First Love (Love Collection)

by Natalie Ann

  “It’s not normally that fast, but since you are dating Jace, they figured they’d put a rush on it.”

  Lauren shook her head and didn’t bother to comment. Just went back to her office and got to work until she could see the files.

  When her email dinged less than an hour later, she pulled up the file and found Scott’s name, then started to scroll through everything. She went through emergency contacts on his medical forms, beneficiaries on his pension and life insurance forms. Everything was being left to his ex wife or kids.

  She was just ready to give up when she found the file to his older personnel records before everything was electronic. She hadn’t known they were scanned in and attached. Scott had been with the company for more than twenty years. Lauren pulled up benefit forms and emergency contacts from his date of hire and found one with the name Marion Barber on it, mother.

  Exactly what Lauren was hoping to find.

  ***

  “So what did you need to tell me?” Jace asked Lauren that night.

  “I don’t know how to say this.”

  He was starting to sweat. Between her distance and distraction lately, he’d been nervous when he saw her earlier and she asked if they could talk tonight. He was wondering if all the rumors he was hearing were getting back to her and she’d been afraid to say something. Which would be odd because she’d been the only one from the beginning with enough courage to point things out to him.

  Or worse yet, maybe she didn’t want to be the center of those rumors anymore and wanted to call it quits with him. He was ready to argue.

  “Just say it,” he said, wanting her to spit it out.

  “I think I might have found the reason that the franchises were doing so badly before you bought them.”

  “You found a lot of reasons why and now they’re turning a profit. All the more reason I want you to take this promotion and not fight me so much on it.”

  “I told you I’m not sure yet. I don’t want it to be looked at like you’re giving me things because we’re dating. I’m kind of sick of the sly looks and whispered words.”

  “I’ll deal with it. Do you want me to send out a memo to everyone?”

  “What, are you crazy?” she all but shouted at him. “No. You’ve been doing this your way all along. Can’t you just let me handle this? Can’t you just let it pass without drawing more attention to me? To us?”

  “So you’re bothered by what is being said?” He knew it.

  “If you were a woman, you’d get it. It’s not just bad enough that we’re sleeping together, or that people are going to think I’m doing it to advance my career, but it’s been said how little we have in common and how you’re slumming to be with me.”

  “Who said that?” he asked, his face filling with more heat than a Mexico summer day. “I’ll fire their ass in a heartbeat.”

  “Just like your father would do?” she asked, her hands on her hips. “That would really stop the rumors.”

  She had him there and didn’t need the sarcasm dripping from her voice to prove her point. But he didn’t care. “I won’t tolerate talk like that.”

  “You’ll have to fire a lot of people then, Jace. People gossip and talk all the time. It’s not the first time it’s been done about me and it won’t be the last. You’re just not used to it.”

  “Don’t go there again,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

  “See. People know about us and it’s causing problems. I told you this would happen, but you wouldn’t listen to me. We’re fighting over it. I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t want stupid shit to come between us.”

  “You’re putting it between us. It wasn’t going to stay a secret forever. I don’t know why you thought that.” He stopped and said, “Did you think that?”

  “I don’t know what I thought. And that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about tonight.”

  “But I want to talk about it,” he argued.

  She always pushed it off when he wanted to talk about their future. Why was it that he finally fell in love with someone and it seemed she didn’t feel the same way? That she didn’t even want anyone to know about him when he wanted everyone to know about her.

  “Not now. This is more important.”

  Those words hurt even more, but he refused to let her see it. “What is so important?”

  She dropped a file on his table. “Look at all of that. Remember how I told you the franchises were spending a ton of money with an accounting firm? Things I didn’t even understand about and it was a huge savings just buying them alone and cutting those costs?”

  “Yes. So?”

  “I think the firm is related to Scott. I wonder if there was something sketchy going on. I don’t know how to find out though. That’s why I’m coming to you with this.”

  He picked it up and looked it over. “There was over a million dollars worth of fees paid to this firm alone in the last ten years. That’s a lot.”

  “Yes. Those are just the fees. Not even late charges. I wonder if the firm was floating money a lot and maybe things like their tax money was there, but the firm didn’t have the cash flow, then passed the charges on. Anything is possible.”

  “How do you find that out?” Jace asked.

