‘It will be,’ I promised, squeezing his hand. ‘We’ll make sure it is, OK?’ I felt motivated and determined to help him. Jimmy had worked so hard on turning his life around but I wondered if the board held his less-than-squeaky-clean past against him, regardless.
I couldn’t help but think: what part did the stalker play in all of this? What part did Britney play? I knew she was involved. Maybe she deliberately sabotaged his deals. Britney and her cronies must want the app to fail so that Jimmy loses his company. But why?
A stabbing pain struck my stomach. The world was growing darker and more twisted. Someone out there wanted him to lose everything.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Ella
I left Jimmy’s alone and headed straight to Times Square to get to the office, as he was on a pretty intense call about the board with one of the accountants. I had already texted the girls to meet me there, and both Zola and Katy were sitting at their desks when I walked in.
‘What’s going on?’ Katy asked, looking worried. ‘Please tell me you haven’t got a text!’
‘Got a text,’ Zola cackled, impersonatingLove Islandfrom her desk. ‘Too soon? Not funny?’
I turned, making sure the door had shut completely behind me before I started talking. ‘No,’ I replied to Zola, then I began. ‘OK, so Travis and Fee stopped by Jimmy’s this morning and didn’t realise I was there. They were grilling him about investors and talking about fixing it with the board and some heavy stuff like that.’ I took a breath, trying hard to cover ground before we were disturbed, while at the same time getting to the critical points. ‘So, when they left, I asked Jimmy what was going on.’
Confusion flickered in their eyes, their furrowed brows betraying how quickly I’d lost them.
‘Uh-huh?’ Zola questioned.
‘Basically, Jimmy is at risk of losing his whole company. There have been dodgy deals with app launches and the investors have lost so much money .?.?. And they are blaming .?.?.’
‘Daddy Warbucks,’ Katy interjected.
‘Yeah, so TLDR the investors who invest in all the apps Flirtify develops are threatening to pull out of other big deals too if ours isn’t a massive – like world domination standard – success.’
‘And you think this has to do with the stalker?’ Zola asked, biting her fingernails.
‘Oh, come on, is the Pope a Catholic?’ I sighed.
‘Yeah,’ Katy nodded. ‘Obviously. What, he is?’
Zola darted Katy a look, then came back at me. ‘It must be,’ she sighed. ‘But why pester us to go home?’
‘If Stars and Swipes flops, the investors and the board will turn on Jimmy, blaming him, which will possibly allow them to justify taking over the company.’ I peered through the glass, which gave me a view of the office. I watched everyone working away, struck by the horrible knowledge that one of them was plotting Jimmy’s downfall.
‘Well, we can’t let it fail,’ Katy said quietly. ‘No more distractions. We only have a couple of weeks left before Thanksgiving.’
Zola sniggered. ‘Babe, you’re the one getting distracted all the time!’
I bit my lip so as not to smile. Zola was right, but her shagging antics had come to be an expected quirk of Katy’s personality.
‘Yeah, yeah, but not anymore, OK? I deleted Tinder after that fucking twelve-inches-my-arse fraud last night. No more dates, no more sex. We need to get to the bottom of this shit.’ She sounded motivated.
‘OK,’ I agreed, convinced.
‘Wait, Ella, sorry.’ Zola held up her hand to me and swivelled back to Katy. ‘No more sex? Really?’ she asked. ‘So, I can actually get a decent night’s sleep again?’
‘Really.’ Katy held out a pinkie towards Zola. ‘I’ve decided if I grow the bush, I won’t have sex.’
Zola and I burst out laughing together.
‘It’s true. I’m not going to be tempted to pull with a full-on forest, am I?’ She giggled, mischievous as ever, and I shook my head.
‘Also,’ I added, ‘Philip messaged!’
In all the stress of the morning, I’d almost forgotten about that. I watched my friends’ faces fall in shock.
