17. Sebastian
Chapter seventeen
Sebastian
T he sound of Xavier’s voice quickly cools any desire. I step out. Iris looks shell-shocked.
How much did he hear? Do we proceed with our cover story? Does Iris want me to say that?
“I heard you guys when you entered. I was waiting for Colby and Kevin,” Xavier says.
No cover story.
“Why are you eavesdropping?” he asks.
“Because we think Kevin hired a hacker to obtain New Mexico’s board presentation so he could give it to Colby—and maybe you—so you’d have an inside knowledge on how to make the New York presentation better,” Iris says.
Xavier nods. “I wasn’t in on it, but I definitely suspected something when our presentation changed so much. It was so much better than New Mexico’s in ways it wouldn’t have been without those last-minute changes.”
“That also raised my suspicions. The changes were just so on point,” I say.
“I also know my brother. He always cheated at Monopoly. But even so, I didn’t expect this. And I don’t expect you to believe me when I tell you I wasn’t involved. But I’ll prove it by my follow-up actions. My brother and Kevin will have to go. I will tell the Board.” He slumps down into a chair. “I wish he’d trusted me. L’Etoile is not going to shut us down—our ideas are just too good—but now I don’t know.”
He looks at me. “Why are you involved?” And then he turns to Iris. “Did you think to involve Legal? You two aren’t really dating?”
“No,” Iris says quickly. Way too quickly.
“Iris and I are friends, and Legal was informed of the unauthorized hacker. And then I looked through our files and found a partially executed hacker agreement.” We explain the rest of what we found.
“Thank you for your hard work and your honesty,” Xavier says. “I’ll schedule a meeting with the board. You can tell them what you’ve told me. Do you think Bob is involved?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” I say.
“I’ll talk to him, then,” Xavier says. “We’ll figure out if there’s any way to save the company while admitting to this.”
The door to the conference room opens, and Colby enters. I take a step back.
“I thought you were in LA,” Colby says to Xavier.
“I flew back early. Did you hire a hacker to infiltrate the system and steal New Mexico’s presentation?”
Colby juts out his chin and folds his arms. “Yes. The company wasn’t going to shut down on my watch, not before the holidays.”
“They’re not going to shut down the company. They didn’t buy us to close us down,” Xavier says.
“Don’t be so na?ve. They bought us for the IP. They don’t need us,” Colby says.
“They need me. They need the creative minds behind the IP. That’s the value of the company,” Xavier says. “They want more content, not just the movies we’ve already created.”
Colby waves at Iris and me. “What are these two doing here?”
“They figured it out too,” Xavier says.
Colby frowns at us. “I’ll come clean to the board and step down, if you think they won’t close the company.”
That’s quick . And not like Colby. He must have something up his sleeve.
“I can’t promise that now,” Xavier says.
“But they’ll still have you. Not so convinced of your position now?” He gestures again towards us. “We can show the internal controls worked.”
“Who else knows?” Xavier asks.
“Let’s discuss that privately,” Colby says.
“Fair enough.” Xavier turns to us. “Perhaps you can leave us now? Thank you for your commitment to the company.”
Iris and I walk out. I run my hand through my hair. That was crazy .
“At least Xavier wasn’t involved,” Iris says. “Maybe the company can be saved.”
“Let’s hope,” I say. We part outside the Cybersecurity bullpen.
I return to my office but then decide I’m going to walk around the block to clear my head.
Colby hired the hacker. That’s next-level insanity.
It snowed a bit this morning, but the sidewalks have already been cleared. My shoes crunch in the sand scattered to melt the snow. Brown branches outlined in white arch over the street.
I’m so attracted to Iris.
I don’t want to be friends.
I don’t think I can just be friends.
Maybe this is what Melody was talking about? That we were friends for too long and the passion just wasn’t there.
The passion is definitely there with Iris. It was hard not to kiss her in the closet. And she acknowledged that she’s attracted to me. I just need to persuade her that we should try dating.