Page 80 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

“I got a call from a media outlet this morning claiming that they received evidence that you engaged in corporate espionage.”

And that was when the smile melted right off his face. “What?”

“They’re claiming that you’ve been stealing from your father.Everything. Leads, information. I don’t know what all. I’m not an expert in corporate espionage, I am an expert in... Knowing that this is a very bad thing.”

“I have taken nothing from my father,” he said, his voice suddenly hard.

“Well, they seem to think that you did. And supposedly there’s evidence to that effect.”

“Why do you think it was Charmaine?”

“I picked up her phone, and there was an email preview. It said,When you’re done with him...I didn’t read the rest because that isn’t in my scope, but when you said you were taking her to the offices, it got my antennae up. I tried to get you stay back and talk to me, but you didn’t.”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t, but you didn’t say you were worried she was going to do something nefarious.”

“I didn’t know what she was going to do, because I didn’t know what she might find evidence of at your offices, Matias.” That he might be guilty of corporate espionage was a problem, she supposed. It was just that she didn’t care. Trying to apply ethics to billionaires was stupid, and in her opinion, based on everything she knew, his father was the worst, so what did it matter if he took some of the old man’s trade secrets?

On moral grounds, she couldn’t care less if she tried.

But if he was guilty, it was a complication in the practical sense.

He paused for a moment. “Why do you care?”

“What do you mean,why do I care?”

“Your contract with me ends next week.”

“Exactly. And if I leave you in the rubble that is going to be... Smoldering when all of this comes out, it’s going to reflect badly on me. On my company.” And she was not a billionaire with generational wealth. She was worried about herself.

“And for a second I thought you cared.”

Her phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her pocket.

Did you find the Pitbull?

His eyes glanced downward, and he caught the message on her lock screen. She put it away quickly.

“The Pitbull?” he asked.

“You have a code name, obviously, with my coworkers. Because we have to talk about logistics, but of course we’re discreet.” She gritted her teeth and did not say: unlike you.

“You call me a pitbull because you find me dangerous?”

Well, to his point, she had a week left on her contract with him. And no reason not to tell him exactly what she felt.

“I call you a pitbull, because pitbulls aresilly, andemotional, and make very abrupt reactionary choices. That is what makes them dangerous, not their aggression. And apparently it’s what makes you dangerous too.”

“I am notsilly,” he said, the hardness in his eyes that she had never seen before.

“Well, you’re going to have to do some work to prove that to me.”

“I have nothing to prove to you Augusta. If you find me inconvenient, then leave.”

“No. We have to fix this. We have to... We need a bigger boat.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“If you have a big shark, you need a bigger boat. That’s... That’s what I know. This is going to hit the headlines, and it is going to create a sensation. You have to make a bigger sensation.”