Chapter 21

"Here are the latest budgeting files for your review," Alejandro smiled as he placed several documents on Heather's office desk.

"Thank you," Heather nodded, glancing up from her computer. "How about the product designs and proposals for our next jewellery collection which we discussed last week?"

Following the success of the Red Velvet collection, Heather and Alejandro were now in the preparation stages for Illuminate's upcoming jewellery collection, named 'The Emerald Paradise'. At this stage, only the two of them had seen the draft product designs.

"I have made a few changes and a copy has been sent to your email for final approval," Alejandro smoothly answered.

"Perfect. And has the meeting with the jewellery designers for next week been confirmed?" Heather asked.

"Sí," Alejandro nodded. "Sierra has confirmed the date and time and is booking a restaurant for the lunch venue. I am preparing talking points for the meeting and should have them done by the end of today."

"Well, look at who's on top of it all," Heather replied as she eyed Alejandro up and down. "Not bad, Mr Burromuerto. Not bad at all."

"We do make a good team," Alejandro smirked.

"An A team for sure," Heather agreed.

It had now been almost three weeks since Alejandro had commenced his role at Illuminate, and whilst there had been a few 'distractions' and hiccups initially, the two had got better at separating the line between work and 'after work'. As someone in a leadership position, Alejandro was caring, patient and charming, and he knew exactly when to be soft and when to be tough on his team. It was safe to say that he was very well respected by Illuminate's employees.

"Shall we go through the weekly sales reports together?" Alejandro asked.

Heather nodded as she checked the time on her computer. "Sierra usually sends it to me by 10am every Friday. I'll pull them up on my computer right now."

Alejandro took a seat in front of Heather's desk and opened a fresh page on his notebook, ready to take notes. He then watched as Heather scrolled through her computer. "I don't check my emails for five minutes and end up with forty unread emails," she groaned.

"Wow, someone's popular," Alejandro smirked.

Heather rolled her eyes as she continued to skim through her emails. "It looks like Sierra hasn't sent me the reports yet. Let me message her."

Just as she was about to reach for her phone, Sierra suddenly came barging in through Heather's office door, out of breath, and an uneasy look on her face.

Heather raised a brow. "Whoa, what happened to you? Also, where are this week's sales reports?"

Sierra swallowed. "Uh, yeah, about that...there might be a bit of a problem," she slowly said.

Heather leaned forward in her seat. "What kind of problem?"

"Okay, so this morning I was going for my usual morning coffee run with Codykins," Sierra began. "We went to this super cute coffee shop literally just down the road. I remember Codykins mentioned that recently he's been having trouble sleeping so I asked the barista for a decaf instead-"

"Hurry up and get to the main point," Heather impatiently interrupted, folding her arms. "This isn't the Sierra and Cody show."

Sierra narrowed her eyes. "Hey, I was getting there, okay? Anyway, as we were waiting for our coffee I saw this other woman at the coffee shop who was wearing a necklace that looked pretty much exactly like the Red Velvet necklace. So I walked up to her and told her that the necklace looked gorgeous on her and guess what she said? She said that she purchased it from an online jewellery store called RFG Jewellery."

Heather and Alejandro exchanged concerned looks.

"So out of curiosity, I googled RFG Jewellery, and searched through their products on their website. And it turns out that half their products are basically a copy of ours, except their prices are slightly cheaper," Sierra continued.

As Sierra spoke, Heather pulled up RFG Jewellery's website on her computer. Alejandro quickly walked over and peered over her shoulder.

"What the fuck? This is no way a coincidence," Heather remarked, as she felt her blood boil.

"And that's not all," Sierra added. "Our sales this week haven't been as great compared to last week. And this morning, I saw that there were a bunch of negative Google reviews of Illuminate posted yesterday. I checked the names of the people leaving the reviews against our customer database but none of the names showed up. In other words, they're probably fake reviews."

Alejandro bawled his fists. "Who the fuck is RFG Jewellery? I've never even heard of them before and I pretty much know all the businesses in the industry." His emerald green eyes met Heather's and an uneasy look passed both their faces. At that moment, he knew they were both probably thinking of the same thing, or rather the same person.

"So the snake in the company has now morphed into a rat," Heather muttered.

