The Miami Millionaire (26 page)

Jake sat in front of his huge television watching the Miami Dolphins slaughter their opponents on the American football pitch.  He had finished his Mexican chicken and rice with black beans and his ice cold beer was washing it down nicely.  He cheered again as the Dolphins scored a touchdown and reached for his phone as it rang.

“Mr Cumberland, this is Bruno from Security.”

Jake reached for the remote control and turned down the television.  He hadn’t been expecting to hear from Bruno tonight – Jake had phoned his head of security just before Mark left his offices and instructed someone to follow Mark and keep an eye on what he was doing.  Something hadn’t sat right with Jake, he didn’t know why Mark needed to bring some paperwork all the way across to Miami when he could easily have e-mailed it across, so his gut instinct told him to have the man checked out, and Bruno had been assigned to the job.

“Hey Bruno, what’s going on?”

“Sorry to disturb you but I thought you would want to see something.  I am sending some pictures across to your phone right now which I think you should take a look at.”

“Okay.”  Jake said as he heard the pinging of the pictures arriving on his phone.

“I followed Mark Cavendish when he left the building, and he went to the Four Seasons Hotel.  I checked with the hotel and he is staying there in room 586.  He stayed at the hotel for about forty five minutes and then he went out and stopped at a few shops.”

“Did he meet up with anyone?”

“No sir, he just bought a few items in the shops and then headed back to the hotel.  However, I have been keeping an eye on his room and he left to go to dinner just before eight o’clock where he went up to the Terrace restaurant.” 

Jake was listening wondering why Bruno needed to phone and tell him that nothing was going on, he could have done that tomorrow.  And then he realised why Bruno was calling.

“Just after eight o’clock Mr Cavendish was joined by a woman.”

“Wait a moment.”  Jake put Bruno on pause and swiped his hand across his phone sending the photographs from his phone onto the large television screen in front of him. 

Jake sat back and exhaled loudly as he looked at photographs of Victoria sitting at the dining table with Mark Cavendish.  She looked as gorgeous as always with her bright red hair hanging lose over her simple black cotton shirt and black trousers.  Jake swiped through the photographs and paused as he looked at the images of Mark and Victoria standing over the dining table both with their hands on a cream file.  He then swiped through more photographs showing Mark walking off and Victoria following behind him.

Jake got Bruno back on the phone.  He didn’t need to ask the question but he needed to be 100 percent certain.  “The woman in the photographs, is that Victoria Pembrose?”

“Yes Sir, and these are the photographs I took a few minutes ago.”

Another pinging noise sounded in Jake’s ear and the photographs appeared on his television screen in front of him, and then he felt sick as he saw the back of Mark and Victoria walking along the elegant corridor of the Four Seasons hotel, and finally the photographs of Mark holding a room door open and Victoria walking through it.

Sickness and rage flowed through Jake’s mind and body as he stood up.

“Did you say this was just a few minutes ago?”

“Yes sir.”  Bruno said, “I am still at the Four Seasons.  They have just gone into room 586.”

“I will be there in ten minutes.”  Jake reached for his car keys and ran out the door leaving the television screen on with the photograph of Victoria walking into Mark’s hotel room.

Jake pulled up his Maserati at the Four Seasons hotel and handed his keys over for the valet to park his car.  He walked swiftly with purpose through the grand lobby and straight into the lift.  He didn’t wait for the young lift attendant to push a button but pressed the fifth floor button swiftly followed by the close door button.  Bruno was waiting at the end of the fifth floor hallway for him, and by all account Victoria was still in a bedroom with Mark and had been there for the last fifteen minutes.  Each and every minute of the short drive across from Jake’s apartment had been pure torture for him.   If Mark had treated Victoria so badly and he was her ex-fiancé then why was she having dinner with him, and why was she in his suite with him?  Jake couldn’t understand it and could only think of one reason, that Victoria had lied to him.  His only question now was how much Victoria had lied – was she still in love with Mark Cavendish, and was she still engaged to him?  Sadness engulfed him at the mere thought of it, but he needed to know.

Jake walked out of the lift and up to Bruno.  He looked at Bruno questioningly.

“The two of them are still in there.  It has been about fifteen minutes.  It’s the third door along on the left.”

“Thank you Bruno.  I will take it from here.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“No thank you.”  Jake said not taking his eyes away from the door to room 586.

