a drink, and fast. Putting my shoe in my mouth was certainly not something I was used to doing and I didn’t know what had come over me at that moment. But it seemed to have gotten me out of the hot water my mouth had put me into, so all was well that ended well.
“He’s my VP of finance. Pretty much the only reason we are going public. He pushed for it at our corporate meeting last year and has been driving it ever since.”
“Ah, so he’s the evil one.”
“Not so much evil as just very money driven. I was happy doing the small stores and making things by hand. I didn’t need this level to be happy. I know that sounds petty and exactly what people shouldn’t say.”
“It makes sense. The bigger the company, the less you probably get to actually design. It’s a trade-off.”
“Yes and not one that I’m liking.”
“Well after the big business dealings you’re doing, I’m sure you can hire someone to deal with the paperwork stuff so you can spend more time doing what you would like to do.”
“Thanks, I hope so.”
“Now, let’s get back to talking about me,” I said with a mischievous smile.
“Oh, were we talking about you?” Alicia laughed and I was hypnotized.
Her red hair swung back and her chin lifted into the air. Oh, how I loved to watch her laugh.
“Um, yes. We were about to discuss you and I going on another date.”
“Hmm, I don’t remember talking about that.”
Alicia continued to giggle as our noodles arrived and I chugged my whole cup of water. She obviously didn’t think me putting my shoe in my mouth was a good idea either. But at least it had lightened the mood a little.
“So let’s talk about it now. When can we have our second date.”
“Right now.”
“What? No! Noodle can’t be our second date. I have big plans for that date.”
“I don’t sleep with a guy until at least the fifth date. If you make it that far.”
“Oh, then this is definitely date two.”
She laughed again and I was smitten. The witty banter that went back and forth between us was a first for me. I had never been with a woman who I felt so comfortable with. I didn’t have to play my game and I didn’t think she was playing one either. It was natural between us.
As much as I loved that, deep down I also really wanted to find out more about her company to see if I should invest in the IPO or not. It was horrible, I know it. I wanted her, she was deliciously cute. But I still had a business to think about and I couldn’t stop thinking about making my clients money just because the CEO of the company I wanted to buy stock in was fucking sexy as hell.
We finished our noodles and walked back toward the stock market.
“You know, my apartment is right up there,” I said as I pointed at my building again.
But she wasn’t interested. I could tell by how quickly she pulled her phone out; there would be no bringing Alicia up to my condo . It sucked, though; one minute I felt like we had an amazing connection and the next minute I felt like she was annoyed to have to spend time with me. I just couldn’t figure her out.
“I’m going to head home. I promise I’ll call you for date number two,” Alicia smiled and looked up at me.
Something bothered her; I could see it in her eyes. It wasn’t something with me either, there was something deep going on in her life and it obviously had her distracted. I hoped that after her IPO happened she would be able to relax. But I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that it was the IPO that had her so worried.
“Oh no, it’s date number three now. Noodles were date number two,” I said as I winked at Alicia.
We both laughed as she raised her hand and a cab was there, again faster than I had ever gotten a cab in all my years of living in Manhattan.
“Monday night?” I asked as she got into the cab.
“Yes, Monday night. We can celebrate my going public.”
And just like that she was gone.
I watched her cab drive away and wondered just how much I would be able to figure out about her company financials before Monday.
It wasn’t likely that I would be able to get much more information from the public records. Perhaps Rebecca would be able to shine some more light on everything.
Chapter Eleven
Before I knew it, Saturday morning was there and I was getting packed to spend a weekend as the fake boyfriend of Rebecca.
We had text back and forth over the last few days and I learned more about her family than I ever wanted to know. She told me about her two brothers and how they fought all the time. She told me about her mother’s battle with breast cancer and her father’s heart attack. I could see why she wanted to please her family so much. It was clear that she loved them and just didn’t want them to worry about her.
At nine o’clock, I made my way to the front of my building and waited for Rebecca to pull up. She had insisted on driving for the six hour trip and that was fine with me. I hated to drive and didn’t even own a car. I suspected my driver’s license could have been expired even, since I hadn’t actually driven in many years.
When Rebecca pulled up in her 2014 Tesla Model S my mouth actually fell open. It was an all electric sports car and nothing like what I had expected Rebecca to drive.
“Is it yours?” I asked.
In any other city that might seem rude to ask someone, but in Manhattan it was a totally legitimate question. Not many people actually owned cars in the city, and they certainly didn’t own sports cars.
“Yep, you like it?”
“Fuck yeah.”
“I have a condo over in Brooklyn. It was my present to myself for buying such a hell hole of a place to live.”
“Nice present.”
We took off down the streets of the city and I quickly reached back and put my seatbelt on. I regretted agreeing to letting Rebecca do the driving, almost instantly. She drove like she was in a video game as she sped between cars and didn’t seem to care at all if people stopped for her.
I wasn’t sure if she was driving like that to impress me or if that was how she always drove, but it scared the shit out of me.
“So were you able to find anything good on ALL Warren Clothing?”
I figured we could do some business talk during the trip out to her parents. Especially if she was going to drive like a maniac. I needed something to calm my nerves as we swerved in and out of the traffic.
“Oh yeah, here let me grab the file,” Rebecca reached with one hand into the back seat and I thought for sure we would die.
I reached over and grabbed the wheel just as she totally let go of it and thrust her arm back far enough to grab the file she had been trying to reach.
“Shit, Rebecca. For someone who doesn’t like to do illegal things you drive like a fucking lunatic.”
“I like to drive fast,” she said simply. “Look in there. I found lots of good information for you.”
The file was thick, maybe sixty to seventy sheets of paper. I flipped through it quickly but had no idea what I was supposed to be looking for, so I went page by page and read through some of the information.
