x
Daniel347Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkOg2wsGh3Z
347Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoltOT9b0CE
347Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9wAKQ3O0E7
From Joy:
Babe, you left so early today, when will you be home?
From Joy:
Remember we have the dinner with James and Donna tonight.
I had totally forgotten about the dinner. I don't really want to go play happily married with her snobby friends. This dinner with Nick Cornwall is the perfect excuse. I let out a deep breath and Olivia looks up from her tablet and over at me.
"Are you ok?" her concerned look makes me smile.
"Yeah, just have to cancel a dinner with my wife tonight" She nods before turning her attention back to the tablet, and I am almost certain I can see a small smile appear on her lips. I look back down at my phone and text Joy back telling her I must cancel, not bothering calling. I know exactly how it will go, it's not the first time I have had to cancel on her. First she will get upset, trying to guilt me into it, and when that doesn't work she will get angry and threaten me with that I shouldn't bother coming home, and when that doesn't work she will cry and say it's unfair that I work this much. Then I tell her I work this hard so she can live the lifestyle she wants to live, then she hangs up. So, it is easier to just text it and take the fight later.
Charles Banner is sitting in the living room of their huge villa. Charles is a nice, upstanding man, in his late fifties. The age is starting to show, and the food belly has definitely gotten bigger since the last time I saw him. He is married to his high school sweetheart, Maria. They have been together for over 30 years. She is in her fifties as well, but she looks more like she is in her mid-thirties. Her hair is blond and cut in that horrible soccer-mom way, and her face is flawless, not a wrinkle in site. There's probably some botox going on there. Joy is a fan of botox, I don't really understand why, but she always says it's to prevent not to reduce. To be honest I don't really care, I would rather have wrinkles than look like I have no mimic in my face. Maria's neck is the only thing giving her away, it's not bad at all, but in comparison to her face here neck looks at least ten years older. When me and Olivia sits down Maria looks at us offering coffee. I gracefully decline, but Olivia says yes standing up from the couch and leaves the room to help Maria. I shake my head in frustration, she is not a personal assistant, she's a paralegal, she does not need to help bring coffee. I look over at Charles, his face is a mix of anger and sadness.
"So, what is going on?" I question softly.
"The asshole is stealing from me" Charles screams getting up from his chair and pacing around the room trying to calm himself.
"How could he do this! I trusted him" he cries going over to one of his antique sideboards grabbing a few papers, then walking back over to me slamming the papers on the table in front of me. I look down at them.
"Ok Charles, sit down and take a deep breath. I'll look at these, and then we will see what our options are ok?"
"I will not sit down!" he shouts, and I raise an eyebrow at him.
"We won't get any work done before you do, I need your head to be straight when we go through this" my voice a bit more stern, he takes a few breaths looking at the papers before he sits down, rubbing his temples. I pick the documents up and start reading through them. I hear Olivia's laugh and look up. She and Maria come back into the room with cups, coffee, and cookies. Olivia smiles and thanks Maria before they both sit down, Olivia next to me and Maria next to Charles.
"Did you find anything?" Olivia askes looking at the papers in my hand understanding what it is. I hand her the papers curious to see if she can see what I can see. She reads, it takes her a minute, like she is calculating the numbers.
"Mr. Banner, where did you get this?" She asks looking at Charles, he looks nervously around.
"I can't say" his voice low, and I sigh, but before I can say anything Olivia continues
"you know this isn't admissible in court, right?" Charles looks shocked at her then at me before getting angry again.
"Why the hell not? He stole 3 fucking million from me, and this proves it!" before Olivia can speak again, I step in
"Because we can't use this without incriminating you"
"I didn't do anything!" he spits
"No one can be sure of that. The only thing we know is that it's in your possession, and you can't say where it came from. Best case it will get thrown out, worst case you will get sued for a cyber-attack, and that's a felony." I say, Maria takes Charles hand and squeezes it lightly, I can see fear in her eyes, but she doesn't say anything.
"So, there is nothing we can do?" he asks with a whimper. I shake my head about to answer but Olivia jumps back in.
"Of course there is, but we need time and we need more proof. You want Mr. Parker to win when we go against him, and this proves it to us, but we can't use it." She holds up the bank statements that proves the embezzlement.
We stayed for almost two hours, and I feel confident that we have a good battle plan, and that Charles was as calm as I could expect when we left his house. Olivia looks out the car window, it has started snowing a little. I want to talk to her, but I don't really have anything to say, it seems stupid to start asking questions about her again, and she didn't really react too well to it this morning. So instead I blurt out
"Next time we meet a client, don't go be social with the wife, that's not your job" I can hear it coming out wrong and I sound like a complete jerk, but too late now. She looks at me, and I can see she wants to answer me back, I'm actually hoping she does, I want to see some of the fire I saw earlier when we battled back and forward about firing her this morning. But instead her lips go into a hard line for a second before she nods.
"Yeah, sorry..."
347Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlHhE4FBKBQ
