His Corporate Claim

by J. D. Fox

“We will, darling. Later.”

  Then Lucius pulled away and kissed each of his aunts.

  “Now, be good to my gal. Or I will not forgive you.”

  Rose scoffed. “Get out, you scamp, and leave her to us.”

  “Bye,” said Lucius. He raised his hand and then exited the bar as if a hellhound was nipping at his heels. And maybe one was, because rage swirled in my gut at the situation Lucius had placed me in. I had no idea how it would affect my current employment if I ditched the two Palmer women. Or when Lucius’ deception came out how the Palmers would view me. Would they think me complicit in this horrid mess?

  Could I possibly get into any more trouble than I was in now?

  Lily smiled at me sweetly. “What colors are your floral arrangements, dear? We should get your nails painted to match them.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Sam

  With a green mountain capped with snow rising high over me like an avenging angel, I sat on the back patio of the hotel, sipping twenty-year old whiskey on the rocks. My chair overlooked a large swimming pool set on a patio of red brick. I never understood why a venue that catered to the winter skiing season had three pools -two inside and one outside- but then, the previous owner had been known to build projects that were too big.

  I was an idiot sitting out here in the scorching Colorado summer heat in a dark wool suit, even though I’d taken the jacket off. I was not happy that Talia had decided to speak to Lucius on her own. She might have worked with him for two years, but I’d lived with him for until he left for college and learned firsthand how he could twist words. His mother was a master manipulator, and he’d learned from the best. At least, that’s what my aunts had told me. My father never spoke against his first wife, but with the aunts’ gossip, he’d never had to.

  Lucius took the emotional hit when his mother decided to leave him in our father’s care. My mom had tried to fill the void, but by the time Lucius came to trust her, her cancer diagnosis had ended the possibility of her being a mom to him. So he lost two mothers while I only lost one. I couldn’t imagine how that would feel. I could barely remember my mother. All I remembered was missing her, and then, over time I’d grown used to the ache of her loss.

  I don’t like thinking about it, because it’s hard reconciling the little boy whose mom went to heaven and left him behind with the adult I am today. And part of my confidence now comes from the fact that my big brother had my back then.

  When did I become aware that Lucius had more challenges than me? The first time Lucius had gotten into serious trouble, I was eight and he was thirteen. My father went ballistic when he got the call from the police; so much so he hadn’t even gone to the police station. He sent our lawyer.

  Being eight, I’d had places I could hide to hear things that I shouldn’t. Our Nobb Hill house had been built in the 1800s and had vents meant for the heating system that you could use to eavesdrop. From my bedroom, if I pressed my ear to the vent, I could overhear my father in his office. When the lawyer brought Lucius home, my father unloaded his ire. My heart had never beat so fast as when he threatened to send Lucius to a residential preparatory school. Lucius had been my one constant when my mother died. I’d been too young when she passed for me to remember her. Dad had thrown himself into his work, and though the house staff was nice enough, they weren’t family. Lucius, until he hit the teenage years, was always there for me.

  But after that, and for reasons I never understood, Lucius pulled back. So I lost a mother and a brother. The aunts and my father were the only family I could depend on after that. But I never stopped hoping that Lucius would start acting like my brother again instead of treating me like the enemy.

  And now? At the very least, my brother was foisting a fraud on the family by pretending to marry Talia. It wasn’t a huge fraud as far as crimes go, though I’m sure he spent a substantial sum of money to support this illusion. But as long as it was his money, the only thing he’d wasted were the dregs of the good opinion the family had for him.

  But if it was the company’s money? That was the problem.

  I called the private investigator to see if he could ferret out the information on how Lucius funded his activities, including this weekend, but the man didn’t pick up. I left him a message.

