He huffed out a breath. “His office called and said we’re meeting first thing tomorrow instead.”
“Oh.”
Connor stood, his shoulders square. “They never told Meredith that.”
Dad’s gaze moved between them, the stress in his eyes deepening as he looked at her.
“Maybe that’s a deliberate oversight,” he said quietly. “Apparently Vance Brennan has raised concerns about Acacia’s performance. Quality issues, delays, the clubhouse square footage dispute. He’s pushing for a review of our contract at eight a.m. tomorrow morning.”
Meredith felt the blood drain from her face. She glanced at Connor, who closed his eyes like he’d been hit.
“He’s making his move,” he said under his breath.
Eli frowned. “What move? What are you talking about?”
Meredith walked to the door to close it. “Dad, we need to show you something,” she said. “You’re going to want to sit down for this.”
She started with the contractor pattern—three companies, same registered agent, same Fort Walton Beach address. Connor pulled up the bid comparisons on his laptop, showing how the pricing tracked within three percent of internal budgetallocations that only Vance had access to. They walked him through the change orders, the vendor steering, the absence of competing bids on work that required them by contract.
And then the ductwork. Twenty-four gauge in the Alastair when the specs called for twenty. Cheaper material, billed at the higher rate. It happened with numerous other materials and bids. The margin disappeared into companies that traced back to the same mailbox.
Her father listened without interrupting. His exhaustion didn’t lift—if anything, it got worse—but underneath it, Meredith watched something harder take its place.
She could see his expression shift as he learned that someone had been stealing from a client under his watch.
When they finished, he was quiet for quite some time.
“How long have you known?” he finally asked.
“A week,” Meredith said. “But kudos to Connor who sniffed this out long before I did.”
He shifted his gaze to the other man, giving an infinitesimal nod of thanks.
“I just questioned the subs and bid patterns,” Connor said, quickly deflecting praise. “Meredith’s got her head in the big stuff and wouldn’t have any reason to examine that paperwork.”
She smiled at him, grateful for his willingness to drive from the backseat. He didn’t seek credit or praise, which reminded her of the other man in this room.
“Honestly, Dad, I really was going to sit you down this weekend and get your final call on how to handle this. But now…”
“Vance is forcing the timeline,” Eli concluded for her. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “Because he must have sensed something and he’s trying to get us fired before you can present the evidence.”
“That would be our guess,” Connor said.
As if hearing the word “our,” Eli’s gaze moved between them, and Meredith saw something flicker in his expression that she couldn’t quite interpret. Interest? Surprise? Confirmation?
She didn’t know, but he always did have a freakishly good Dad sense when Meredith liked a boy.
And, yeah, after a week of late nights, a shared objective, and a whole lot of chemistry and tension, she sure liked this boy.
“So what do we do?” she asked, purposely steering back to the crisis. “If we present this tomorrow without everything airtight, it’ll look like we’re deflecting from performance issues. Fake performance issues,” she added. “But if we walk in there and play defense against his accusations without mentioning the fraud?—”
“We lose either way,” Eli finished. “I know.”
A wrong move would cost Acacia the project—the revenue, the reputation, the two new hires in Atlanta who’d have to be let go. A right move could save everything, but only if it was convincing enough to turn Greg Hollister against his own employee.
Eli looked down, thinking, and, if Meredith knew anything about her father, asking for guidance.
“We present the facts,” Eli said finally. “Whatever we have. It may not be everything, but it’s enough to ask questions that Vance won’t be able to answer. And if Hollister is the man I think he is, he’ll want to know the truth more than he’ll want to protect his liaison.”
