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  “Why not?” Hakim could guess, but he wanted to know for certain.

  “She doesn’t approve of you, not only because you’re a competitor, but because of your dating life. Which is stupid, yes, because you have the right to date who and how you want.”

  “So do you.” Hakim said the words mildly, but gave Lauren a meaningful look to show that a relationship between was more her decision than her mother’s.

  “Yes, I do. But once she finds out how we met, can you blame her for not wanting us to date? That’s not business either; that’s personal and she won’t see it any other way.”

  “Surely the fact that you’re happy would encourage her to change her mind?”

  “You have met my mother, right?” Lauren said sarcastically.

  “I know it’s not going to be easy.”

  “Hakim, she’s my mother. If she doesn’t approve, she’ll make both our lives miserable. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  Lauren stood abruptly and paced around the cabin of the plane. Hakim could see how upset she was, and he hated that he was the cause.

  “Why would she blame you? This is my fault,” Hakim said.

  “She wouldn’t blame me for how we met. She’d blame me for falling for you. Business comes first, and dating your mother’s main competitor is not good for business.”

  Hakim wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t want to lose Lauren, but she was right. Her mother would never accept them dating. And while Patricia might primarily blame Hakim, it was Lauren who would bear the brunt of Patricia’s wrath. He couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t be the cause of Lauren’s hurt, making her choose between him and her mother, even if it meant breaking his own heart to save hers.

  He made the decision, knowing that every word he was about to say was a lie. Still, he spoke with certainty so that Lauren would believe him.

  “It’s for the best if we don’t see each other again. We barely know each other, and while I’m certain we would’ve had fun, we both know that it’s better to not upset the status quo,” he said.

  Lauren stared at him and Hakim thought she might cry again. Instead, she pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin.

  He’d never been prouder to witness a display of courage.

  She nodded. “You’re right. Not seeing each other again is for the best.”

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t intend to continue fighting with Patricia. I meant what I said; I’m tired of that path.”

  Lauren nodded. “Good. I think that’s good.”

  Feeling the plane descend, Hakim pointed at a seat. “We’re about to land. Why don’t you sit down?”

  Lauren gave him a weak smile and did as he asked. He wanted to go to her and comfort her, but that would lead somewhere they couldn’t go, so he stayed on his side of the cabin. And when the plane touched down, he didn’t stop her hurried rush to leave. Lauren grabbed her bag and made it out the door and down the steps before he could say anything else.

  Hakim watched her disappear into his limo, which was waiting for their return. He asked the steward to tell the driver to go ahead and take Lauren home, then come back for him. He told himself it was so he wouldn’t impose on her any longer, but in reality, he couldn’t bear to be near her but not with her, so he let her go.

  The limo, the jet, the ability to travel when he wanted or drop a hundred thousand dollars on a whim—none of these things mattered. He didn’t have the one thing he wanted, the one thing that would actually make him happy.

  Chapter 15

  Lauren

  It was late enough when Lauren arrived back at her apartment that she didn’t bother calling anyone to let them know she was back in town. All she wanted to do was unpack and go to sleep. She half-heartedly made herself eat something, but barely a half hour after arriving home, she was in bed. Burrowed beneath the covers, she tried to forget everything that had happened since the party, just a week before. Feeling numb, it was easier than she’d expected to fall asleep.

  She woke up without her alarm the next morning. Even with the short length of her trip overseas, her body clock was a little off. At least she’d slept.

  Lauren curled around her pillow; she didn’t want to get up and face the day just yet. But when she closed her eyes, she could see Hakim’s face when she told him that her mother would never accept the two of them dating. He had been hurt; worse, he had been understanding.

  Things were the way they were, though. No point in dwelling, because the answer wasn’t going to change. Lauren needed to get moving and get on with her life.

  She pushed the covers off and reluctantly rolled out of bed. She decided she’d grab coffee and breakfast from her favorite bakery on the way to work instead of eating at home; it would be comfort food after the week she’d had, and would ease her apprehension about having been out of the office for what felt like a lot longer than seven days.

  Which reminded her, she hadn’t heard from anyone at the office in some time.

  Lauren got a sinking feeling as she realized the reason for the lack of communication was that her phone was still switched off; she’d been so distracted during the flight home that turning her phone back on hadn’t even occurred to her.

  She crossed her fingers that everything was still as she left it and hit the power button on her phone. She waited impatiently while it powered up and loaded her messages.

  A lot of messages.

  Scrolling up to the beginning, Kayla’s texts started off worried but calm.

  Hey! Give me a call when you get a minute.

  Lauren, I need you to call me. We’ve got a problem.

  Lauren, are you okay??? Call me ASAP.

  Call me NOW. Left you a voicemail.

  Lauren tapped the screen to check her voicemail, but was interrupted by another flood of worried texts from Kayla. As she scrolled through them, a feeling of intense dread settled in the pit of her stomach.

  In case you see this before calling: Greg found a serious problem in the books. We’re asking questions to see if we can find out more.

