Chapter 11 #2
Ava’s muscles stiffened at the suggestion, her features reddening as her lips pinched together. She scribbled a note faster than he could process before she held it up for him to read. Tell her I have a black belt.
With his lips squeezed together, he shook his head at her. “That’s not really necessary. It’s a quick question. Ava came across an employee whose employment dates coincided with the timeframe of the inaccuracies.”
“Oh.” Even he heard the disappointment in her voice. Maybe Ava had a point, but he didn’t much care. He didn’t like other people outside of Ava. They mostly used him, and he could never tell if they were really interested in him as a person or as a billionaire. Except Ava.
Ava had known the person before the money. And she’d liked the person before the money.
“Anywho, looks like he left the company about a month and a half ago. I wondered if you had any idea where he’d gone. The name is Jordan Haynes.”
“Oh, yes, Jordan. He, uh, we had some issues with him. I’m not certain I know what he’s doing now…” The hesitancy in her voice suggested she may be holding something back.
Ava leapt from her seat. “Oh well, thanks for your help, we’ll figure it out together.”
She reached for his phone, her finger hovering over the end call button when Miranda’s voice filled the room again. “Oh, wait, wait, wait,” she said.
The aggravation on Ava’s features was unmistakable.
“You know…Jordan. Just a second, I may know…I just have to think of it.” The sound of her fingers snapping echoed on the line before she said, “CyberSolutions. Oh, I do remember now. Before we terminated him, I found out he’d met with their CEO.
I fired him shortly after because I was afraid he was sharing secrets.
And I still think he was. He’s CFO there now. ”
Alex pieced together the puzzle in his mind. Jordan was a good lead. Had he been ferreting money for special projects to test for CyberSolutions? The smug features of CyberSolutions’ CEO, Ethan Parker, filled his mind.
Only half as talented and nowhere near as innovative as Alex was, Parker was a wannabe genius without enough foresight to really take the market by storm. But still, if secrets had been leaked…CyberSolutions may suddenly go from one step behind StoneCorp to one step ahead.
“Thanks, Meredith…ah, Miranda,” Ava said. “Sorry to interrupt your weekend.”
“Alex, did you need–”
Her voice cut off as Ava ended the call and perched on the edge of her chair as her fingers flew across the keyboard in search of information on CyberSolutions.
“You didn’t have to hang up on her,” he said.
“Oh, really? Did you want to ask her to get together for a bite and go over…all the things?” Her voice dripped with a forced desire as she imitated Miranda.
“Very funny, Avs. At least she answered our question.”
“She almost didn’t. She was trying to figure out a way to trick you into dinner.”
“Trick me into dinner? I’m not that stupid, Sparky.”
She flicked him a glance before she returned her eyes to her screen. “I didn’t say you were…it’s just…”
She didn’t bother finishing her statement.
“It’s just what?” The teasing tone of his voice carried a hopefulness about their relationship.
“Men are stupid when it comes to women. Just in general, not just you. And I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“You don’t have to trawl their company site, Avs,” he said as he leaned closer to her, wrapping his arms around her to reach the keyboard. “I know exactly where these guys are right now.”
“You do?”
The awe in her voice sent warmth coursing through him. “Yes, I do.”
He slapped the enter key, sending his request for the website he sought.
“TechFrontiers Conference?” she asked.
“Yep. These jokers wouldn’t miss it. They like to pretend they’re on the cutting edge. They’re not. But they like to pretend.”
She navigated the website, checking the schedule of events. “Why aren’t you at the TechFrontiers Conference?”
He collapsed into his chair and kicked his feet up on his desk.
“Please, Avs. I have no need to listen to these tech wannabes spout off what they think will be the next frontier. I am the next frontier. StoneCorp remains on the cutting edge because we push the envelope. And I don’t need to listen to some stuffed shirts to put me there. ”
Ava drummed her fingers on the desk. “Well, if you were there, we could have found Jordan Haynes and asked him some questions. But you’re not. So now we can’t move forward.”
“We could wait until Monday and drop by their offices.” That would put a pin in their investigation and extend it for at least a few days.
