Ria,
Please take care of this ASAP. We cannot afford to have these workers on strike for too long. A friendly reminder that I took care of it last time. Since you have all of the necessary documentation and are still on the payroll, make sure you give them a big enough raise so this doesn’t happen again. But not so much that we’re paying them more than the industry standard.
Sincerely,
Jorge
I hit the “send” button and waited for a response.
To keep my mind occupied, I decided to call Gavin and let him know that I was finally trying to buy out Ria. “Good morning,” I said as he groggily picked up.
“Why are you up so early?
“It’s eight-thirty in the morning. Aren’t you back in Florida for a few weeks? Or did I catch you on California time?” I refreshed my computer screen, but still no response from Ria.
“Yeah, I’m in town for a few weeks, but my body is still on California time. I don’t have to be at my agent’s office until noon.”
“Well, I just wanted to let you know that you were right about Ria. Ginger looked over the books for me, since she’s an accountant, and found that Ria embezzled nearly a million bucks.”
The sound of a mug crashing onto the counter roared through the telephone. “Did you just say a million dollars? Dude, I told you she was bad news!”
I double-checked her status on our office instant messaging system, but it said she wasn’t available. She hadn’t been on it since our big blowout, either.
“She wouldn’t accept my offer to buy her out of our partnership. I’m just giving her some time to calm down after we had a big fight the other day.” I kept refreshing my email, even though I knew it wasn’t necessary. My penthouse had the fastest internet speed available.
“Is she still trying to sleep with you?”
“She’s doing more than just that, Gavin. Ria is expecting me to propose to her, which I made abundantly clear would never, ever happen."
“I can’t imagine that went over well.”
“Nope, and now I’m waiting for her to reply to an email regarding work. Normally I’d take care of it myself, but only she has access to the necessary information. Plus, it’ll take some time to go over everything, and that’s one thing I don’t have today. I have four, one-hour conference calls, plus I have to make myself somewhat presentable for a business lunch with a potential client.”
“Keep me in the loop. You’re doing the right thing, though. Speaking of which, I have to find some time to see my daughter while I’m in town. Maybe you and I could do lunch sometime too.”
The loud ping of an incoming email shifted my focus back to work. “Absolutely. Let me take care of this Ria nonsense, first, though. In fact, she just emailed me. I’ll text you later on.” I took a long, deep breath while double-clicking her response.
Good morning, Jorge,
I knew you’d need me eventually.
You’re in quite the predicament right now, aren’t you? Without the diamond miners working, you could lose a tremendous amount of money—no need to worry, though. I know what it’ll take to prevent them from ever striking again.
I’m more than willing to take care of this for you, mainly since I know you have an incredibly busy day, but on one condition—I get to meet your fiancée tonight.
Sincerely,
Ria
P.S.: You might be the best when it comes to spotting fake diamonds, but I’m the best when it comes to spotting fake men.
I slammed my laptop shut while screaming some obscenities.
I knew she wouldn’t go away quietly!
The good news was that Ginger was on-board with being my fake fiancée. The bad news was that I didn’t know how drawn out this whole thing would be. It was one thing to pretend to be engaged but a whole other ballgame trying to pull off a fake wedding.
I called Ginger, even though I knew she’d be at work.
