Chapter 15

The next month shifts gears and moves forward.

One by one Derek has his four dates and he can tell immediately the “it” factor is just not there. But on the fourth date something unknowingly wonderful happens and things are set in motion that cannot be undone.

The first date was polite, lots of smiles and giggles, in Derek’s opinion a little too many in the wrong spots, but he sees it through and at least in the end another girl has another flower.

The second date was even less harmonious. The woman, who was just so sure of her superiority to the world, talked down to the waitress and never really had anything pleasant to say about anybody. Derek has no room in his life for negativity. In fact, as the woman was berating the waitress for being a little slow with her refill, Derek rose politely, gave the waitress two hundred dollars, one for the bill and the remainder of that one and the other as a tip and an apology for bringing such an unpleasant person into the establishment. A place Derek frequents often. Derek smiled politely, picked up the flower he had given her at the start of the date, and said, “Goodnight,” as he was leaving.

The third was a pleasant time, but there was no connection there. It may not have been entirely fifty-percent the woman’s fault as images of Chrissy kept popping into Derek’s mind as his date rambled on about everything. At least this girl was a happy person. She just never shut up.

The fourth date, a date that seemed so under whelming at the time, was the most important date of Derek’s life. This is that date. As Derek is making his way over to the table, where his date is already waiting for him, Derek only slightly notices a brunette woman sitting at the next table. At a glance out of the corner of his eye Derek thought he saw sadness in the woman’s eyes.

He looks back to his date and goes to hand her a single pink rose. “I’m sorry, I’m allergic to flowers.”

Derek gets a wry smile on his face and then he taps the lone woman at the next table on her shoulder and he says, “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, but I have an extra rose here and you look as if you could use it.”

Without wanting to intrude further on her evening, Derek barely takes notice of the woman as she half turns and looks up at him. Derek doesn’t see the smile she shoots him as she gladly accepts the pink rose and says, “Thank you.”

Derek, ever the gentlemen, returns to his date and politely sees it through. With an almost comical smile and grin Derek knows this date is going nowhere fast. Derek begins to worry that his system to make sure he takes enough time to get to know a woman and doesn’t linger too long so it withers on the vine is going to make it impossible to find a wife. It is at that moment that Derek decides to back off a little and reassess his life.

As Destiny is building towards something amazing, work and the efforts there are starting to come to fruition. With Al’s phone records they begin to piece together a trail of unknown reasoning. As of yet nothing has proven any wrongdoing on Al’s part, but they have at least found that money has been embezzled from the company.

Again nothing has pointed to Al Denton, but almost everybody is willing to voice his or her opinion. Whoever is doing it is very good at covering their tracks and they have used mergers, buy out fees and bonuses as a way of doing it. If not for the hard audit it would have never been found.

Derek is reluctant to take anything to Craig Denton without actual physical proof, whether it is his son or not. Now that actual criminal acts have been discovered, Megan and Derek meet with an assistant district attorney.

“Is there anyway you can sequester Al Denton’s personal phone records and finances?”

“I’m afraid as of yet there is no hard proof that he has any involvement in the embezzlement, so I doubt a judge would sign off on it, but I will check.”