Page 77 of Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend
“Is that right?”
Laura rolled her eyes. “What’s your point, Barnes?”
“Well, maybe I’d grant an exclusive interview to his top reporter,” I said flirtatiously.
Laura smiled and laughed. “Please. I’m sure you could do better than being interviewed by me.”
“You know, my HR people checked you out.”
Laura looked nervous for a minute. “Yeah?”
“I know about the San Francisco Post.”
Laura looked ashamed. “You do?”
“I also know it wasn’t your fault?”
Laura looked at me. “How do you know that?”
“Because I looked at the court documents. My HR lady did a freedom of information request about it.”
Last summer, Laura had been trying to nail white-collar criminals in the city. During the course of an investigation, she and her business partner had been trying to dig up records of embezzlement and fraud from the company’s CEO. Her partner, Laslo Burns, had brought her a series of documents alleging secret transactions from the company’s bank account. Laura rushed to write it up and published the article under both their by-lines. It was going to be the scoop of the year.
Until the CEO denied it, presenting a round of different documents in exchange. It turned out that Laslo had falsified some of the figures in his haste to nail the criminals. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to derail any possible police investigation into the company’s finances. And in the course of the ensuing fallout, Laura had lost her job. Her colleagues had shunned her.
“What do you think about it?” said Laura. “Made you think twice about hiring me, I guess.”
“No, it didn’t,” I said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“The lawyers didn’t agree,” Laura replied drily.
“Well, I think you made an honest mistake. If anything, you were just as much of a victim. So I thought about you when I saw that young man today. And I guess I thought that maybe if I got him straight on his facts, it’d stop him making a mistake down the line that could end as badly.”
“How noble of you,” said Laura ironically.
“I mean it. Don’t you think that you should be given a second chance?”
Laura leaned back in her seat. “It’s not like I don’t want to. I’d built a life in San Francisco. I was happy. And, more importantly, so was Kyle—”
“—Your happiness is just as important as your son’s. If not more so.”
“I know that,” sighed Laura. “Really, I do. It’s just that sometimes I wonder if things will ever change.”
“They haven’t changed enough already?” I frowned.
“Well, this place has certainly changed,” said Laura. “I mean, you’re the one who’s changing it.”
“If you want things to be different, you have to be the person to stand up and make that happen. That’s what you taught me.”
“I didn’t teach you anything. I swear it’s like you know everything about me. You even knew that this is the kind of beer I like.”
She peered at me.
“It’s almost as if…” Laura trailed off, losing her voice. What was she thinking?
Then I realized. I realized why she’d brought me here in the first place.
Was it because she wanted to see me here? Did she wonder if it would help make up her mind? Did she think that I might be Conor after all? I had to find out.