Page 80 of Faking it with my Bad Boy Crush

"Then I'll try to deserve it." He kissed my forehead. "Two weeks until the ethics hearing. Can you handle two more weeks of uncertainty?"

"I've been handling uncertainty for seven years. Two more weeks is nothing." I leaned into him. "Besides, I have something certain now. You. Us. The life we're building. That's enough."

And standing in my cottage on a Sunday evening, with legal battles looming and futures uncertain, I meant it.

We had each other. We had commitment. We had the courage to keep building even when everything else was falling apart.

That was more than enough.

That was everything.

Chapter twenty-five

Truth and Consequences

Ethan

Monday evening, the Lopez Island Community Center was packed even fuller than it had been for my original presentation six weeks ago—back when I was still pretending to be a legitimate businessman instead of a walking ethics violation with a law degree.

This time, the energy was different. Not suspicious curiosity, but invested anticipation. People wanted answers. And apparently, they wanted to watch me publicly confess my sins like some kind of small-town legal confessional.

Richard Sterling had organized the meeting, diplomatically calling it a "community update on the fraud investigation." Weboth knew what it really was: my chance to tell the full story before the media could spin it into something unrecognizable. My opportunity to name names, provide documentation, and generally make sure everyone understood exactly how thoroughly I'd sacrificed my career for principle.

I stood at the front of the room with a laptop full of evidence, my hands surprisingly steady for someone about to publicly detail his own professional destruction. Maya sat in the front row beside Tessa, her presence the only thing keeping me from bolting for the door.

This wasn't about looking good. It wasn't about redemption theater. It was about giving this community the truth they deserved, even if that truth made me look like an idiot who'd broken multiple ethical rules while trying to do the right thing.

Richard stepped to the podium first. "Thank you all for coming. As many of you know, the King County Prosecutor filed criminal charges this morning against the investment group that targeted local businesses. Tonight, Ethan Caldwell is here to explain what those charges mean and how this protects our community going forward."

He stepped aside, and I took his place, feeling like I was about to give the world's most awkward TED Talk: "How I Destroyed My Career in Six Easy Steps."

"Six weeks ago, I stood in this room and told you an investment group wanted to help Lopez Island businesses thrive," I began. "I believed what I was saying. I thought I was offering legitimate economic development. I was wrong. Spectacularly, catastrophically wrong."

I pulled up the first slide—the timeline of manufactured vulnerabilities at Honey & Hearth Bakery.

"What I didn't know then was that my firm and the investment group I represented had spent eighteen months deliberately creating legal problems for Maya Romano's bakery. Theyfalsified property surveys. Coordinated with a local landowner to file baseless claims. Manufactured permit complications. All designed to make Honey & Hearth vulnerable enough that Maya would sell at a fraction of fair market value."

Murmurs spread through the crowd. Shock, anger, the collective sound of people realizing their trust had been weaponized.

"This morning, criminal charges were filed against Gerald Hutchins, the surveying company, and three executives from the investment group. Conspiracy to commit fraud, extortion, falsification of official documents." I advanced to the next slide—redacted indictment documents. "These aren't allegations anymore. These are criminal charges brought by prosecutors who spent weeks reviewing evidence I basically handed them on a silver platter, if that silver platter also happened to violate several ethics rules."

I pulled up the payment records—three transfers from the investment group to Hutchins, perfectly timed with key events in the property dispute.

"Gerald Hutchins received one hundred fifty thousand dollars over eighteen months for what his invoices called 'consulting services.' The payments coincide exactly with the falsified survey, the property dispute filing, and the accelerated sale deadline. That's not consulting. That's a paper trail with the subtlety of a neon sign."

Helen Chen raised her hand from her council seat. "How widespread was this? Was Honey & Hearth the only target?"

"No." I pulled up my spreadsheet—my magnum opus of documented corporate fraud, the thing I'd probably be citing in my memoir titled "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Torch My Own Career." "This investment group has used this strategy repeatedly. Twenty-three properties across four states in the lastthree years, acquired for a fraction of fair market value using the same manufactured-crisis playbook."

The room erupted. People standing, talking over each other, demanding to know if their businesses had been targets.

"Were any other Lopez Island businesses on their list?" someone called out.

I hesitated for exactly one second before deciding honesty was worth more than comfortable silence. "Yes. Three others were identified as potential targets. The bookstore, the marina, and the island grocery."

Emily Russell stood, her expression somewhere between furious and terrified. "They targeted my bookstore?"

"They identified it as vulnerable. But they hadn't moved beyond assessment before the pattern was exposed." I met her eyes. "You're safe now. All of you. Because criminal charges mean this investment group can't operate in Washington State anymore. Their entire business model just got publicly detonated."