An American Cinderella
Page 88“Did you not hear how bad everything was that I just said?” I asked. “It’s a monster.”
He reached out and touched my cheek. “What kind of prince would I be if I couldn’t slay the dragon for my lady love?”
“But how do we slay the dragon?” I asked him, feeling the grip of hopelessness close around me again. “She has all the cards. If I do anything, she releases the photo I took. She releases my father’s photos and ruins him. She probably has evidence planted just to make sure that I really do go down with my father.”
“The way to beat a dragon is to find the chink in its armor,” he said slowly. His accent made him sound like a knight of old who actually might have slayed dragons at some point. He smiled slowly. “We use the dragon’s greed and tools against it.”
“I don’t understand,” I replied. “What tools? I don’t have anything on her.”
“Yes, you do,” Henry said. I could see the wheels starting to spin in his mind, lighting up his eyes.
“Like what? The recording? I only have the one voicemail and there’s not much on it,” I said, shaking my head.
“You have the bugged phone. And, she thinks you have something she wants.” He smiled like a cat about to catch the canary. “We should give it to her.”
Henry stood and caught me in the middle of the room. He put his hands on either side of my head and pulled me into a kiss. I fought him, still having more to say, but not for long. His kisses were just too good.
“There’s easier ways to get me to shut up,” I told him, once he released me from the kiss.
He raised his eyebrows like he didn’t believe me. I sighed.
“What’s your plan?” I asked, keeping my questions in check.
“She’s expecting a thumb drive full of trade documents that she will then sell, correct?” He waited for me to nod. “Then that’s exactly what we’ll give her. Only...”
I suddenly understood what he was planning. I smacked my palm to my forehead. “Only it’ll be what we want them to say.”
I frowned. “But, I don’t know how to make those files look real. I don’t even know what to put on them. And then, who do we tell? Do we tell anyone?”
“Resources?”
“You want to slay a dragon? You need knights,” he said with a smile. “And I have the best technological knights around.”
Chapter 28
Henry managed to keep me calm for the rest of the day and well into Monday. I canceled my appointment with the lawyer. With Henry and his team of “knights” I had more help than a single lawyer could provide.
Still, I was a nervous wreck.
Monday I went in to work, making sure to bring my bugged phone with me. I needed to finish scanning the last of the documents to make it look like I was doing exactly what Audrey expected me to do.
As soon as I walked in the front door, Gus got up and gave me a big hug.
“I’m okay,” I promised. “Thank you for looking out for me.”
“I promised your dad I would,” Gus replied. “How’s Henry?”
“We worked things out,” I told him. “We’ve got a plan.”
“By the way you just went pale, I don’t want to know what the plan is,” Gus said. “Please be careful. Your dad will come back and haunt me if I let anything happen to you.”
“It should be easy,” I told him. “Don’t worry about me.”
I just had to pretend to be a complete sell out.
Gus gave me one more hug, the look on his face saying that he didn’t quite believe I was as fine as I said I was. I did my best to put on a more confident smile. I didn’t want him worrying about me.