Sierra's eyes widened. "There are rats and snakes in here?" She placed her hands on her hips. "That's gross, we should call an exterminator."

Heather rolled her eyes. "It's just an expression."

Sierra frowned. "Oh, okay."

Heather sighed and rubbed her temples. "Sierra, can you take care of the online reviews, put out a media statement and get the marketing and analytics team to keep a closer track on our sales? I'll let you know if I need anything else from you. Alejandro and I will handle the rest."

"Of course," Sierra nodded and exited the room.

Heather stood up from her office chair and walked over to where Alejandro was standing. "Stealing and using trade secrets is illegal. My money is definitely on Nathan being behind this. I'm going to find the evidence to prove it and when I do he's going to be sorry he ever met me."

"Why don't we just approach him now and confront him about it?" Alejandro seethed, his emerald green eyes flickering with anger as he promptly took a few strides towards the door.

Heather grabbed his hand. "Wait, let me do it. I'll go test him but I don't want to directly accuse him without gathering evidence first."

Alejandro frowned. "Why is that? You know I won't hesitate to punch that irrelevant, obnoxious and two-faced liar if we need to, right?"

Heather rolled her eyes. "As much as I admit the idea of watching you beat Nathan up is quite satisfying, violence isn't the answer here."

Alejandro didn't say anything in response and only waited for Heather to keep talking.

"A few weeks ago, Nathan took quite a bit of time off work. This was what he was probably working on behind the scenes," Heather continued as she felt a wave of anger consume her body. But she knew she needed to control that anger. "My feeling is that he's planned this for some time, so I don't think he'll admit it that easily. And if we give him a black eye right now without any evidence, he'll probably just go to the press. The headline 'Illuminate Managing Director uses violence on an employee' isn't exactly a good look for our brand reputation."

"So what are you thinking then?" Alejandro asked as he stared into Heather's grey eyes; her face laced with a look of determination and unwavering confidence.

"We play his game and let him think he has the upper hand," Heather confidently replied. "Meanwhile, behind his back we gather the evidence we need to send him behind bars."

Alejandro paused for a moment. "I like your thinking," he eventually said.

"Point number one, never reveal your cards to your opposition," Heather added. "Point number two, people with large egos are at their weakest when they think they're the strongest."

"And I look forward to watching Nathan's ego burn up in flames," Alejandro remarked. "Let's hope that he looks good in an orange jumpsuit."

Heather placed her hands on her hips. "When we're done with him, that will be the least of his problems."

"One thing I haven't quite figured out though is what his motive behind this would be," Alejandro suddenly said as he furrowed his brows.

"That's what I don't understand too," Heather said as she started pacing up and down her office. "I mean, if someone had a crush on you, stealing your trade secrets obviously isn't exactly the way to get you to like them back. Unless..." she hesitated for a moment. "Unless he's trying to get revenge on me for rejecting him? But I feel like there's something else behind this. He knows how important my business is to me, and he's using that against me...he wants to achieve something, but I don't know exactly what yet."

"Who knows what's going on in that messed up brain of his?" Alejandro grumbled.

Heather scrunched her nose. "I don't think I want to know. But what I will say is that there is no way I'm going to let him destroy Illuminate."

"I'll contact my informants and have them do a detailed background check on RFG Jewellery," Alejandro said.

Heather nodded. "I love a man with a gameplan. I'm going to try and distract him so I can search through his office for evidence of espionage."

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" Alejandro asked.

"It's fine, I've got it," Heather coolly replied. "I'll keep you updated," she added, to which Alejandro let out a nod.

Heather straightened her hair as she then made a beeline towards Nathan's office and promptly stepped inside.

Nathan glanced up from his desk. "Heather, how's it going?"

"Oh, just another casual day at the office," Heather coolly responded as she walked closer to where he was seated. "This morning, I found out that there's a rat in our team who's been leaking our product designs with another business called RFG Jewellery." She studied Nathan's reaction carefully; he didn't seem to flinch at all.

There was a brief moment of silence before Nathan cleared his throat and spoke. "That sounds terrible...do you know who the culprit is?"

"Not yet," Heather answered. She paused for a moment. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about it, would you?" she then said, testing him.

