Wrong Order

Chapter Four #2

There was no use in staring at the device like a sap. It wouldn’t make her respond any faster, and yet … something made him unlock his phone again. He stared at the message, waiting for a reply.

“You should see your face.” Luc rolled his eyes, a small smile adorning his lips. “Avoir un coup de foudre, non?”

James chuckled and flipped Luc off.

But … yes, he was right. James had been walking on air since first laying eyes on Sophie, and every time they crossed paths, it just got better.

Exquisite curves, dark eyes framed with midnight lashes, cheekbones, and a jawline that cut you and left you begging for more. Her raven hair flowed in loose waves past her shoulders, her full lips parted ever so slightly, and … shit.

“Hey.”

James jumped as the voice launched him from his thoughts.

Philip lingered at the edge of the carpet, eyes a bit too wide.

“Uh … have you looked at the group chat, or any news reports?”

James hesitated. “No … why?”

“I … You should see for yourself.”

He swallowed, swiping open his news app.

But before the first headline loaded, his phone pulsed.

Hey. Sorry I didn’t get your number before

Don’t worry about it

James replied, resisting the urge to check the fifteen other message notifications. He told himself to leave it there and not come off as too desperate. But he couldn’t stop himself.

So for Friday, I’d recommend a nice outfit for dinner. The place I had in mind is pretty upscale.

Damn, you really foiled my sweats plan

The corners of his mouth kicked up.

I’ll pick you up. What’s your address?

His phone shook with an incoming call, and he frowned.

His executive assistant’s contact slid down from the top of the screen. But she never called after hours unless …

He stood. “Uh. I’ll be back.”

Luc frowned. “Everything okay?”

James shrugged. “Yeah, I think. I—one sec.”

He strode toward his office, shutting the door. Taking a seat at his desk, he put the phone on speaker.

“Jackie?” he asked. “What happened?”

“Sorry to bother you at home, but … have you seen any of the headlines from the past few hours?” Her words bumped into each other in her rush to get them out.

“Philip asked the same thing, and the answer’s still no. I’ve been busy. What happened?”

She didn’t deign to answer. “Is he there with you?”

“Yes, but wh—”

“Get him on the line while I rope in the others.”

James blanched and shouted for Philip.

A second later, Philip poked his head in the office, brow raised. “You’re missing the game, cabrón.”

James swallowed. “I don’t think that matters right now.”

He might not understand what was going on, but urgency limned Jackie’s words.

Philip frowned. “What’s wrong?”

James gestured at his phone. “Jackie wants to talk to us.”

“Ay.” Philip crossed his arms. “So, it moved past rumors?”

James gaped. “What are you talking about?”

“Unfortunately,” Jackie murmured. “Um … I guess I’ll do a roll call. Obviously, James and Philip. What about Camilla?”

“Here. Honestly, Jackie, how many times do I need to tell you? It’s Cami,” his CIO corrected through a lilting Portuguese accent.

“Yes, sorry,” Jackie said. “Do we have Gemma?”

“Present,” his COO said.

“Perfect.” Jackie cleared her throat. “Let’s discuss the new developments.”

“What new developments?!” he demanded.

“Oh, sweetie. You haven’t seen them?” Cami asked.

“Obviously not! I had to get to my dad’s today, you know that.”

For Christ’s sake, the dinners weren’t exactly a secret. James left early on those days every month, putting Gemma in charge.

“Stop, you two. The point is that yes, there has been a significant development,” Gemma clipped. “Delacroix is done.”

James stilled, and hoarfrost crept over his skin, scuttling up his bones. “What do you mean he’s done?”

“I mean, he got hacked; his emails, phone records—everything got out to the press, and he was arrested for tax evasion.” Irritation burned his COO’s syllables.

James hung his head back. “Are you fucking with me right now?”

Given the caliber of Lotus’s clients, he was sure plenty of them committed crimes associated with high society. But the difference was that none of them was stupid enough to be caught, and it was something he’d taken for granted.

“What’s worse is the bastard had been getting threats for it,” she said. “Meaning he knew he might go down.”

“Me cago en todo lo que se menea,” Philip muttered. “So that check we got from him this morning—”

Gemma sighed. “It bounced.”

James’s shoulders stiffened and his heart backflipped.