“It would be much better to catch them on the fly, not walk into their offices where they have the upper hand.” She heaved a sigh as she closed her laptop. “Well, I can look at those other two names, but if we’re not moving on anything until Monday…”
“Yeah?” he asked, his lips curling as his mind filled in the possibilities. A weekend of walks on the beach, gaming, late nights, later mornings, maybe some long, deep conversations about how Build-a-Chris was the wrong man for her and an admission of his long-held feelings for her.
She offered him a half-wince. “Maybe I should head back to Silver Pine and have that dinner with Chris. Soften the blow about being back here Monday.”
His muscles stiffened as she kneecapped his plans. No beach walks, no long talks. Just her flying home to share a quiet dinner with Blueprint Bob. Any admission of feelings would be from her to him, not between the two of them.
She rose, laptop tucked against her hip. “I’ll follow up on the other two names there and–”
“Wait,” he said as he leapt from his seat. “We could go to the conference.”
“I thought you said you wanted to go to their offices.”
“You have a point,” he said with a shrug. “We should catch them off guard. And nothing will do that like me showing up at the Frontiers Conference.”
She eyed him for a moment as he held his breath, hoping she agreed.
He could not let her go home. And the ripple of anticipation at the prospect of unraveling this mystery at the conference with Ava by his side injected an unexpected excitement into the venture.
The more people who saw them as husband and wife, the better.
“It’s already after twelve. By the time we get there, it’ll be almost over.”
“No way, Avs. I’ll fire the chopper. We can be downtown in twenty minutes.”
She sucked in a breath, flicking her gaze out over the waves crashing on the beach. “Oh, right. You’re rich.”
He grinned at her. “So, what do you say? Are we hitting a conference?”
She glanced down at her outfit. “Yes. But not in this. Give me time to change.”
“You got it,” he said, tugging her laptop from her hands and setting it on the desk. It was a small gesture, but the permanence it suggested made him feel one hundred percent better.
“I won’t be long,” she promised as she headed from the room, leaving her laptop behind.
He ran his fingers along it with a smile. So far, so good. She wasn’t heading home to see the design dude. And if he played his cards right, he could take her out for a night on the town. Or maybe they’d fly back here. The walk on the beach the night before had been perfect.
He’d make the call after they tracked down the information.
He left the office behind, stepping into the hall his heart a battleground of hope and dread.
Each step was like walking a tightrope of solving the case and losing his wife.
He entered his bedroom and crossed to the closet to pull on one of his favorite sports coats.
His mind concocted a plan for their evening with champagne as he left his room behind. Ava emerged from hers, still fiddling with an earring that matched her fuchsia ensemble.
“We are going to make quite a splash at the conference,” he said as she stuffed a lipstick into her purse, and they descended the stairs.
After a short drive to the airport and a quick helicopter ride, they landed on the top of the hotel hosting the conference.
He wrapped an arm around her as they waited for the elevator to take them to the Mezzanine level. The doors whooshed open, and they stepped into a chaotic scene. People gathered around a railing overlooking the hotel lobby as loud voices floated in the air.
Ava intertwined her fingers around his as she hurried across the patterned carpet and pushed through the crowd to find a spot overlooking the marble floor below.
He recognized Ethan Parker in a heated argument with Vivian Reed, CEO of Quantum Core Dynamics, another reputable but woefully lacking tech corporation.
She poked a finger at him. “You’re not going to be tech person of the year, Ethan. You don’t deserve it with the games you play.”
He pressed closer to Ava, wrapping his arms around her waist as she leaned closer to enjoy the show.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just because CyberSolutions is unveiling the Phoenix project that will take the world by storm, that’s no reason to point fingers. Your company just doesn’t have what it takes.”
“Because yours is stealing secrets. How many employees have you just hired from other tech corps in the last six months?”
“Their losses are my gains.”
“Really? I think their secrets are your gains. You’re stealing from other companies, and I’m going to prove it.”
Ava shot him a glance, her eyebrows raised. Had they just stumbled upon the answers to the financial problems plaguing StoneCorp? Was CyberSolutions behind the corporate woes?