“Good night Mr Cumberland.”  Bruno said as he walked off back to the lift.

Jake walked slowly along the corridor.  He didn’t know what he was going to do, he didn’t have a plan, but whatever he was going to do was going to have to start with knocking on door 586 to find out what was going on inside that room.  Jake paused past the first doorway and tried to compose himself ignoring the burning pain searing through his chest. Just as he was readying himself to walk on he saw the door to room 586 fly open and Victoria walk out.

For a moment Jake almost didn’t believe what he saw.  He knew Victoria was going to be there, he had seen the photographs, but until he saw her with his own eyes he didn’t want to believe it.  And now here she was, his beautiful sweet Victoria, walking out of Mark’s hotel room looking flushed.

At first Victoria didn’t register the tall man dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt in the corridor, she was too pre-occupied as she rushed out the door calling for Mark to hurry up behind her.  But then the sound of her name from a familiar voice made her stop in her tracks and look ahead.  Her heart sunk through the floor as she saw Jake standing there in front of her.

“Victoria?”  Jake stood still fixed to the spot as he looked Victoria up and down.

“Jake!”  Victoria said, visibly shocked.  She could hear Mark coming out of his hotel room behind her and she willed him to just go back inside and stay there.

“What are you doing here Vicky?”  Jake was sure he didn’t want to know the answer but he couldn’t help asking anyway.

Mark stepped into the corridor behind Victoria and stopped short as he saw Jake standing in front of them looking like a man who was about to commit murder.  Quickly he stepped back into his hotel room and closed the door behind him.

“Well?”  Jake wanted an answer, no matter what it was.

“Jake I can explain this to you, but I need you to trust me right now and know that this isn’t what it looks like.”  How the hell was Jake standing there in the corridor outside Mark’s room?  What was he doing there?

“Really?”  Jake laughed cynically, “You mean I shouldn’t be upset about this?  I know we haven’t had the chat about being exclusive with one another but after our talk the other day, about spending more time together, I thought we didn’t need to.  I thought you weren’t that type of woman.”

“I am not!”  Victoria said hurt and frustrated.  She wanted to explain everything but the minute she did then she would most likely lose Jake, and her job.  Right now maybe she could just explain to Jake that she was here for some papers, maybe that would work.  Surely he had to know she wouldn’t be here for anything more than business, or money, with Mark.

“What’s that?”  Jake asked looking at the cream folder in Victoria’s hand.

Victoria was silent, she had forgotten about the file in her hand and there it was in blatant view for Jake to see.  She looked down at the file and she knew he recognised the folder from her office, he was the one who gave it to her, and now she didn’t know what to say.  She was going to have to explain it all to Jake and she had no idea how he was going to take it.

Before Victoria had a chance to answer, Jake walked up to her and grabbed the file out from her hands and opened it looking inside.  As he looked inside the file Jake saw all the information on his latest products soon to be released in the USA and London, the most confidential of all his information which should have been locked in her drawer in her office.  His mind flipped back to the photograph of Mark and Victoria at the table and them holding the file he now had in his hands.

“Why is this file here?”  Jake shouted holding out the file in one hand, then he turned away and ran his free hand through his hair and said to himself, “I don’t even need to ask this question do I?  I can’t believe I have been so stupid!”  Jake tried to slow his breathing but his chest felt like it was going to explode.  He didn’t think he had ever been so angry in his entire life.  Angry and hurt!

“The file was stolen from my office and I was trying to get it back.”

“What?  What a load of rubbish.”  Jake shouted back at Victoria, “You and lover-boy were stealing it.  Who are you going to meet now?  Which one of my competitors were you planning to sell this to?”

“What?  No Jake that’s not it, I promise.”

“Oh save me the, “it’s not like this”, story.  I don’t want to hear it.  Now I know what that fiancé of yours was doing at the office today, he was sneaking the file out for you.”

“Ex-fiancé Jake!  No that’s not true.  Yes he did take the file, but not because we planned it that way.”

Jake threw his arms up into the air and turned his back on Victoria and strode away at full speed down the corridor.

“Jake!  Wait, you must listen to me.  Please!”  Victoria said running after him.  She caught up with him at the lift but when he turned around she stepped back seeing the hurt and anger in his eyes. 

As soon as Jake opened his mouth and the stone cold words came out Victoria knew she had lost him.