  Perspiration prickled my skin and soaked into my shirt. I decided on a shower and a change of clothes. A sigh escaped from me as I rose from my seat in the summer heat. Boston wasn’t much better at times, but least the air wasn’t so dry. I pinched my nose against a forming sinus headache, and as I passed the shop, decided to drop in to pick up a decongestant. While I was signing the ticket for the small purchase to go on my room bill, I saw the familiar figures of my aunts heading toward the spa and Talia walking with them. Seeing the unexpected moving tableau, I finished my purchase and hurried out after them.

  “Aunt Rose. Aunt Lily.”

  My aunts turned toward me, and Talia’s eyes pleaded with me to save her.

  “Sam, darling,” said Rose. “Come, give us a hug.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at my aunts, who held out their arms to me. I caught both of them with one arm each. “So glad to see you.”

  “Glad to see you too, Sammy,” said Aunt Lily. “Where have you been?”

  “Hello, aunties. I see you’ve met Talia.”

  “Yes, and the sweet girl is terrified of us already,” said Rose.

  “As well she should be.”

  Talia glowered at me, but my aunts are mostly harmless. Talia might not know that yet, but it’s a good idea that she gets to know them.

  “We were about to go the spa for massages. Talia is strung as tense as violin strings. Want to come?” said Lily.

  I chuckled. “I think it’s better if you keep it a hen party. Talia, have you spoken with Lucius yet?”

  Talia shook her head furiously. “I only saw him briefly.”

  My lower lip twitched involuntarily. What the hell? I want this nonsense with Lucius cleaned up. She was not walking down that aisle tomorrow. Why had Talia put off this talk?

  “I see,” I said. We would have to talk later, because I wanted to find out what had happened with Lucius. This ‘up in the air’ nonsense stabbed like a burr stuck to my clothes.

  “Whatever it is, it can wait,” said Rose. “Come along, Talia. The masseuse is waiting on us. Bye, Sam.”

  “See you at dinner,” Lily said with a wave of her hand.

  My aunts led Talia away like a lamb to slaughter, and I stared at her retreating rear like an idiot until I remembered my mission to take a shower. I make it to my room via the elevator. Lucius wasn’t there, and I wondered where the hell he could be. My brother’s ability to ghost people when he wanted to avoid them amazed me.

  As the water hit my skin, I regretted washing Talia’s lingering scent from my body with the hotel soap. Memories of making love to her stir my cock, and between those thoughts and the warm water I take myself in hand. But then I hear someone calling my name and, straining to hear over the shower, I realize that it’s Lucius.

  Leave it to him to ruin a good time. Damn.

  “Just a minute,” I called.

  As I get out of the shower and wrap a towel around my waist, I hear the door open again. Did Lucius take off again? But no, I hear my father’s gravelly voice. As I roughed my hair with a towel to dry it, my father’s and Lucius’s voices steadily grew louder. I stepped into my bedroom, intending to dress quickly and before breaking up this disaster.

  “You have a lot of explaining to do,” said my father.

  “I don’t have anything to offer you, Dad.”

  “You damn well better offer me something. There is a $200,000 shortfall between your books and the deposits.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “It’s not, and you know it.”

  “Okay, let me rephrase. That’s fucking bullshit.”

  “The forensic accountant found the discrepancies.”

  Damn it. My father pushed hi
s way in instead of letting me handle this. He’s going after Lucius without having all the facts.

  “You’re investigating me? Your own son?”

  “Better me than the SEC.”

  “So you had some Wharton dick look into my books?” I flinched because I was a “Wharton dick.” But he hadn’t mean me. I’d been nothing but fair during this entire debacle.

  “Not your books. Our books. It’s a point you consistently fail to recognize; the whole company is on the hook for your malfeasance.”

  “Mal— look, old man. I do not know where you’re getting your information, but this is jacked.”

  “Jacked is not the issue,” Dad declared. “Jailed, however, might be more appropriate.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “It won’t be me that hauls you to the pokey, but I can’t hide this.”

  “Pokey! Are you insane? I swear to God, you are wrong.”

