Never Just Friends (Spotlight New Adult Book 2) by Mina V. Esguerra Page B

eventually the annual report, while they were waiting for Lucien. It was like he got surprised with a quiz.
    “Mr. Berkeley, do you know if Lucien will make it before the hour is up?” one of the bank guys asked him.
    “Definitely,” he lied. Lucien barely spoke to him, much less updated him on the schedule.
    “We should start anyway,” Frank said, “since we implemented this. I can answer any questions you might have.”
    Jake had been to three other meetings like this one. They were all alike, boring even, in the way that a certain kind of professional decorum was expected and enforced. People shook hands, kept their voices level, took notes. Also, they started only when the person who called the meeting was present. He wasn’t sure if time was an issue, because Lucien really was late, but it still felt like something was going on.
    So the meeting started. The woman from the ministries, Rosa Liski, got on it immediately. Said right away that they read the report, and while the modest goal seemed to have been reached, the problems that came with it seemed to overshadow most of the actual work.
    “Yes, we definitely could have used more support,” Frank said.
    “In what way?” he was asked, by a bank guy.
    “Streamlined access to the funds. Faster response time.”
    Jake straightened up in his seat. “From Caine Foundation, you mean?”
    They weren’t expecting him to speak. They were aware of him, of course, from the opening remarks, that he was the actor mascot.
    “Yes, from Caine,” Frank said. “Which can be very bureaucratic. Sadly the paperwork and insistence on inefficient processing led us to...do what we could, to get results.”
    “So you’re saying that the process of receiving the funds from Caine caused the problems? Because that’s not what the report says,” Bank Guy followed up.
    “Caine Foundation wrote the report,” Frank said. “Of course it wouldn’t say that. But all of the snags can be explained by a delayed access to funds.”
    “No,” Jake heard himself say. “The independent evaluator wrote that report.”
    “Excuse me?” the woman representing the ministries said.
    “The report. Borneo reforestation final report and recommendations. Caine Foundation commissioned it but it was authored by the independent firm that evaluated the project on the ground.”
    “Yes, we’re aware of that,” the other guy from the ministries said. “That doesn’t excuse the lapses in judgment identified here.”
    “Caine Foundation took longer than usual to process and release funds because documents submitted by Frank’s firm here were suspect.”
    Like college all over again, he told himself. Where was Lucien? If the man didn’t show up soon Jake could end up demolishing more than just this meeting. But he was a ball and he was rolling, and he was gaining momentum.
    “I object to that,” Frank said sternly. The guy was old enough to be Jake’s dad but he wasn’t that much bigger. The change in tone, if meant to put Jake in his place, was only going to fire him up. “The report doesn’t contain any of that, and we wouldn’t even. I don’t even want to dignify that.”
    “It’s not in the report because it’s in Caine Foundation’s own evaluation,” Jake said. “I’ve read it. The paperwork you’re complaining about is there because they want safeguards in place, so funds released don’t get misused. Your firm repeatedly submitted expense items for consultants lacking credentials, requesting junkets and travel for more people than necessary. The delay was in Caine doing their due diligence, asking for proper justification for these expenses.”
    The other guy from the bank nodded. “We’ve reminded Lucien about this.”
    “I take offense to this ambush, from someone who isn’t even fit to represent the project,” Frank spat out.
    “That might be true,” Jake said, “but I’m not saying anything that Lucien wouldn’t confirm, if he were here. And sorry, Mr.