Page 111 of Forbidden Billionaire
“As you suspected, Mr. Blackwell, the due diligence reports Reynolds submitted were…curated. They omitted key liabilities and overstated asset performance. The board relied on his analysis.”
Walt’s face reddens, a vein pulsing at his temple. “You’re saying we were fed lies?”
“You were fed what Reynolds wanted you to see.” Kessler nods. “And he was well compensated for it.”
The room erupts in murmurs, board members shifting uncomfortably, their confidence in the deal crumbling like ash. My mind flashes to Seraphina, her meticulous spreadsheets, her voice steady as she laid out the truth.
She’d seen it, called it, and I’d thrown her out like garbage.
Walt turns to me, his eyes wild. “I pushed for this deal, Xavier. I thought—” He stops, swallowing hard, his hands balling into fists. “I thought Reynolds was solid. I thought he was protecting the company.”
“You thought wrong.” My words are snapped. I’m wrong to direct my anger solely at him. I am even more at fault than he is.
Walt flinches, and I see the guilt carve lines into his face. He’s not a villain, just a man who bet on the wrong horse, and now we’re all paying the price.
Kessler flips to another slide, this one a timeline of Reynolds’s transactions. “He’s gone. Left for Mexico, as Ms. Fallon’s company reported. You’ll want to work with your legal department to freeze what assets you can, but he’s likely untouchable.”
The board’s murmurs grow louder, a mix of panic and outrage. I don’t care about their noise. My mind is spinning, replaying every moment I failed her. Her trembling lips, her broken plea—“You have to believe me.” I didn’t. I let Walt’s suspicions and Reynolds’s lies cloud my judgment, let them tear her from me.
Walt scrubs a hand down his face, his voice haunted. “I fucked up, Xavier. I should’ve listened to her. To you.” His eyes meet mine, heavy with regret. “I was so sure she was the leak, the traitor. I saw those emails, the report, and I—” He shakes his head, the weight of his mistake crushing him. “I wanted to protect the family name. Instead I helped sink us.”
I don’t respond. There’s nothing to say. His self-flagellation mirrors my own, a bitter echo of the guilt gnawing at my chest. We’re both complicit, both architects of this disaster. But Seraphina’s face—her fierce defiance—burns behind my lids, a constant reminder of what I’ve carelessly discarded.
The meeting drags on, Kessler outlining the next steps: legal action, financial restructuring, damage control. The board scrambles to salvage what’s left, but I’m barely listening.
My empire’s bleeding, but all I can think of is her. Her soft gasps, the way she’d look at me like I could be more than the predator king. The way she’d believed in me.
When the room finally clears, I’m alone with the wreckage. The skyline glitters through the glass, mocking me with its indifference. I sink into my chair, the weight of my mistakes heavier than the city itself.
My mind spins back to that night at the Braes, after my discussion with Cullen Cresthaven.
Lane Marchand had slid onto the barstool to let me know he was sniffing around the Lockhart deal, and he’d mentioned Seraphina. “Smart hire. Quiet. Clever. Loyal, from everything I’ve heard.”
* * *
His words were a taunt, but I was too furious with hearing her name come out of his mouth; I hadn’t registered what he said.
He knew his recruiter had reached out—and that she’d turned down the request for an interview.
I snatch up my phone and dial IT, my voice a growl. “Get Desai up here. Now.”
Fifteen minutes later, Raj Desai, head of IT, stands in my office, his tie slightly askew, his expression wary. “You wanted to see me, Mr. Blackwell?”
“The emails. The ones from Seraphina to Marchand and that recruiter. I need you to dig into them.”
He shifts, uneasy. “We’ve already?—”
“Do it again,” I snap. “She was always having issues with her password. Kept getting locked out. Why?”
Desai hesitates, then pulls out his tablet, tapping quickly. “Her account was flagged for unusual activity multiple times. We reset her password a couple of times recently. I thought it was user error, but…” He trails off, his fingers flying over the screen. “There’s something here.”
My pulse spikes. “What?”
He turns the tablet toward me, pointing to a log of email activity. “The emails to Marchand and the recruiter? Sure, they were sent from her account—but look at the headers.” He zooms in, highlighting a string of metadata. “The IP address doesn’t match our network. They were sent from an external server, spoofed to look like her work email. And the reply to the recruiter, saying she wanted the interview? It’s in her Trash folder, marked as undeliverable.”
I lean forward, my heart pounding. “Undeliverable?”
“Yeah. The email address she supposedly replied to—Alyssa Monroe’s—has a tiny discrepancy. A period in the domain name that shouldn’t be there. It bounced back. She never sent it. Someone else did.”