  “Am I? Give me a good reason. Tell me someone else is behind this. Your fiancée, maybe? She seems to like to spend money, and she has none of her own. In fact, she’s so deep into her bills that marrying a rich man is probably the only way to get out from under. Did she tell you she had no family? Because she does. Talia just checked her mother into one of the most expensive care facilities in Denver.”

  “Talia never hid anything about her mother.”

  “Then why did you tell Sam she had no family?”

  “He misunderstood.”

  “Sam misunderstands nothing, except that either you are a criminal or a fool.”

  “That’s fucking it. You’ve gone too far.”

  “Which part? The criminal part? Or the fool? Is that woman using you as a cover for her crimes?”

  The situation lurched from bad to worse, and I hurried to pull on slacks and a shirt. I am not sure what I will do now that my father has decided to go nuclear, but someone needs to put the brakes on this disaster now before our family blows up.

  But as I open the bedroom door, I see Lucius flying out of the front door.

  “Lucius!” I said.

  But he doesn’t stop, and my father grabbed my arm.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Lucius has to stop running sometime, and he won’t unless we stop chasing him.”

  “What is that? Some pop psychology babble? What is wrong with you? You just accused your son and his fiancée of theft, and you have no proof whatsoever.”

  “Either one has the means, the motive, and the opportunity.”

  I huffed as I stared at my father. His flinty gray eyes narrowed as he studied my reaction.

  “You’re wrong about Talia. She doesn’t have anything to do with the money.”

  He gave a shake of his head. “And how do you know that?”

  “She said so.”

  “You’ve discussed this investigation with an employee?”

  “No. It came up in conversation.”

  “Uh huh,” Dad said, unconvinced. “That’s why she’s at the bank deposit nearly every day.”

  “What?”

  Dad pulled out his phone. “Why do you think I started poking around?” He scrolled through some pictures before he got to a series of date and time stamped photos.

  “I got these anonymously. The tech guys told me they were uploaded to our servers and sent through the tech support account. There is no way to know who inside the company is responsible for getting us the photos. But there is one thing for sure. This woman, Talia, had access to the deposits. And she lied to you about it.”

  I sank to the couch in disbelief. Talia? Thieving from the company? It doesn’t seem possible.

  But then I wouldn’t be the first fool to be played an idiot by a beautiful woman. If my father was right, Lucius was the first of the Palmer brothers.

  But Talia?

  “Talia,” I said shaking my head.

  “Her or Lucius,” said my father.

  “Just stop. He’s your son.”

  “Don’t I know it? If he wasn’t my son, he wouldn’t have the things he does.”

  Anger rises in my gut at my father’s pigheadedness. It doesn’t occur to my father that Lucius might be a different man if he hadn’t been raised by Dad. Maybe there are no perfect parents, but Dad fell extra short in the fatherhood department for Lucius. Maybe my brother needed a different kind of parent. Certainly not his mother, who was the most disengaged person from her offspring that I’d ever met. Motherhood didn’t tick any boxes for her. Dad should have stepped up to the plate more for Lucius instead of expecting him to “man up.”

  “And what about the things he doesn’t? Like his father’s good regard?”

  “That he mucked up on his own.”

  “Or maybe his father doesn’t know when to let shit go and when to keep hammering him with it.”

  My father’s eyebrow twitched.“What the hell am I supposed to do? Ignore it?”

  “At some point you do. You don’t get to choose your family. Do you think Lucius would pick a father who acts as if he hates him?”

  Dad scoffed. “He pushes me to the limit.”

  “He’s your son. Imperfect, but yours. You can’t magically make him into something he isn’t.”

  “There are certain things that are dealbreakers. Abusing my trust is one of them.”

  Dad’s breathing sped up and his face turned pale. He sank to the couch and pulled his tie loose.

  “Dad? Are you okay?”

  “Do I fucking look okay? Get me some aspirin.”