  I called HK’s office, but his answering service won’t give me his number. I got his secretary, but she said you’re on a plane. Call me as soon as you land!!!

  Lauren, this is bad. Our head of accounting stole from us and fled the country. We think. Call me, please. It doesn’t matter how late it is.

  Just get here as soon as you can.

  With panicked fingers, Lauren hit the button to call Kayla, who answered before the phone had even started ringing.

  “Lauren! Are you okay?” Kayla almost shouted into the phone.

  It warmed her heart that their company was in trouble and the first thing her friend asked was if she was okay. Lauren talked while she started pulling clothes out of the closet.

  “I’m so sorry, Kayla. I kept the phone off on the flight and was so tired when I landed that I forgot to turn it on. I got the gist of the problem from your messages and I’m headed in.”

  “It’s really bad, Lauren. Bob Reynolds has been embezzling from the company. That’s what was off with the books. I think when he found out Greg was doing the independent audit, he got spooked and decided to run. His wife swears she doesn’t know where he is; we’ve got the police involved and they’re trying to track him down.”

  “How long has he been gone?” Lauren put the phone on speaker so she could drag a shirt over her head.

  “As best we can tell, he disappeared sometime on Saturday. The office was empty, of course, so he came in to transfer one last batch of money into his accounts. Then he ran.”

  “How much money?” Lauren finished buttoning the shirt and tucked it into her slacks.

  “We’re still getting a handle on the exact amount, but it’s enough that we’re seriously low on liquid funds. In short, BingeWatch needs an emergency cash injection, and we need it fast.”

  Knowing she couldn’t do anything else until she got into the office, Lauren said, “Okay. I’m on my way.”

/>   She knew just how bad it was when Kayla didn’t even say goodbye, just hung up the phone.

  When Lauren walked into the office an hour later, she found pandemonium. Having texted Kayla when she parked, her vice president was waiting for her at the elevator door. Emma, her assistant, was there, too, and holding out a cup of coffee, which Lauren gratefully accepted.

  They headed straight for her office. Greg joined them and Lauren instructed Emma to keep everyone else out for thirty minutes while she talked with Kayla and Greg.

  When they all sat down, Lauren apologized again. “Guys, I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I picked a heck of a time to take my first weekend off in three years.”

  Kayla rolled her eyes and tried to make a joke of it. “And that’s why we don’t take time off.”

  Lauren huffed a short laugh. “Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson. What else do we know and what do we need to do now?”

  Greg was the first to speak. “Let me show you what we found first.”

  Lauren listened intently as Greg went over the numbers. Over the last six months, their head of accounting had been pilfering money from the BingeWatch accounts. Bob Reynolds was a fairly recent hire, having come on board about eight months earlier. Lauren had been impressed with his resume and his references. There hadn’t been even a hint that he was capable of something like stealing, so Lauren wondered what she had missed.

  At first, Bob only took small amounts. He changed purchase orders so that it looked like the company was being charged for more than the contract stated. When the company paid for products or services, Bob would skim that difference off and deposit it in another account, one that only he had access to.

  As best they could figure, when he wasn’t discovered, Bob started to get bolder. He created dummy invoices that the company paid and Bob had the money routed directly into the account he had created. That was what had thrown up a red flag when Kayla had looked over the books.

  After Kayla gave him access to their entire financial system, Greg discovered the extra account. He called the bank after realizing that it wasn’t tracked the same way as the company’s other accounts.

  “And that’s what tipped Bob off,” Kayla added.

  Greg nodded. “He’d set up a sort of dual verification where if anyone else tried to access the account, he would be notified. I made the enquiry to the bank late Friday afternoon, right before they closed. According to Bob’s email, he read that notice around six Friday night.

  His wife told us that they had dinner with friends that night, which the police confirmed, so we’re thinking he waited until Saturday morning to come in and empty the account, knowing that the office would most likely be empty then.”

  “How did we find out he emptied the account?” Lauren asked.

  “The bank sent over the information I’d requested at around ten. About thirty minutes after it showed up, I got a call from the bank asking if I also wanted to know that the account had been cleared out and closed.”

  Lauren sat back in her chair. She must have looked despondent because Greg added, “I don’t think there was anything else you could have done.”

  “Except not hire a thief or ensure that he couldn’t open an account on his own,” Lauren replied, a bitter note in her voice.

  Greg lifted one shoulder. “Okay, yeah, maybe that. But from the time you caught the problem to now, I don’t think there’s anything that you should have done differently.”

  “You mean, that Kayla should have done differently.”

  “Just doing my job.” Kayla tried to wave off the praise.

  “Yes, you were. And you are so getting a promotion for doing it well.”

  At that, Kayla laughed. “Boss, I’m already your vice president. I don’t think there’s anywhere to promote me.”

  “I’ll figure something out,” Lauren promised. She looked back to Greg and asked, “We couldn’t stop the transfer?”

  “He was the only one with permission to manage the account. We could have changed that, but he moved too fast.”

  “We’ve got all his email?” Lauren asked.