I must have looked like I didn’t understand anything that I read, because Rebecca quickly chimed in to explain her findings to me.
“On the surface that company is perfect. In the public records I couldn’t find a single number out of place. That in itself is a huge red flag. But as I delved deeper I could tell there was something really sinister going on with their books. I’m not exactly sure what it is, though, but certainly a neon red stop sign for me.”
“So what do you think it is? I mean if you had to guess?”
“I’m not sure. They seem to have plenty of sales so I don’t think their numbers are inflated. I just don’t know where to look yet. It will need someone on the inside to really get you what you want. There was one other thing though.”
Rebecca grimaced as she glanced over at me.
“What?”
“That little red head that runs it. She’s into some really dirty stuff in her past. I don’t exactly know how she has kept this company afloat for as long as she has. Her last company went bankrupt and two of her employees were charged with money laundering.”
“Wow, really? She doesn’t seem the type.”
My mind spun with the idea that Alicia might be fully knowledgeable about the wrong doings in her company. Up until that very moment, I had thought that people who worked for her had swindled her good nature and were scamming her. But if she was part of another bad company, the chances were very high that she knew very well what was going on in her company now.
“Did Alicia go to jail?” I asked.
I saw a look in Rebecca’s eyes when I used Alicia’s first name. She knew there was more to it, but she didn’t push it. She just smiled at me and raised her eyebrow.
“No, she came off squeaky clean, which makes me think she was probably the dirtiest one of the group. Not likely that she could have been the owner of the company and not had a clue about money laundering that bankrupted her organization.”
“Not likely, but possible.”
“Oh come on, Evan. Don’t be a jerk. Just because she’s a cute little redhead doesn’t mean she can’t swindle people out of their money.”
It did certainly look like she would have known what was going on, but since I didn’t know that much about the previous company I didn’t want to hold that against Alicia just yet.
“Did you find out anything else about the company?”
Rebecca seemed caught up in her race car driving and ignored me for a moment as she sped onto the interstate. I held onto the door for my life as she took the corner going well over 60mph.
“Oh yea, there’s a guy named Bill Yobi, he’s bad news also.”
My ears perked up right away when I heard the name. That dude had looked like bad news from the moment I first laid eyes on him. It was reassuring to know that someone else thought he was just as bad as I did. It was more than just the way he looked. There was something about the way he held onto Alicia that reeked of evil.
“Yeah, I saw him there the other day at closing bell. What do you know about him?”
“Well first of all, he is the only Finance VP I’ve ever seen who doesn’t have an MBA in finance or accounting. His degree is in communications. Which doesn’t seem that bad until you think about it. Why wouldn’t he be in charge of their marketing department then instead of finance?”
“That’s odd for sure. But nothing to warrant him being bad news.”
“Yeah, so I dug into him a bit. He worked with her at the first company and also avoided the money laundering charges. He was arrested originally, but then let go. Nothing about his life matches up. I couldn’t find information about where he went to high school. I couldn’t find anything about his family. Something is off with that dude for sure.”
We sat in silence as Rebecca drove and I pondered the information she had just given me.
Alicia didn’t strike me as the type of person who would purposely swindle anyone out of money. She was either really good at what she did or totally unaware of what was going on.
I found both scenarios to be very hard to believe. She was a bright woman; I couldn’t see her running a company and not knowing what was going on there. On the other hand, I certainly didn’t peg her as the type of person who would go around stealing money from people.
The car ride was soothing, much better once we got away from the traffic and onto the highway. I had expected the drive to take six hours, but apparently Rebecca’s mock four driving skills had gotten us there in a much shorter time.
We pulled up to her family’s Virginia estate and I instantly flashed to ever corny movie I had seen. It was a picturesque place to live and I started to feel a little nervous about having to meet them all.
In the last several years, I hadn’t actually met a woman’s family. It was purposeful on my part, but still; I was out of practice.
“Any last minute questions before we go in?” Rebecca asked.
“Yes, do they know we’re sleeping together
?” I said with a smile.
“Oh my got. Evan. Do not talk about sex at all. They are super churchy and yes they will assume that we are sleeping together but please don’t bring it up.”
I grabbed our bags out of the car and followed Rebecca up the long walk and to her front door.
We had barely made it to the door before her two brothers were standing there and staring at me like they were about to take me down.
“Who’s this?” the taller one said.
“He looks like an ass,” the shorter one added.
“Ken and Kermit, this is my boyfriend, Evan.”
“Boyfriend?” the taller one said as he shook my hand. “I’m Ken. Nice to meet you, I guess.”
“Mom, Becca brought a boy home!” Kermit yelled as he went back into the house.
It was going to be one hell of a weekend, I took a couple deep breaths before we headed inside.
Chapter Twelve
There house was huge. More like an estate, if I had to describe it. The main floor stretched out over at least 4,000 square feet and there was an upstairs and basement from what I could see. It was a nice place, sort of a dream estate. I wondered what her parents did for work that had gotten them such a lovely home.
Rebecca grabbed the bags out of my hands and left them by the front door. She held onto my hand and we walked into the kitchen where her mother and father were cooking. Kermit and Ken had also made their way to the kitchen by that time.
“Mom, Dad, this is Evan. He’s going to hang out with us this weekend, if that’s alright.”
I could see the shock in her parents eyes, but at the same time they tried not to offend me or Rebecca. They seemed happy that she had brought someone home with her, but it probably would have been better if she had actually gave them a heads up.
“It’s nice to meet you.” I said as I reached my hand out to shake her father’s hand and then her mothers. “I’m sorry if we sprung this on you. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to come and my schedule just cleared up at the last minute.”