  “I’m not sure. The more important question is, does it matter to you now? I would think the previous owners might be more interested in knowing that and maybe going after the firm. What I wanted you to know is that I think Scott’s family owns the firm or a family member is a partner. There is a copy of an emergency contact from twenty years ago naming Marion Barber as Scott’s contact. John Fulton was married to Marion Barber for a short period of time. Marion owns that firm. Didn’t you tell me Scott tried to buy the franchises and couldn’t secure funds? Maybe he wanted to in order to hide the fact this was going on and protect his mother.”

  Jace snorted knowing he never would have been able to figure this out. He wouldn’t have known to look for it.

  “And if that is the case, the last thing I want is him working for me.”

  “That’s what I figured. Don’t you have investigators or someone you can have look into this some more? Better than me?”

  “I do. I will. Let’s keep this between the two of us.”

  The High Road

  The next week Jace was trying to hide his frustration at the way things were going with Lauren. After she’d told him about what she’d discovered with Scott, she’d left his house. She didn’t stay for dinner and she didn’t stay the night. She went back to her place and hadn’t been back to his since.

  They were still talking at work, but things weren’t the same and he wasn’t sure what to do to fix it.

  She was annoyed with him. She was ticked off that he wanted to defend her.

  Shouldn’t a woman be thrilled to hear that? Be excited about it?

  Yet here was Lauren, mad that he said he wanted to fire anyone that said a bad word about her.

  Had it ticked him off she compared him to his father? Yeah, it had.

  Did it have some truth to it? It did.

  But he hadn’t fired anyone over the rumors and he hadn’t put a memo out either to tell people to shut their trap.

  Instead he took the high road like she’d been doing. It didn’t seem to matter to her though.

  But no one was giving him sly looks or whispering behind his back like they were Lauren.

  She was still even fighting him on her promotion and he didn’t know why.

  Well, that wasn’t true. He did know why, but he couldn’t help it. She’d earned it and he was going to keep telling her that until she believed it.

  He just wished she’d give him a chance to explain some more why he wanted to defend her so much. Why he wanted everyone to know what they had was real. Unless of course she was pulling away and that was the reason for all of this.

  His phone rang, so he picked it up. “Yes, Katy.”

  “Mitch is here to see you.”

  “Send him in.”<
br />
  Mitch was the investigator that the Strattons employed when they suspected theft and other serious issues. “What do you have for me?”

  “Well, Lauren was right. The firm is owned by Scott’s mother. The previous owners just accepted all the charges billed to them. When I spoke with the Robinsons they were furious over the situation. Scott had recommended them, but never once had anyone known it was a relation to him. They felt like fools for not knowing or questioning things, but Scott always had explanations for the bills or approved them without the owners knowing. They realize now they didn’t manage things well.”

  “Does it look like they were embezzling money?”

  “I think they might have been billing trumped up charges, but that is for the previous owners to fight. They’re going to because they said the firm’s investment section was handling some of their personal finances too. They were thankful you clued them in on it when by all intents and purposes you didn’t need to.”

  “It’s the right thing to do,” Jace said.

  “It is. Your father wouldn’t have bothered. He’d have fired Scott on rumor alone. If he had me dig into more, he’d keep it to himself though.”

  That was something at least. That he’d been hearing so much lately that he wasn’t like his father when he felt like he was. At least with the way he was handling things with Lauren. He guessed the control gene that was so dominant in his father had been passed down for sure.

  “Thanks, Mitch. I’ll handle it from here.”

  ***

  “You’re firing me,” Scott said the next morning. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want someone like you working for me. We’ve been butting heads from day one, but I was willing to give you a chance because you’ve been around so long. I knew you wanted to buy the franchise but couldn’t secure the funding for it, and thought that was why you resented me.”

  “Who told you that? That I couldn’t get the funding?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said realizing that it must not have been common knowledge. “What matters is that you’ve had a part in a scheme with your family’s accounting firm.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he argued.

  But Jace saw the sweat on Scott’s brow. “Come on, Scott. You got close with Katy because you wanted her to be your spy. You wanted her to see if she could find out what Lauren was auditing and hoped that it wasn’t found. It didn’t work out that way, did it?”

  “I knew that bitch would slip up somehow. I kept telling her not to push her luck or sneak around so much.”

