Ruin The Billionaire

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When I got to work, I went straight to the meeting room. Almost everyone was there. A minute later, Athena the CEO walked in. She was wearing a black pencil skirt with a white blouse covered by a black blazer. Her sharp black heels clicked against the floor as she walked to the front. Athena’s beauty and elegance was effortless. She went and sat behind her throne-like chair.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, ma’am.”

“It’s good to see you all early today. All of you have been slacking off lately and you know I do not like that. We need news, breaking sensational news. Something that can shake the show business. There are a lot of things you can find when you dig deep enough.

Lilith Hellman, you brought us a lot of publicity with the Jake Rylland expose but now that’s fading. We need more drama. Try trailing another billionaire again. It is clear people like to read dirt on the very rich. There’s an angle I can suggest. Find out what’s going on between Jake Rylland, Ashley and Heather. There has to be a juicy story that links the three of them. I don’t think it’s as plain as was reported. Did that up and give us something or find another billionaire or millionaire to troll.

Candice, you used to be the best at finding out things and now you’ve dropped to writing about things that have already been covered by other companies like Leah, Lilith and the others. You need to make yourself great again, or we might have to steal one of those reporters from The Blue Paper. They may be writing for a tabloid but they sure know how to find the good stuff. Leleti, Peter, Janice, and the rest of you. Wake up. I need something. We need to trend or we will end up making losses.”

We all kept quiet as our boss went on, talking about how incompetent we were. When she was done, she paused before continuing. “Now, let’s get to business. The president is coming to this city next week. It was confirmed to me this morning. We need to get on that and create great news around that. Go to government agencies and find out everything that’s going well, and that which is going badly. Whether you want to undercover or not, we have all the resources. What we need is for you to get news that people will want to read.”

The meeting went on for another hour. After Athena had exhausted her words, she let us contribute the ideas that we had. After some harmonization, we broke off. Everyone had something assigned to them.

“That was a lot,” I said to Leah as we walked out.

“I know. But she’s right. We need to do better.”

“Right.”

When I was at my desk, I logged into my work email account. One message caught my eye. It was from someone called Joshua Bend. Curious, I opened it. It read;

“Dear Lilith Hellman, I hope you’re doing well. It has come to my knowledge that you are dating Kyle Munther, a man I have known for a while. It seems that you do not know what kind of person he is. To save you, I have attached some information about him in this email. Do not share this with anyone because it might get me into trouble. I sent it to you so you can take steps to protect yourself from a very dangerous man.”

The email was not far-fetched. I downloaded the attached documents and started reading through them. I was shocked to see what Kyle had been accused of. Assault and sexual harassment. I remembered how he had stared at almost every woman’s body and realised I couldn’t dismiss the email. My hands were shaking as I typed a replay to Joshua bend.

“Mr. Bend, thank you so much for the email warning me about this person. I promise not to share this with anyone. Can we meet and you tell me more about Kyle?”

I sent the email and closed the browser. I went back to the documents and looked through them again. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Was Kyle really as bad as these things painted him out to be? What if they were false accusations?

I remembered that he had not listened to me when i didn’t want to have sex the previous night. That and the discomfort I was feeling made me believe there was no smoke without fear. I couldn’t doubt that those stories were true. Kyle Munther was not the nice guy he had made himself out to be when we first met.

I decided not to go home that evening. Instead, I went to Leah’s house.

“Are you really sure that you can trust this email guy?” Leah asked when we were watching TV in her living room.

“Even before that email, I was already scared of Kyle. The way he behaved yesterday sent off alarm bells in my head. There’s something fishy about him.”

“He does seem alright to me but if you don’t trust him, I believe you. You’re the one who has had personal dealings with him. Besides, most sociopaths hide the bad parts of them so well you’d never believe it until they do something to you.”

“Right. I wish I had taken more time to get to know this guy before jumping into bed with him. I thought I could trust him because he was Cali’s cousin and she brought him to us. I thought she wouldn’t bring him along if he was bad news.”

My phone started ringing. I checked it and saw Kyle’s name. Turning down the volume, I placed it back on the table. As soon as it stopped ringing, it started again. It was Kyle again. He called five more times.

“Wow, this guy is a real psycho. He doesn’t give up.”

Message notifications started sounding, each coming seconds after the other.

“Wow, this one is a mad man, Lilly. You fell on a wrong one this time around.”

“I now right.”

“I’m going to call Cali to come over. She needs to tell us more about this man she brought into our lives.”

“Please.”

Leah called Cali who said she would come. We ignored the calls and messages as we waited for Cali to arrive. When she arrived, Leah opened the door after making sure she was alone. We weren’t taking any risks.

“What’s going on you guys?”

“Your cousin is crazy. Why didn’t you tell us about him?”

“What do you mean? Which cousin?”

“Kyle, of course.”

“Aren’t you guys dating? Kyle is very happy that he found a good woman. He won’t stop thanking me even though you guys had met before I brought him here.”

“Tell us the truth. Did you know that he has been accused of sexual harassment and assault several times?”

Cali shook her head. “No. where did you get that?”

“Are you sure you knew nothing of his shady-ness?”

“Okay, he’s not very well liked in our hometown. Most women claimed he looks at them funny. Some said he has tried to touch them even when they didn’t want. He’s a bit infamous to be honest. But that was a long time ago, when he was young and full of raging hormones. He is no longer a perverted teenager. He has grown and left that behaviour behind him. Who told you about accusations?”

“Why didn’t you tell us this so we could be careful around him?” I asked. “You let me be with him despite knowing that he was like that.”

“That’s the thing he is not like that anymore. We all made mistakes when we were young. I don’t think you two were perfect either. People deserve to move on and start afresh. He is a better man now.”

“The accusations are from his workplace. He was actually suspended for two weeks.”

“Oh no, I didn’t know that. I swear.”

“I hope you’re not lying Cali, because I don’t want to lose you as a friend,” Leah said.

“Come on. I love you guys. I would never let you get in harm’s way if I could prevent it.”

I sighed. I was finding it hard to believe her. She did not seem that surprised by the revelation. “I hope so.”

Suddenly, the doorbell started ringing.

I jumped in my seat.

“Lilly, I know you’re in there.”

“Shit!” I said. “Don’t open the door.”

“Come on, guys, he’s…”

“Shut the fuck up!” Leah told Cali.

Now that was an action of a real friend.