Page 74 of Single Mom's Secret Diary
Ezra moved her out of their small apartment and in with him as he started to build. She quit one of her two jobs, then the other. He offered her her own house, but she stays and cleans and cooks for him because he is such a good son.
He never brought home girls. Didn’t go out to party. Mai gives us countless examples of Ezra going out of his way to appreciate her.
I remember how he did that when we first met. How he’s been doing it since we stumbled upon each other again. So why did he blunder this one so badly?
And then to sic his mother on me so unexpectedly?
Dad pats my hand and tips my cocoa up for me to finish it. I comply.
I’ve been sufficiently brow beaten.
“How did you find me here?”
Mai holds her hand up, then scrolls through her phone to show me a few text exchanges between her and Ezra.
She’s run off, and I can’t find her.
She’s not at home, and she’s not answering her phone.
This can’t happen again. I’ll never recover.
She won’t believe me, but I’m in love with her.
I suck in too big of a breath and have a hard time letting go of it. My panic must be in my face because she reaches out to pat my hand like Dad usually does.
“I work for long time in restaurant. The cook knew Dominick Caruso enough to point me here when I asked. Only took two cases of Vang Dalat to get address.”
I laugh disbelievingly.
Mai smiles at me for the first time, and it lights her up most beautifully. “Now you know. You believe me. And you call meM?.”
35
Ezra
Islump back in my chair behind my desk, wiping a hand down my face from the mere exhaustion of the day. After the late-night phone calls and early morning research, I knew today wasn’t going to end any better than it started.
If only the bright spot of the morning—seeing Avery—had gone better. If only it had gone to plan. But I didn’t get out what I wanted to say to her, to let her know that we were searching in other places for the corporate spy in our midst.
I didn’t handle the situation well. Maybe I waited too long to tell her what was going on. Once again, I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping her out of it, by letting her sleep through the night and share with her in the morning.
To allow the board to keep a barrier between me and my biases. I failed there.
And I don’t give two shits that I’m biased about Avery.
There’s no way she would sabotage me and my company. No way she would give up on a project. No way she would hurt me, or Ryder, or Wyatt.
Except when she stormed out of here, it tore into us all a little deeper than we thought possible.
In order to deal—to divert my thoughts—I dove into the mystery.
It took all damn day, but our IT team, as small as it is, is made up of people I trust from college. People who got caught doing things they shouldn’t be doing and struggled to find jobs from it. They uncovered our perpetrator—Laurel Ricci.
She tried to cover her tracks, but Jeremey is better. He caught her trail and documented every transaction and indiscretion to hand over to the police. They’re on their way to arrest her as we speak. I’ll get a phone call when it’s all said and done.
I wish I felt triumphant.
Not only did we catch her, but she didn’t get the entire formula out. It’s an older version. One from right when Avery started with us.
