One Wild Night

Immediately after they arrived at the company, Tom pulled the car to a stop in front of the building for Lucy to get down before turning to Jamal, "Do you want to go with her? Or can you stay alone in my office?" Tom asked, and Jamal looked at Tom for a brief moment before shaking his head.

"I want to see your office," he said quietly, and Tom gave him a nod before looking at Lucy.

Although they had apologized to each other, there was still some tension between them, and Tom could tell that Lucy wasn't comfortable.

"I will give you a call after my meeting," he promised, and she gave him a nod before kissing Jamal's forehead and getting out of the car.

"Have a nice day," Lucy called out to him before walking away while Tom and Jamal watched her until she disappeared from view.

"It's just the both of us now, boy," Tom said with a wink as he drove away from there to his private parking lot.

"Who owns all these cars?" Jamal asked as he looked around the parking lot after Tom parked the car.

"They're mine," Tom said, and Jamal's eyes bulged out as he looked at him.

"But you have some at home. You can't drive them all, can you?" Jamal asked, and Tom chuckled.

"Yeah, I can't."

"So why do you have so many if you can't drive them all? Isn't it a waste?" Jamal asked curiously, and Tom shook his head, enjoying the conversation.

"Not really. I love to look at them. Cars are my favorite toys," Tom said, and Jamal watched him with interest.

"Can you let me have one?" Jamal asked, and Tom chuckled.

"You are too young to drive," Tom pointed out.

"My mom isn't too young. She can drive me," Jamal said, and Tom laughed softly.

"That makes sense. We could arrange for that," Tom said as he led Jamal to his private elevator.

Neither of them said a word to each other until they were in Tom's private elevator and Jamal looked up at him, "So you are like the boss around here, huh?" Jamal asked, and Tom smiled.

"You could say that," Tom said, and Jamal frowned not understanding his response.

"Are you the boss or not?" Jamal asked, and Tom looked down at him.

"What if I say I am?" He asked, and Jamal shrugged.

"Do you think you could give my mom and aunt Andy a job?" Jamal asked, and Tom raised a brow.

"Don't your mom have a job?" Tom asked, and Jamal shook his head.

"She doesn't like her job. She comes back late at night and she is always tired. Sometimes when they think I'm sleeping I hear them talking about how some man touched them rudely. There are no rude men here, right?" Jamal asked, and Tom looked at him, marveling at how thoughtful he was at his age.

"I don't think so," Tom said, and Jamal nodded with approval.

"I want her to work during the day when I go to school and stay with me at night," Jamal explained reasonably.

"That's fine. I will give them a job. Is that all you want?" Tom asked, and he watched in amusement as Jamal's eyes lit up with mischief.

"There is one more thing I want," Jamal said, and Tom chuckled.

"No."

"How can you say no when you don't even know what I'm going to say?" Jamal asked with a frown, and Tom laughed.

"Who says I don't know what you were going to say?" Tom asked, and Jamal looked at him doubtfully.

"What was I going to say?" He asked curiously.

"It was about Lucy, wasn't it?" Tom asked, and Jamal grinned.

"How did you know?"

"You don't have to know how I knew. The answer remains the same!" Tom said, and Jamal scowled.

"I won't get upset or yell at her," Jamal said with a sigh, and Tom shook his head, amused by Jamal's personality.

"Yeah, right. Save that promise for your future girlfriend," Tom muttered as they walked out of the elevator.

"I don't want a future girlfriend. I want Lucy," Jamal said stubbornly.

"You can only get one. Lucy or the car?" Tom asked, and Jamal looked up at him with a frown.

"Why can't I have both?" Jamal asked, and Tom chuckled.

"You've got guts, young man. How can you expect me to give you a car and my girlfriend too?" Tom asked, and Jamal narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.

"Does Lucy have a car?" Jamal asked, and Tom gave him a nod.

"Yeah."

