Instead, he pulled a private mobile phone from his coat pocket and dialed a direct number.
"Karim," Mr. Al-Mansoor spoke into the phone in Arabic. "Freeze the escrow instructions for the Northbrook transaction immediately."
He paused, listening to his chief legal counsel on the other end.
"Yes, right now," Mr. Al-Mansoor continued. "Pull the compliance logs from eight months ago and search for the name Naomi Bennett."
Whitmore stood up from his chair, his hands visibly shaking as he adjusted his cuffs.
"Tariq, this is absurd," Whitmore said, trying to force a chuckle. "We have a contractual closing window that expires at midnight."
"Then it will expire," Mr. Al-Mansoor replied with absolute finality.
The restaurant's floor manager, Paul, rushed into the room, looking terrified by the commotion.
"Is there an issue, gentlemen?" Paul asked, nervously eyeing the dropped menu and my rigid posture. "Naomi, please step out—"
"Do not dismiss her," Mr. Al-Mansoor commanded, his voice carrying the authority of an emperor. "She stays."
Three minutes later, Mr. Al-Mansoor's phone buzzed with an incoming encrypted document.
He swiped through the screen, his jaw clenching as he read the original internal audit report that Pell had tried to bury.
Beside the initial red-flag notation was my employee identification number and my signature.
Mr. Al-Mansoor set the phone flat on the table and looked at Whitmore.
"You removed her because she found your shell company," Mr. Al-Mansoor said softly.
Whitmore opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
"In my country," Mr. Al-Mansoor said, his eyes hard as flint, "a man who steals is a criminal. But a man who attempts to rob his partner while mocking the honest bread of a working woman has no honor at all."
He picked up the forty-million-dollar contract folder, walked over to the serving station, and dropped it into the waste bin.
Then, Mr. Al-Mansoor looked down at the thick envelope resting on the marble table.
"You made a wager, Mr. Whitmore," the investor said coldly.
Whitmore looked at the envelope, then at me, pure panic in his eyes. "That was a joke... an informal remark..."
"It was a binding offer made before a witness," Mr. Al-Mansoor replied. "Pay her. Now."
With trembling fingers and sweat beading across his forehead, Charles Whitmore picked up his pen and signed the counter-slip on the cashier's draft.
He shoved the envelope across the table toward me, grabbed his coat, and hurried out of the private salon without looking back.
The heavy door clicked shut behind him, leaving only the soft hum of the evening outside.
Mr. Al-Mansoor turned to me, placing his right hand over his heart in a gesture of solemn gratitude.
"You saved my family from an enormous deception, Miss Bennett," he said in flawless, respectful English.
"I only spoke what was already written, sir," I answered quietly.
He smiled faintly, shaking his head. "Integrity is never accidental."
He reached into his breast pocket and handed me a heavy gold-embossed card.
"My family office is establishing an independent international regulatory division in New York next month," he said.
"We need a director who cannot be intimidated and whose loyalty belongs only to the truth."
I looked down at the card in my hand, feeling the weight of the moment press into my chest.
"Thank you, Mr. Al-Mansoor," I whispered, my voice thick with emotion.
He bowed his head slightly.
"Shukran laka, Naomi," he replied softly in Arabic. "The honor is entirely ours."