“Victoria, I have met some materialistic women in my time but you really beat them all hands down.  I thought New York women were tough, certainly tougher than the Miami ones, but you?  Well you make them all look like pussy cats.  I think you are more along the lines of a black widow spider.  I fell for it – for you, for us.  And it was an act all along.  You have been playing me and you nearly got away with it.”

“Jake no that’s not true, I promise!”

“Don’t interrupt me!”  Jake didn’t want to hear one word from Victoria. “You really are something and trust me I don’t mean it in a good way!  You and that so called ex-fiancé of yours are well suited together.  But even then I think I would be tempted to warn even him, no man is safe with you.  I have to hand it to you, I never saw this coming and I fell for it big time.”  He stopped short of telling her how much he had fallen in love with her in the short time they had spent together, because he didn’t want her to know just how much she had crushed his heart.

Jake’s words cut like a knife through Victoria.  How could he possibly believe that something was going on with her and Mark, that was crazy!  And the file Jake now held in his hands, how could he believe she was responsible for stealing it and trying to sell it to a competitor?  She wasn’t and she had nothing to do with it being stolen, she was just trying to get it back from Mark who had stolen it.  Victoria knew she had to explain everything to Jake but first she still had to worry about Mark selling the information to one of Jake’s competitors, he didn’t have the hard copy of the file but Victoria didn’t know if he had taken copies or photographs from the file, and she hadn’t yet managed to get him to sign a confidentiality agreement.

“Jake I really need to explain everything to you but there is something I must do right now.”

“Don’t worry Vicky because I don’t want to hear anything you have to say anyway.”  And with that Jake walked back into the lift.  Seeing the look in Jake’s eyes Victoria didn’t follow.

As the lift doors closed Victoria tried to hold back the tears which threatened to fall.  She took a deep breath and willed her feet to move back in the direction of Mark’s hotel room.  She had to get him to sign the confidentiality agreement now - everything else would probably change now, but this couldn’t, she had to make it right.  Victoria walked back to Mark’s hotel room and banged on the door loudly.

“Mark Cavendish get your sorry arse out here now.  We have a legal agreement to draw up and I don’t have time to waste.”

Mark opened the door and checked the corridor was empty except for Victoria, then stepped out.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Victoria phoned Jake so many times she had lost count, but he didn’t answer even one of her calls.  Finally giving up with the telephone she tried to visit him at his apartment but the concierge informed her Jake was not home.  She didn’t know whether to believe the man or not, but either way she wasn’t going to be seeing Jake tonight so she went back to her hotel. 

As Victoria lay in her hotel bed her tears flowed freely, and she fell asleep on the damp pillows under her head.

When she woke up in the morning Victoria felt anything but her usual refreshed self.  Today her heart ached knowing what Jake must be thinking about her, and she was consumed with guilt for even unknowingly letting Mark put her in this position.  She should never have left him unattended in her office, but she never thought he would stoop so low as to go through her drawers and steal her confidential papers, and then blackmail her with them. 

Victoria dragged herself out of the bed and showered.  She put on her favourite skinny black trousers and a simple white linen shirt finished off with a thin red belt to match her red stiletto shoes.  Clipping her hair back in a low ponytail she looked at herself in the mirror, her subtle make-up just about hid the dark circles under her eyes, and she decided it would have to do - she needed to get to the office to speak to Jake.

As Victoria walked through the empty reception she looked at her watch realising she was earlier than she thought and the receptionists hadn’t started work yet.  It was just as well as hopefully Jake hadn’t had time to ban her from the office, which she wouldn’t put it past him if he was convinced she really had tried to steal from him.  She swiftly walked to the lift and went past the floor to her office and straight up to Jake’s floor.  As the lift doors opened she found no one around and Andrea’s desk empty.  Victoria walked up to Jake’s office door and knocked on it - even though it was early she still hoped he would be there since he sometimes liked to start work early when no one was around to disturb him, but there was no answer.  When she tried the door handle Victoria found it locked.   Deflated she took a seat outside Jake’s office and decided to wait, there was nothing else she could do.

Victoria looked at her watch again, she had been sitting there for well over an hour now, nearly two, and tried not to notice Andrea looking at her questioningly.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to call down to you in your office when Jake comes in?”  Andrea asked again.