  Kayla nodded. “After Greg found out Bob was the only employee with access to that account, I had IT pull his emails. He took his computer, but we’ve got everything on the backups, which go through Friday night.”

  “And the police haven’t been able to locate him?”

  Kayla shook her head. “They think he had been planning to run for at least the last month. Two weeks ago, he purchased two one-way tickets to different places. He changed the date on both the tickets Friday night. Except, he didn’t use either ticket. His car is gone, so the cops think he drove out. They’re looking for it now.”

  Lauren thought quickly. “Okay, we can’t do anything about that right now. The police will catch him and then we’ll deal with him. Greg, I want to change the setup on all our accounts so that no individual can open or close an account. Any action like that needs my signature or Kayla’s, plus the head of our legal team.

  “I want a quick tag up with all the department heads in thirty minutes. Before then, I want our public relations team to draft a statement. We’re going to start getting questions from the press, if we haven’t already, so let’s be ready.”

  Greg and Kayla both nodded, and Lauren looked at Greg, a sincere expression of thanks on her face. “My friend, you really came through for us here. You know if you ever need anything, we’re here for you.”

  Greg stood and shook Lauren’s hand. “What are friends for but to track down embezzling thieves and save your company?”

  He left the office and Lauren motioned for Kayla to stay back. After she passed a few directions to Emma, Lauren turned back into her office and closed the door.

  “Okay, let’s talk about how we deal with the money problem.” Lauren paced the room instead of sitting back down.

  “We can’t ask our clients to pay our invoices any faster,” Kayla said.

  “No. We do that and everyone will know we’re in trouble before you can say ‘industry gossip.’”

  “I know you’re not going to like this option, but we could ask your mother for the money,” Kayla said hesitantly.

  Lauren grimaced. “I’d really rather not do that.”

  “I don’t know that we have another option. Even if we asked senior management to forgo being paid, that’s not enough to cover everything else. We can’t cover things internally—we need some outside help and your mother is the best alternative.”

  Lauren thought about it, dropping her head into her hands. “Ugh. No. Asking my mother for the money will only get us into more trouble. It might save us now, but we’ll regret it down the road.”

  “What are we going to do then?” Kayla was starting to sound rattled again.

  “I’m going to get the money another way. My mother isn’t the only person I can go to.”

  “Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like this new option?”

  Lauren shook her head. “No, I really think it will be okay. I mean, I’m not going to enjoy the asking, but I’m almost certain I can get the money this way.”

  She looked up to see Kayla watching her skeptically. “I promise, Kay, I’ll fix this. Let me make a call, okay? And then I’ll see you back with the department heads in ten?”

  Kayla nodded and, looking only slightly less worried, left Lauren’s office.

  Lauren picked up the phone on her desk and started dial a number, but stopped suddenly. She tapped the edge of the receiver on her chin as she thought. They’d never agreed not to meet for business reasons, only that they wouldn’t see each other personally. This was a business call, really, so she needed to follow a business protocol.

  Switching gears, she looked up a number and then dialed it.

  “Hi, this is Lauren Sanders.” She listened as Hakim’s secretary told her that he was on a call.

  “That’s fine. I was wondering if he was available for a meeting early this afternoon.”

  By the t
ime her department heads arrived in her office with Kayla, Lauren had arranged a meeting with Hakim. She felt confident that she would be able to get her company’s financials back on track, and now she needed to shore up morale among her staff.

  Kayla raised her eyebrows in a silent question as Lauren walked around to the other side of her desk and Lauren gave her a small nod.

  “Thanks everyone for coming in on short notice. I won’t keep you long. I know you’ve all heard a version of what happened, and I want to make sure that you have heard the correct version. Bob Reynolds embezzled money from us, and has apparently disappeared. We know how it happened and are taking steps to fix the system so it can’t happen again.

  “I didn’t see it coming; I don’t think any of us did. I plan on taking a look at our hiring practices, mostly in how we check references, but I want you all to know that you have my confidence. I believe this action was an aberration. We have a strong team and I trust each and every one of you.”

  She looked closely at her head of human resources. “I take responsibility for what happened; I made the final decision to hire him. I’d like to do a review in the next week to see what we can do to prevent a bad hire from happening again, but it’s not your fault.”

  Lauren turned to her public relations lead. “Do you have a draft statement for me?”

  The woman nodded and said, “It’s in your email inbox right now. Let me know what changes you’d like to make.”

  “Thank you. I want to be clear—it’s likely we’re going to get questions from the media and from our clients as word starts to get out. When Bob is charged, word will definitely get out. I want to say from the beginning here, the most important thing we can do is be transparent. When we discovered the problem, we jumped on it and we fixed it. We are so strong as a company that we can handle anything.”

  The head of human resources spoke up. “Are we, though? How are we going to get through the next week?”

  Lauren nodded. “I have a meeting this afternoon that I believe will result in a new investor. It’s probably not a deal I would have made if we hadn’t had this crisis, but I believe it will ultimately be a good deal for the company. I’ll let you all know as soon as I know more.”