Billionaire in the Heights by Maria Lokken

Author:Maria Lokken [Lokken, Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Interracial Romance; Enemies to Lovers; Latinx; Billionaire; Forced Proximity; CEO; NYC; Community
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Published: 2023-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

The company jet began its descent, and Dale turned from his laptop and looked out the window. The view of the Manhattan skyline from ten thousand feet never failed to impress. The plane banked right, passed over the city, and then across the Hudson, heading for a private airfield on the Jersey side.

Dale took in a deep breath. He’d stayed longer in Buffalo than he’d planned, uncovering problems he hadn’t quite figured out how to solve. Something wasn’t right, of that he was certain. But he didn’t have enough to go on. For now, he’d sleep on it and work it out with his executive planners tomorrow.

With the runway in view, thoughts of the Buffalo project began to recede and were replaced with his favorite subject, Sylvia Ramirez. Dale smiled for the first time in a week, and his shoulders relaxed. He wondered where she was tonight and what she was doing.

As the wheels hit the tarmac, his phone chimed, pulling him out of his reverie. He looked at the screen and found a text from his mother.

—Call me. Urgent.—

Dale swiped to his favorites and pressed call.

His mother answered in half a ring.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. But I think there’s going to be trouble,” Candace said.

He wasn’t in the mood for talking in code. “Can you be more specific? What kind of trouble?”

“I’m not sure exactly what is going on.” Candace’s voice sounded strained. “I have our attorneys looking into it as we speak. A reporter from New Day Magazine was sniffing around, asking me and several of the other board members questions about the Buffalo project.”

Dale gripped his phone tighter. “What kind of questions?”

“He asked if I knew the names of the project’s suppliers. He seemed particularly interested in who is supplying the cement for the buildings.”

“What kind of crazy question is that? What did you say?” Dale held his breath.

“I said I didn’t know and politely hung up. But that didn’t stop him. He was outside the office today to get employees to go on record, asking them the same questions.”

“Great, just great.” Dale clenched a fist and tried to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “What do they know that we don’t?”

New Day Magazine was one of the biggest gossip rags in print. Their headlines screamed from supermarket checkouts across the country. It didn’t matter if the articles were true or completely fabricated, because people tended to believe headlines. While most magazines were dying, New Day’s sales were out the roof. They could afford to keep an entire legal team on retainer to handle the dozens of defamation suits thrown at them every month. Sadly, no one remembered if the victim of a story had been vindicated; all the public remembered were the accusations, even if they had been proven false.

Dale rubbed his forehead. “What do our attorneys say?”

“So far, nothing,” Candace Forester said.

He blew out a long breath. “Something’s terribly wrong. I’m going to bring Goff in on this.” Having been with Forester for over fifteen years, Leonard Goff was the company’s private investigator.

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