No, that wasn’t right, it couldn’t be. There was no way a check from George fucking Delacroix would bounce.

And yet …

James clenched the arms of his chair, his blood rushing in his ears. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, then jammed on his reading glasses. “Tax evasion, you said?”

Part of him didn’t want to believe Gemma, even though he knew in his gut she was right. Still, he held his breath as he threw open his laptop and Googled George Delacroix.

James shoved a hand in his hair. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

‘Delacroix Loses Everything After Crimes Revealed’

James gusted air through his teeth. “How did no one notice anything was wrong? Wait, hang on, are we—”

“We’re fine,” Cami said. “We’re not complicit, but there is the issue of something else.”

A dark feeling plummeted in his stomach. “What is it?”

“Uh … well …” Jackie started.

James rubbed his chest. He couldn’t take any more bad news at the moment. “Jackie.”

Whatever she was about to drop, he could take it. He steeled himself enough. He hoped.

“It’s … the Russo deal,” she said.

James was positive that if your heart could stop while you kept on living, it was happening to him right then. “What about it?”

Philip's eyes widened. “Ay, la madre que te parió.”

James stared at his best friend. What the hell had he figured out that James hadn’t?

“I—that is—okay. Russo backed out,” Jackie finished.

A cheer erupted from the living room. The door muffled it, but it was enough to remind James that a celebration occurred while his world shattered.

Someone tied weights to his feet and tossed him in the ocean, smiling like a psycho as he sank from view.

“Backed out?” The high-pitched, panicked voice that came out of him was foreign to his ears. “I … we were supposed to close with him tomorrow! What changed his mind?”

Philip’s accent sharpened. “What do you think? It was the Delacroix scandal.”

A ten-car pileup screeched into James’s heart.

“Are you kidding me?! Russo can’t possibly think that it was our fault!” James opened a new tab on his laptop and navigated to Gmail.

I’m going to email him and make him see he’s making a huge mistake.

All James wanted was to unwind over a basketball game with his friends, not run damage control. But here he was, work overtaking his personal life yet again.

“Of course, he knows it wasn’t our fault. But he doesn’t want to be associated with us,” Gemma said. “Neither do too many of our other clients. They’re already pulling their business.”

“Especially our European clients,” Cami chimed.

James exited out of the email, yanked his glasses off, and pressed his palms to his eyes.

As much as it pained him to admit it, what Russo did made sense.

It would be corporate suicide to enter into a deal with the company a disgraced businessman had done business with, especially so soon after everything went down.

“Okay, well, we still have a few clients, right?” James asked. “Philip, what do the numbers look like this quarter?”

Philip’s lips tugged into a thin line. “Last I checked, we are fine. But if we do not do something …”

James filled the rest in in his head. We stand to lose everything.

He resisted the urge to rest his head on his desk and instead settled for tipping it back against the headrest.

Losing Delacroix and Geller … it was like James was seven years old again and staring at his mother walk out the door.

Lotus had been an attempt to follow in her footsteps—that it was more than possible to turn your back on a prestigious last name and succeed. It worked wonders.

But everything he fought about with his dad for all those years, all those voices of doubt … he couldn’t let them come to fruition.

A knock fractured the stretched silence, and Luc poked his head in. “Hey, you guys coming? I’m getting lone—God, who died?”

“Uh …we will be out in a second,” Philip said.

Luc raised his brow at the loss of contractions. “Should I ask?”

James sighed. “I’ll explain later.”

Luc frowned but nodded and receded through the doorway.

“Right, well, what about our PR team?” James asked.

He was in the midst of hiring new members for Lotus’s small PR team after a few old ones had been let go for not doing their job properly. But whoever was left could handle things.

They have to.

“And what do you think they can do about it?” Cami snapped in Portuguese.

He startled.

Cami said things firmly or pointedly, but she never snapped.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

“Who is going to believe the PR team of a company Delacroix trusted?” she continued, switching back to English. “Russo will not, I can tell you that right now.”

Jackie’s nervous titters radiated through the receiver.

James’s eyes bugged. I know it has to be some coping mechanism, but now is not the time to be laughing.

“Gemma, I bet this isn’t how you saw your last month with us going.” Jackie laughed again. “Are you sure you want to leave? You still have a month to change your mind.”

