Page 44 of Jane's Story
“Maybe someone got into the suite that way to kill Armond, right, Charles?” Owen asked. “Though they’d need to have keycards and things, right?”
“Let me guess, they don’t have video feeds of the area?” Kyle rolled his eyes.
“They don’t,” I responded. “And we found out there’s a third penthouse, which Armond booked.”
“He was a pretty sly guy. I wonder if he booked it for himself? You know, he flirted with Margery a lot.” Kyle folded his arms across his chest.
“You didn’t like Armond much?” I asked innocently.
“Not much,” Kyle answered. “I didn’t kill him. But no, I didn’t like him.”
I narrowed my eyes. “The three of you are going to get a nice payload from the SaferLoc project, I think.”
“It should be pretty substantial,” Charles said, raising a cautious brow. “You know, I found a few errors in the specs with names that might need to be cleared up.”
“What?” Owen’s jaw dropped. “What errors? I promised my girlfriend we’d buy a boat.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Wow, a boat? Really?”
“Uh, yeah. Sorry, I don’t know why I’m freaking out.” Owen wiped his hand over his forehead. “It will be fine, right?”
A debate brewed in Charles’s eyes. If he wanted to bring up the misappropriated credit, that was up to him. Though I would’ve waited. “Well, actually, some large components I developed were credited to the entire group.”
Owen chuckled. “Oh, so you mean I’m getting paid more? That’s okay then.”
Kyle frowned. “It’s not funny. They'd better fix it.”
“Well, now that we've found the error, it should be fine.” Charles kept a cool demeanor, but I wanted more information.
“Would it have been a large amount of money?” I hated to play the clueless blonde card, but occasionally it benefited me. A server walked by us and offered drinks to the group.
As the server walked away, Charles nodded and took a sip of his drink. “Anywhere between $500,000 and a million dollars.”
Kyle’smouth fell open.
Owen coughed on his drink. “Wow. That would be enough for a boat, I guess.”
The music died down, and Darcy stood at the mic, thanking everyone for their attendance and telling them they’d made a difference for the charities Haven Corp supported. He reminded me a bit of Bruce Wayne as he called out the winners of the silent auction.
An angelically beautiful girl with long waves of golden hair approached Darcy. He offered her his arm, and my heart sank. Even though he and Lizzy weren’t dating, I frowned at them. “Charles, do you know the girl Darcy is with?”
Charles looked across the room. “Oh, that’s Georgiana, his sister. He keeps trying to set us up together.”
“Oh, he wants you to date his sister?” I fought the urge to cry or run away.
“Yeah, she’s pretty. Isn’t she?” Charles shrugged.
“She’s stunning.” I gulped. “Do you like her?”
Charles looked confused. “Of course I do. Georgiana is very sweet. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
“Oh, sure.” I pulled in a slow breath. Both Charles's best friend, Darcy, and his sister, Caroline, had reasons towant us not to be together—more barriers to our potential relationship.
Before we made it to the podium, Georgiana caught sight of Charles and ran to us. She was the perfect image of a fae princess with her lacy cream ball gown, her blonde waves, and delicate gold tiara. She flung her arms around Charles and kissed his cheek.
I wanted to throw up.
“Charles! Oh my goodness, this gala is splendid.” Georgiana beamed. Then she caught sight of me and stared blankly.