“No thank you, I will wait.  Jake didn’t have an early morning meeting did he?”  Victoria asked sure that Jake wasn’t due to have a meeting until ten thirty in his office.  She shifted her position but remained on the chair outside his office adamant she wasn’t going anywhere until she had spoken to him.  Apart from needing to speak to Jake she also wanted the security cameras to see exactly where she was just in case Jake wondered what she had been doing since she arrived in his building.

Passing the time Victoria took out her phone and looked at the latest news updates and celebrity gossip.  She scrolled through picture after picture and then stopped as she saw a photograph of Jake with a beautiful brunette draped in his arms with a caption next to it, “Playboy Jake Cumberland leave Mangos with up-and-coming actress Natasha Montage.”  Victoria’s hands shook as she looked at the photograph again and continued to read, “Recent rumours of the infamous Jake Cumberland being off the single’s market seem to be untrue as last night the most eligible bachelor in Miami burst back onto the Miami night-scene with full force, dancing with numerous attractive women and finally leaving Mango’s night club around four o’clock this morning with the beautiful Natasha Montage.  No need to guess where they were heading at that time in the morning, and who could blame either of them!”

Victoria put down her phone feeling sick and looked at Andrea.  She was in two minds whether she should actually sit and wait for Jake and explain everything, or just leave him the paperwork she held in her hands.  She picked her phone up again, not wanting to see anymore but not being able to avoid it either, and looked at the photograph again - Jake was looking down and laughing with the beautiful actress as he held her in his arms, the beautiful woman’s body pressed up against his and her arms encircled his neck.  Victoria flicked through the next couple of pages on her phone wishing she hadn’t as she saw Jake putting his hand up trying to shield himself and the actress from the flash of the cameras as they got into a waiting car together. 

Victoria took a deep breath and tried to steady her shaking hands.

“Are you alright Victoria?” Andrea asked seeing something was obviously wrong.

“Yes, I’m fine.”  She lied.  She felt stupid enough as it was, she didn’t need anyone else pitying her for her stupidity!  She thought the time she had spent with Jake meant something to him, but obviously she had fallen for his seductions.  She had even thought he meant it yesterday when he told her he loved her, but obviously not considering he was out with another woman last night!  Victoria put her phone away and willed herself not to let the tear that stung her eyes escape.  She was not going to cry, she needed to sort the practical things out first before she dealt with her thundering painful heart, so she decided that whatever Jake did was up to him, but she would not have someone think she was dishonest and deceitful when she wasn’t.  Victoria sat and waited for near on another hour until Jake finally walked through the lift doors looking like his usual smart self, dressed in his perfectly cut grey suit, white shirt and blue tie.  She sat looking at him thinking how incredible he looked - had she not seen the photographs for herself then she would never had known he had been out partying until the early hours of this morning!

Jake took one look at Victoria sitting on the chair outside his office door and realised that instead of being in a deep drunken sleep this morning he should have called ahead to security and told them not to let her into the building.  He cursed himself quietly but kept on walking straight towards his office, totally ignoring Victoria, and opened his office door.

Victoria jumped out of her seat as Jake walked closer.

“No!” Jake’s voice bellowed as hard as thunder and Victoria stopped where she was, looking at Jake as he paused at his office door.

“Jake please, just hear me out.” She looked at his pleadingly.

“No.”  He turned to Andrea, “Get Bruno from Security to come up here immediately please.”  And then he went into his office and closed the door firmly behind him as if Victoria was not even there.

Victoria looked at Andrea as she picked up her phone and dialled down to security.  She couldn’t believe Jake was actually going to have her thrown out of his building!  This had gone way too far.  Quickly she walked into Jake’s office and closed the door behind her.

“Get out Victoria.  You are lucky I haven’t called the police.”

“No, just your security!”

“Who will be here to remove you any minute now.”

“Well you can listen to me first then.  I did not steal your file, I was trying to get it back for you.”

“Yeah right!”  Jake said sarcastically as he sat down behind his desk and leaned back in his chair.

“Look Jake you can believe what you want, but only when you have all the facts.  I didn’t tell you anything while it was happening because I had too much to lose.  I know I have lost everything now, along with so much more that you have any idea about, so I have nothing else to lose.  So just listen to me, just hear me out, and then think what you want after that.”

Jake rubbed his neck and considered it for a moment.  Fair enough he would listen to what she had to say but nothing was going to change the fact she had played him for a fool.  For how long?  He had no idea, but he had fallen for it, and fallen for Victoria in the process too.  He nodded.

