AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Not that she knew enough about Latin men to pass judgment. Growing up in Los Angeles, she'd been surrounded by Latinos, but she had never dated one. The truth was that she hadn't dated many men in general, so maybe she just didn't know much about them, regardless of their ethnicity.
Crap, she was committing the same offense she'd accused Alberto of. She wasn't thinking of men in terms of people but in terms of their gender, and that was as wrong as any other generalization.
Okay, so what did she know about Alberto as a person?
He spoke English like a native, which led her to believe that he had studied in the US, and his vocabulary was rich enough to indicate that he had at least some higher education or read a lot. Still, she could easily detect the traces of the Spanish accent he was trying to hide. He might have even been born and raised in the US, but his first language had been Spanish.
The guy was too young to have so much money to throw around, but that didn't necessarily mean that he was a drug dealer or a trafficker. Maybe he came from a wealthy family, and the business deal he was negotiating was on behalf of his family business and had nothing to do with drugs or trafficking.
Lifting her wine glass, Margo turned to Alberto. "You mentioned a deal you are working on. What is it about?"
A shadow passed over his eyes, but his lips lifted in a smile. "I'm afraid it's confidential."
Margo's hackles rose again. "How come?"
He sighed. "I'm trying to negotiate a deal between two large companies. If word got out about the possible merger, it would influence their stock prices, which is a big no-no. Anyone who bought or sold their stocks after hearing about it could be accused of insider trading. I'm therefore very careful about saying anything regarding the merger."
"I don't invest in stocks," Margo said. "I have a 401(k) retirement savings through the company I work for and a savings account. That's all."
Alberto let go of Jasmine's hand and reached for the wine bottle. "You might have friends and family who invest." He refilled her glass. "The bottom line is that I can't tell anyone who isn't directly involved in the talks." He refilled Jaz's glass, and lastly his own.
"Is that why they are conducting the negotiations in Cabo?" Jasmine asked.
He nodded. "It's easier to hide from the media. The executives of both companies are staying in different hotels, and I doubt anyone in the media will figure out the connection between the two companies organizing retreats for their executives at the same time and in the same city."
It all sounded perfectly logical, and Margo's earlier suspicions were diminishing by the minute.
"I thought that you were dealing with local businesspeople," Jasmine said.
"What made you think that?" Alberto asked a little sharply.
Jaz shrugged. "You said something about a long drive. All the hotels are clustered in the same area."
He reached for his wine glass. "They are thinking about building a new manufacturing plant in the area, and we are scouting possible building sites."
Again, it sounded legit, but something about it bothered Margo. Did it make sense for the two companies who were negotiating a possible merger to be already looking for a site for their future joint endeavor?
Shouldn't they conclude the first step before going to the next?
If all of that was an elaborate fiction, Alberto was a skilled liar who could spin tales on the spot, which he might very well be.
Still, Margo's usually suspicious mind was getting a little lazy tonight, and she was more and more convinced that she had overreacted. It didn't make sense for the guy to invest so much time and money in a woman whom he intended to sell. There was no reason for him to put her in the presidential suite or to try to charm her new friend into liking him.
On the other hand, Alberto had taken Jasmine's passport, her California driver's license, and her credit cards, and that was a big-ass red flag.
24
KIAN
"That was so beautiful." Syssi dabbed under her eyes with a cloth napkin. "I never suspected that Brundar could be so poetic."
Amanda snorted. "Don't judge the book by its cover, right? People are more than their appearance."
"That reminds me." Kian drummed his fingers on the table. "Eva will need your help tomorrow. We need to disguise a large number of people to look like humans, and Eva can't handle so many on her own."
"Why do you need to do that?" Dalhu asked.
"So, the Doomers don't suspect this ship is ours." He explained Lokan's arguments and why he agreed with them. "But if we hope to pull it off, we will have to do a really good job of appearing like any other cruise ship. A large percentage of passengers will need to disembark and do touristy things while looking like average cruisers, which means much older and less attractive."