  Hell. An aspirin?

  “Are you having a heart attack?”

  “What the fuck do you think? Get me that aspirin and a glass of water.”

  My own heart raced and I swallowed hard.“Let me call the paramedics.”

  “Fuck, no! Let me handle this. If this was a heart attack I’d be unconscious now. It’s just angina.”

  I went the bathroom and, thank God, found a bottle of aspirin. I bring it out, put it in his hands and got him a glass of water.

  By the time I returned, he had opened the bottle and I saw him down two pills.

  I handed the water. “How do you know this is angina?”

  He didn’t look at me as he drank his water.

  “You’ve had these before?” I said. My tone came out as an accusation.

  He took a deep breath. “Yes. But coming from sea level to altitude makes it a bit worse, between the stress and trying to pull enough oxygen.”

  “Does your doctor know about this, or do you hide this from him, too?”

  He hit me with his flinty-eyed stare. “Don’t you worry about me,” he said.

  “Damn it! I will worry about you. You can’t make me stop. Give it to me straight. Are you ill? Do you need to see a doctor?”

  “The only thing I’m sick with is this situation with Lucius. My heart... well, the doctor says I’m fine.”

  I shook my head, because it’s obvious that my father is keeping things from me.

  “No, you’re not. You shouldn’t have come here, should you?”

  He scoffed and waved me off with his hand. Dad gazed out the window toward the mountains, and wouldn’t look at me.

  “If I called your doctor, what would he say?”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “Which only makes me want to, unless you spill what’s going on with you.”

  “I need some stents, and that’s all.”

  “You have blockages? And you came to altitude?”

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “Except you can’t breathe and you’re insisting nothing is wrong. Could you be any more pigheaded?”

  “I’ve tried, but I can’t seem to get to that level.”

  “Dad.” I cannot believe he’s making light of this. “I’m calling the doctor.”

  “No,” he said. “The last thing I need is the board of the directors finding out I’m ill. It was all I could do to keep the board from booting me when I had my heart attack.”

  “Damn it, Dad. You need to tell me
these things.”

  “You’re a kid, barely out of school.”

  “Out of graduate school, and I’m hardly a kid.”

  “Still, not old enough to take my position. The board would never approve it.”

  “That’s what you’re worried about? Dad, you can’t possibly think that I’d value a job over you. It would crush me to lose you.”

  Dad steepled his fingers and rested his forehead on them. For a moment, he looked so vulnerable, as if he could lose everything. Then it hit me; he could. What was happening with Lucius’s company threatened to get my father and Lucius kicked out, which would leave me with what?

  I didn’t care about work. My father and my brother were more important. I could make three phone calls in a half hour and get a job out of one of them. My future was not the one that was at stake.

  “Let me help you back to your room, and you rest. And I swear I will shake whatever’s going on out of Lucius. Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of things.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Talia

  Sam’s aunts insisted I call them by their first names and were extremely nice to me... in a nosey aunt fashion. I tried not to mind, but their prying could possibly lead to unpleasant revelations that neither Lucius, Sam, nor I were ready to unveil. I’m on my guard as the aunts speak rapid fire to me and then to each other. But this is the second time in two days I’m getting a full body massage and I’m melting. Butter on a hot Florida sidewalk had nothing on me as the masseuse draped my now-boneless arms over my head. So I let their comments and questions fall on mostly deaf ears, and answered with small groans and grunts.

  They launched into a recital of the antics of the Palmer boys as children.

  “But he was an adorable child,” said Rose.

  “So mischievous,” said Lily.

  “Sam?” I said. “I can believe he was adorable.”

  “We were talking about Lucius, dear. Your fiancé.”

  Oh, God. What am I thinking? The aunts don’t know that I’ve slept with Sam, and Lucius is my fake fiancé. Each moment I spend with these two women, I dig my figurative grave deeper. What will they do when they find out that I’m a fake adulteress?