Victoria stood in front of Jake’s desk and placed an envelope right in front of him.

“What’s this?”

“Inside that envelope is a confidentiality agreement preventing Mark Cavendish from repeating a word of what is in my file, your file.  That is why I was at his hotel last night.”

Jake opened the envelope and looked at the agreement and nodded his head.

“I had no idea Mark was coming to Miami, and when he sat in my office he told me it was so we could finalise things between us and he was going to buy me out of my share of our house.  He brought me the papers to sign.  If you don’t believe me those papers are in my desk, they were prepared by a solicitor in London.”  Victoria took a deep breath and steadied her voice.  “Mark did tell me he still loved me and he did try to persuade me to stay engaged to him, but I told him no.  He asked me to go to dinner with him but I turned him down, that was when you walked into my office.  I left him in my office for just those few minutes when I was talking to you explaining the situation.  Everything was exactly as I told you then.”

Jake placed his elbows on his desk and rested his chin on his fingertips listening intently to Victoria.  He didn’t want to believe she had done what she had, but he couldn’t see any other explanation for it.

“Later that afternoon I received a text from Mark saying he had taken a file from my office and if I wanted it back I had to go to dinner with him that night.  He wanted me to hear him out and obviously I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say, but I had no choice.  I had to go when I realised what file he had taken.”

“So Mark stole the file and you had nothing to do with him taking it.”

“That is correct.  I don’t think he had come here intentionally to do it.  He is a lying rat but I don’t think he would do that.”  Victoria really wasn’t sure what she thought about Mark and his plan, she still felt split as to whether he had planned this all along or whether it was just a spur of the moment opportunity he jumped at.

“Go on then, continue.” Jake’s voice was flat and hard.

“When I realised Mark had the file I cancelled our dinner arrangements and I went to meet him at the Four Seasons hotel.  But he didn’t keep to his end of the bargain and I could see that he wasn’t going to give me the file because by now he had realised how valuable the information in it was to you competitors.”

“That doesn’t explain how you ended up in his hotel room.”

“Yes it does.  He stormed out of the restaurant with the file and I followed him upstairs to make a deal and get it back.”

“What was the deal you struck?”

Victoria looked at Jake.  Seeing him look at her like she meant nothing at all to him was cutting through her heart and she wasn’t sure if she wanted Jake to know just how much she had just given up for him.  How much her stupid mistake had cost her.  To Jake half of the deposit money for a house in London wasn’t much, probably holiday money for him, but to her it was an absolute fortune and now it was all gone - she had given it all up to save Creative Technology Holdings a real fortune and her job.

“That doesn’t matter, that is between Mark and me.  All that matters is that I got your file back and I made him sign a confidentiality agreement so he cannot speak a word of what he saw and what is in that file.”

“And this?”  Jake put his finger on the other agreement.

“I had a confidentiality agreement drawn up for myself too at the same time.  I didn’t get to sign the agreement your legal department was going to draw up yesterday and I want you to know I would never speak a word of your new product line outside of our professional relationship.”

Jake looked at the second agreement and then nodded.  He wasn’t sure how much he really believed Victoria.  He needed time to think about what she said and take another look at the photographs, but right now he couldn’t bring himself to do that.  He thought he should have called the police last night and let them deal with Victoria and Mark.  Let them investigate it and turn his back on Victoria, but he couldn’t do that.  If she had stolen from him it would totally destroy what little trust he had left before now, he would never be able to trust anyone ever again and it would break his heart, but even so he couldn’t call the police on her.

“So what does this mean now?  I know I messed up by leaving my drawer unlocked, and leaving Mark in my office.  I know it was my mistake but I really didn’t see all this happening when I was thinking about you at that time.  Which I also know was a big mistake too now.”  She said with the photograph of Jake and the actress laughing getting into a car together playing in her mind again.  Victoria knew she and Jake were finished, if not by this business with the file then by him being with another woman this morning obviously going off to a hotel or back to her place.  “But now you know I didn’t steal the file and I was trying to get it back, what will happen with regards to your advertising and marketing account in London with Churchill, Turnbull & French?”

“Ah, down to what really matters Victoria?  Business and your job!”

“Well let’s face it Jake, we both know that you and I are finished.”  She looked at him matter of factly, intent that he didn’t see just how much pain she felt inside - her stomach cramped and her heart felt like burning ice, but her face stayed poker straight and she refused to lose her dignity.