Nathan shook his head. "Unfortunately not. But it does look like we need to strengthen our IT systems. And I hope that you know I had nothing to do with it."

Heather clenched her jaw and took a deep breath. "Of course," she remarked. "I've known you since college and you basically know almost everything about Illuminate. In fact, there's just so much insider information that you have access to. But I fully trust you and know that you won't ever do anything to disappoint or betray me."

Nathan leaned back on his seat and studied Heather carefully for a moment. "I'm glad we're on the same page then," he said in a flat voice. "I would do anything for Illuminate."

Heather smiled at him. "In that case, can you review the final marketing plans with Cody downstairs right now? I would like to have the final version on my desk by this afternoon."

A muscle in Nathan's jaw twitched and a look of irritation briefly flashed across his face. "No problem," he eventually responded.

"Perfect, I appreciate it so much Nathan," Heather replied as she flashed another smile at him. Look at me, I'm a bullshitting queen.

Nathan stood up from where he was seated and began walking outside his office, with Heather quickly following after him.

As he took a few steps, he suddenly turned back around to face her. "Be careful, Heather," he said in a low voice, a dangerous look in his brown eyes. "I wouldn't want to see you get hurt."

Heather froze as she stared at him carefully. Is that supposed to be a threat?

"Of course," she confidently replied the next moment and folded her arms. "You know, I'm not the one you should be worried about."

Nathan simply let out a smile before he continued to walk ahead. Once he was out of sight, Heather immediately sent a text to Alejandro.

Heather: Can you go downstairs, keep an eye on Nathan and tell me when he's coming back up? I'm going to search his office

Alejandro: Sí

Heather: Try to be discreet

Alejandro: Don't worry, if anyone can play the male lead of a spy movie, it's me 😉

Heather rolled her eyes. She made her way back inside Nathan's office, closing the door after her and then unlocked his computer. As the Founder of Illuminate, she was able to use her staff swipe card to gain access to all security systems within the office building, and Nathan's computer was no exception. She carefully browsed through the files on his desktop and checked his emails to see if there was anything suspicious. Nothing in particular stood out. After twenty minutes, she diverted her attention to his drawers and bookshelf; again, there was nothing that seemed to be incriminating.

At that moment, Heather's phone rang; it was Alejandro. She quickly picked up. "Everything okay?"

"Yes, and don't worry, he can't see me right now," Alejandro replied. "He's still with Cody at the moment. How is my partner in crime going?"

"I haven't found anything yet," Heather spoke as she turned her attention to a small filing cabinet near the very back of Nathan's office. "I've already searched his computer too and there's nothing suspicious so far."

Heather walked closer to the cabinet and realized that a passcode was needed to unlock it. She tried a few random combinations and then typing in Nathan's birthday; each of those were incorrect. She then tried her own birthday and rolled her eyes when the door opened. Looks like someone forgot to change their password.

"Heather, the devil's spawn is grabbing his things and on his way back upstairs," Alejandro suddenly said on the other end of the line.

Heather suppressed a snort. "I'll be quick," she replied as she peered inside the cabinet. "There's just one more thing I want to search." Her gaze suddenly shifted to a blue folder; she quickly picked it up and began browsing through the files inside.

"Okay, so, Nathan has done a pretty good job of hiding any evidence. There is literally nothing-"

Heather froze and stopped mid sentence when she suddenly came across a photograph of Nathan with someone else. That someone else was someone who she instantly recognized. She studied the picture closely, eyes as wide as saucers and blinked twice just to make sure that she wasn't seeing or imagining things. No way in the world. I didn't know that they even knew each other.

"Heather?" Alejandro gently asked when Heather stopped talking. "Is everything okay?"

"Oh my god," Heather breathed as she continued to stare at the person beside Nathan in the photograph, before promptly dropping the picture to the floor.

Images of her high school flashed through her mind. Sneering, whispering and belittling voices in hallways. Rumors. A diary. Conflict. The Spring Formal. Gossip. More conflict.

It was Gwen.

--

A/N - the secret is out 👀 Did we see that coming??!

What do you guys think Nathan's connection to Gwen is??

A heads-up that things are going to get crazier in the next few chapters... :P

Predictions/thoughts/theories??

Thanks for reading :)