"I choose Lucy then. We can both use her car," Jamal said with a grin, making Tom double over with laughter.

He really liked this kid, Tom thought as he led Jamal into his office.

"Wow! This is awesome!" Jamal exclaimed in awe as he looked around the office, and Tom smiled as he watched him.

"What is that?" Jamal asked, pointing at the 3D architectural design of the resort Tom was working on.

"It's an architectural design. You can leave the rest of your questions for later. I have to leave for a meeting now. Make sure you don't touch any documents on my desk. I will ask someone to check on you and get you whatever you need," Tom said and Jamal distractedly gave him a nod as he headed towards the architectural design.

"Don't touch that either," Tom called out to him, and Jamal turned to look at him again.

"You are not joking about giving my mom a job, right?" Jamal asked, and Tom gave him a nod

"I'm not. Got to go now," Tom assured him before hurrying out of the office and heading to the conference hall where they were meeting for a contract renewal with the security agency in charge of I-Global.

Harry raised his head from the file he was looking at when the door opened and Tom walked into the conference hall.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Tom said apologetically to everyone in the hall, but Harry said nothing as he returned his attention to the document in front of him.

"It's fine. Mr. Jonas explained that you were running late. You're not the type to show up late for such an important meeting. I hope there is no problem?" Mr. Willoughby inquired politely as he shook hands with Tom.

"I had to run an errand and got stuck in traffic on my way. Once again I apologize for my tardiness," Tom said, and Mr. Willoughby gave him a nod.

"I'm glad you could join us. We were discussing the renewal of our contract with your company, and we were just showing Mr. Jonas here, our new terms and conditions," Mr. Willoughby said as his assistant passed one of the files to Tom, and he glanced at Harry as he waited for him to speak and bring him up to speed with their discussion.

Not letting his annoyance show, Harry gave Tom a breakdown of all they had discussed, and even though it was not obvious to the others that Harry was upset, Tom could tell.

He had no idea what bee had gotten into Harry's bonnet, and as much as he understood that Harry wasn't the type to be upset without a tangible reason, he didn't appreciate Harry's cold attitude towards him.

On one hand, he knew that Harry was probably acting up because he felt he was keeping secrets from him, but he also expected Harry to understand that he wouldn't be doing that if it wasn't necessary.

Besides, he wouldn't have arrived late for the meeting if he hadn't taken Aaron's and Candace's DNA samples to the lab, and he had done that because he wanted to know if Candace was Harry's missing sister and present that to Harry and Aaron to help them resolve their misunderstanding faster.

After the meeting was over and the others walked away from the hall, neither Tom nor Harry left their seats as was their usual habit.

"What's wrong? Why are you acting up?" Tom asked, and Harry raised a brow.

"I'm acting up because I questioned your tardiness?" Harry asked, and Tom tried to put a rein on his temper. He suspected that Harry was spoiling for a fight and looking for a way to let out his anger.

There was no need to be upset when Harry was upset too. He tried to put himself in Harry's shoes and told himself that he would probably act this way too if he felt Harry was hiding something from him.

"Is this about yesterday? Or did I do something I don't know about?" Tom asked patiently.

"I already told you I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I don't know what else you want me to say," Harry said as he stood up, and Tom sighed.

"You know I wouldn't do anything without putting your well-being into consideration, right?" Tom asked, and Harry met his gaze.

It annoyed Harry that he wasn't the type to keep secrets or hide how he was feeling from Tom. And no matter how much he didn't want to talk about what he had discovered last night, he couldn't help it.

"I found out the identity of the lady we met outside the restaurant yesterday," Harry said, making Tom's heart skip a beat.

"How? Did she call you?" Tom asked with a worried frown, not wanting to believe that Sara had ignored Lucy's warning.

"Why would she call me? And shouldn't you be asking me who she is, instead of asking me how I found out her identity? Or am I to assume that you know who she is already?" Harry asked with a slightly raised brow.