Page 24 of The Cinderella Secret
“Your Coca-Cola, Mr. Aiden,” said Theo, entering the room with a tall glass on a silver tray.
“Thanks, Theo.”
The butler nodded and exited. Theo was well known for his impassive façade, but Aiden thought he caught a side-long look at Charlie. Aiden wasn’t the only one who disliked having him in the house.
“So you think it’s about our solar patents? You don’t think it’s personal?”
“Why would it be personal?” asked Jackson. “The paperwork you sent over showed that Bo Zhao was only a contract employee.”
“Randall could make enemies out of just about anyone if you gave him long enough,” said Charlie with a shrug.
“Are you sure there weren’t any other records?” asked Aiden. “That file was pretty thin.”
“We had a server crash about ten years ago and we lost a lot of the older HR records. There might be more in project record storage, but they wouldn’t pertain to his work status—just the projects he worked on. Bo Zhao was a contract employee doing project management. China had just started into big manufacturing at the time. Randall needed someone who could speak the language and who could make sure our parts didn’t come back fucked up.”
Evan frowned. “I knew he was Chinese, but I remember him sounding British.”
“That’s how I remember it,” agreed Charlie. “I think he learned English in Europe. He was multi-lingual. Like I said, that’s probably why Randall wanted him. But we would never have made him a full hire. Like you said—he was Chinese. And we were chasing a lot of DoD contracts at the time. A Chinese national on the team would have been a problem.”
“Do you think Randall ever promised him shares?” asked Jackson, and Charlie snorted in derision.
“Ask your brother. Cousin. Whatever. Randall might havesaidall kinds of things, but I doubt he meant it. And he certainly wouldn’t have put it in writing.”
“We’ll be staking our case on that,” said Aiden. “If there’s anything else, you need to tell us now. We can’t afford any surprises and you can’t afford for us to lose.”
“Aiden, you almost sounded like a real Deveraux just then,” said Charlie, turning to look at him with a grin.
“Couldn’t possibly,” said Aiden, taking a sip of his soda. “Everyone knows I’m the nice one. Practically famous for it.”
“Yes,” said Charlie with a laugh. “Prince Charming. What does that make those two?”
“Evil step-sisters?” suggested Jackson.
Evan gave Jackson a genuine look of amusement but turned back to Aiden. “If you say a word about frogs, I will tell Grandma about Stacy Kasich.”
“Wasn’t going to!” exclaimed Aiden, laughing in surprise.
“And I’m going to suggest you keep it that way,” said Charlie, earning an angry look from Evan. Charlie put his glass down on the coffee table and stood up. “Anyway, it sounds like you’ve got everything well in hand, but let me know if you need anything else from me.”
“We’ll do that,” said Evan without getting up.
“Aiden,” said Charlie, turning to him and holding out his hand, “I’ll see you at next month’s board meeting?”
“See you then,” agreed Aiden with his usual empty smile while shaking Charlie’s hand.
Evan and Jackson were silent until they heard the front door close.
“He didn’t answer the question,” said Jackson. “You asked if there was anything else we needed to know and he avoided.”
“My fault,” said Aiden. “I didn’t phrase it as a question. I left him too much wiggle room.”
“What do we think it means?” asked Evan.
“At a guess?” said Aiden. “There may have been a promise for shares, and he knows it.”
“The paper trail is on our side though,” said Evan. “We could try project record storage or whatever bullshit Charlie just said, but I wouldn’t even know where to start or what projects to ask for. I’d probably have to dig up any records from Randall that we have before we could even start looking at DevEntier. And I’m not sure we want to.”
“Agreed,” said Aiden wholeheartedly. The last thing he wanted was to send his cousin down a rabbit hole of old family memories for what was possibly a wild goose chase but would certainly be an entire zoo’s worth of unpleasant memories for Evan. “Everything else Charlie said is consistent. I think we have to proceed as planned,” Aiden continued, but Jackson was noticeably silent, and Aiden raised an eyebrow at him. “You have other thoughts?”