“Unfortunately, I have to go,” Gemma replied. “My parents aren’t getting younger, and my mom’s hip has been acting up.”

“Yes, Gem, we’re going to miss you.” James turned his chair and faced the darkening city. “But right now, we need to figure out what we’re going to do.”

“Easy. We need an outside team,” Cami said.

“Good, you two are awake.”

James winced as Luc’s voice filtered into his pounding head.

Sitting up, James gripped his head and looked at Philip, who mirrored him perfectly on the opposite end of the couch.

“Shut up, please,” Philip muttered.

James groaned, pressing his palms to his eyes. Flashes of the night before played out in the darkness.

The news about Delacroix had no doubt crept into mainstream media by now.

Finishing the beer and Soju with his friends, and cracking into the bottle of whisky James had in his apartment. Well, at least James and Philip had. Judging by the fact Luc wasn’t nursing a massive hangover, he’d refrained.

“I know we all have high alcohol tolerances, and you two were upset, but you two really tested God last night,” Luc continued. “Christ, we’re not in our twenties anymore. You’re lucky I was here.”

“Sí, gracias,” Philip said. “What happened?”

Luc gestured at the rug, and James glanced down.

Next to a few crumpled beer cans was a spot that’d been scrubbed down, a dark splotch in place of … whatever was there.

James groaned and flopped back on the couch, shutting his eyes. “Thanks.”

“What are friends for?” Luc said. “Just so you know, I already called Gem and told her you guys wouldn’t be in until late, but she said you already put out the order last night that everyone had the day off today.”

James hummed, bobbing his head. There was no point in having people go into work, not with the mess they were dealing with.

“Cabrón, have you found someone yet?” Philip asked. “PR wise? Like Cami said, we can’t—”

His lungs let loose a choked cough and he covered his mouth, going absolutely still.

“Don’t you dare give me a new rug stain,” James warned.

Philip’s throat worked as he swallowed hard, before darting from the couch and stumbling down the hall to the bathroom.

James squeezed his eyes shut in thought.

Plenty of resources danced at his fingertips on where he could find a PR firm. Hell, he could even use the team of a different company.

But a wedge deep inside prevented him from doing any of that. He didn’t need anyone else knowing about his fuckup.

Something dawned on him.

“Didn’t you just meet with a PR firm yesterday? What was the name?” he asked.

“Covey LLC. I think they’re going to do a good job for us,” Luc said. “But Sophie works there, and she’s pretty high up.”

That’s right.

If Sophie was somehow on Lotus's case, then their date on Friday was off.

But … he was desperate.

“Give me their email.”

James’s phone buzzed next to him, and he tore his gaze away from his email to look at the screen.

It was a text from Sophie.

Crap, I forgot to respond.

Must’ve missed you this morning. Also you never texted back last night. Did I offend you or something?

He dragged his hands away from his laptop.

No sorry something came up with work and I got distracted. I took today off to deal with it

Her reply was instantaneous.

Oh well nbd. I hope everything goes ok

For a second, he debated telling her about his dilemma. It would help to get a fresh pair of eyes on the matter.

No, are you crazy?! You’re going to her company for help.

Thanks

he typed.

Looking forward to Friday

Diving back into his task, he copied the email address Luc gave him into the recipient box. Laying his problems down in the body and sending the email off, he glanced at his phone.

Sophie hadn’t responded, and his mind spiraled. Was she busy or pissed off at him? Was it the wrong move to brush her unspoken question off so bluntly?

He was terrible at saying the right thing. His last few girlfriends made sure to tell him that when they’d broken up. He was always too blunt or too detailed, or worse, he got attached too quickly or not enough.

His phone pulsed at the same time his inbox let forth a pinging sound, and he looked toward his laptop. He had a reply from Covey.

Well, that was fast.

His eyes skimmed the text and hooked on the signature under the short message.

‘Sophie Huang; Executive Assistant to Marilyn Covey’

His jaw slackened. There’s no way that’s the same Sophie Huang, is there?

Luc said the PR firm wasn’t big, and Sophie was high up, but …

No, it’s just a coincidence. Unless it’s not, and—

James shook his head. That wasn’t his primary focus—what mattered was that he had a meeting with Marilyn Covey tomorrow afternoon.