Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“You did see World War III barely averted just now? Right?”
“It wasn’t that bad. Besides, I’d pay money to see someone mess Robert’s hair up.”
“Stacey!” I burst out laughing. “You’re impossible!”
“But you know it’s true. Listen, Savannah, from one friend to another, I don’t know what went down between you and Max. Yes, we all know that Robert said he stole some money and he got sent to prison for it. But as far as I can tell there is still a lot of chemistry and unfinished business between the two of you. Maybe now that he’s out, you can fix things or at least work him out of your system. As your friend I want you to be happy. I’m tired of seeing a beautiful woman like you turn guys down because you’re protecting your heart. You need to heal. And maybe you need to be healed by the one who broke your heart in the first place.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be healed… or the damage is irreparable?”
“Nope. I’m the perennial dreamer and happily-ever-after believer. You can be healed. Both of you. Now let’s see if we can help to lighten some vendors’ loads by assisting with their disposal of any leftovers. Heaven knows I’m not going to sit in a drive thru, nor am I going home to cook after a day like today.”
I laughed and threw my arm around her waist. “Well, that makes two of us.”
By the time I got home, I was exhausted so I popped the bag with all kinds of leftovers into the freezer, and stuck a few slices of pizza into the microwave. Then I had a hot shower and shampooed my hair thoroughly. Leaving it wrapped up in a towel as I hungrily wolfed down the pizza and washed it down with a can of diet soda I found somewhere in the refrigerator.
With my hunger assuaged, I combed out the knots in my hair and while it air-dried, I sat at the dining table with all the bits and pieces of paper and checks I’d collected throughout the day. I began to add up all the checks and made a list of all the promissory notes we’d received. A quick calculation showed that with our cut of the vendors sales we would achieve about seventy-five percent of our target.
That still left twenty-five percent to be funded. Though it sounded like a small percentage, I had to remember that getting to the seventy-fifth percent in the first place was as a result of hundreds of donations, countless emails and phone calls, and much begging and pleading. And quite frankly, we were all begged out. I felt as if we could go no further and were all tapped out with raising funds. I did not believe I could ask anything else of the committee of me either.
I went back through the figures again, and realized that if I removed the promises made, our gap widened closer to a forty percent shortfall. That was alarming. What if these promises were not fulfilled? We were hoping to start renovation works in the summer.
My thoughts turned to Max. Could I trust him to honor his pledge of picking up the shortfall? Where could he have gotten so much money in the short space of time he had been free? Was there any truth in what Robert had said about being sure of where Max’s money was coming from before taking it?
I fished his card out of my purse and stared at the simple bold lettering.
I turned the card over in my hand. BB Tech. Wondering what BB stood for, I walked over to my laptop on the kitchen counter and booted it up. A quick internet search showed a company which was barely four years old, but was already making waves in the technology industry.
From all indications, they were doing good business, but my jaw dropped when I dived deeper and found out that the company had netted no less than eight figures in the last two years alone. Max had become a wealthy man even behind bars. Come to think of it, he had not been lacking in funds when he had been arrested either.
Not for the first time, I wondered why he would need to embezzle. But then I remembered the blackmail bit. Which made me remember the photos. And the memory made me cringe. I was the clueless idiot in that scenario, but as I looked at the company’s site now, my gut instinct told me that any money from Max would be above-board. Perhaps he had turned over a new leaf, at least financially.
It would seem I could trust his money, but I would never dare trust his heart again.
I would get the final figures from contractors and suppliers for the total cost of the renovation and find out exactly how much the shortfall was. Then I would approach Max armed with figures and keep my fingers crossed as he wrote the check. Once it cleared, I would be finally done with the likes of Max Blackstone.