  Jace had only been guessing that part about Katy but now felt like an idiot for not realizing it. “Regardless, your office is being cleaned out and security is waiting for you outside the door to escort you off the premises.”

  “Is Katy being fired too?”

  “Do you really care what happens to her after you just admitted that she was a bitch that slipped up?”

  “Not really,” Scott said, shrugging his shoulder, like sleeping with Katy had all been a game. “But she had no clue. I knew she was overdoing it trying to find things. She got caught, didn’t she? Just admit it to me.”

  “That’s of no concern to you. We’re done now.”

  Jace turned to go back to his desk and watched as Scott opened the door to see security standing there waiting to usher him out of the building. He heard Katy yelling, “What’s going on, Scott?”

  “Go ask your boss,” Scott said, snapping at her.

  Katy marched into his office, then slammed the door. Really? Even more reason to let her go. He was planning to wait until he got more information but guessed not. “What did he do? Is he being fired?”

  “He is. What he did is no business of yours. If you want to know, you can ask him. But he told me how you were spying for him. That he asked you to find out what was going on. That’s a fire-able offense.”

  “I’m being fired?” Katy said, her eyes filling. He wasn’t sure if it was rage or remorse. “Because I tried to see what was going on and let him know because you were never telling him things?”

  He almost felt sorry for Katy for being played the fool. Just not enough to keep her on.

  “Employees are told what they need to know. If they’re looking at things they’ve got no reason to or are in places they shouldn’t be, then that gives me the right to fire them. That’s what I’m doing. Security should be outside my office ready to walk you out too.”

  Katy opened the door and saw another officer standing there and burst into tears. “It’s all that lowlife bitch’s fault. You can screw her brains out whenever and wherever you want but if anyone else does it they get fired.” Jace stood up to follow Katy to her desk where other people were gathering now. Lauren included. “I’d watch your back if I were you,” Katy said to Lauren. “Once he’s done with you, you’ll be on the street too.”

  Jace looked over at Lauren, saw her face redden, then she turned and walked back to her office.

  Well, that didn’t go as well as he would have liked.

  Actually Believe

  Lauren walked into her office and shut the door. She didn’t often do that, but she didn’t want anyone to bother her.

  Anyone to try to walk by and peek in. Because that happened a lot. Or more so once everyone found out she and Jace were dating.

  She wanted it to be a sign to Jace to leave her alone.

  Tears were welling in her eyes, threatening to cascade down like water over the Niagara Falls.

  She knew damn well it was a bad idea to get involved with Jace. An even worse one to fall in love with him.

  If all eyes weren’t on her before, they sure the hell were now. Katy and her big mouth having to scream what she did bringing all those doubts back to the surface again.

  Sure, Lauren knew that Scott was being fired today, but she didn’t know Katy was. Something else must have happened in that meeting and Lauren sure the hell wasn’t about to ask what.

  She just wanted to do her job and be left alone. That’s it. Nothing more.

  When there was a knock on her door an hour later, she fully expected it to be Jace, but it wasn’t. It was Sue.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Are you okay?” Sue asked, walking in and shutting the door, then sitting down across from Lauren.

  “Of course. Why?”

  “Your red nose says you’ve been crying.”

  “Allergies,” Lauren lied.

  “No one is going to believe that. Do you need someone to talk to?”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “You’re not, but if you don’t want to talk, I’ll understand that too. Maybe you could just listen to what I’ve got to say.”

  “Did Jace send you in here to fire me?”

  Sue laughed. “Of course not. He did come to me last week though to talk about your position.”

  “The promotion. I know. I’m not ready for it. It wouldn’t look right. I don’t even have the experience for it.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. You do have supervisory experience though.”

  “I was a shift manager at the mini mart. Big deal.”

  “You closed at night. You were responsible for customer complaints and any staffing issues while on shift. You trained new staff too.”

  “It’s not the same thing as working in an office. I’m just getting my bearings here.”

  “You actually believe those rumors yourself, don’t you?”

  “Which rumors are those?” she asked, her eyes filling again. She couldn’t remember ever crying as much as she had in the past few days. “There are so many I can’t keep track.”

  “The ones where you are only sleeping with Jace to get ahead. Or the ones where he is only sleeping with you for a quick fling.”

  Lauren shrugged. Deep down she knew she could do the job, but did she feel Jace was only giving it to her because of their relationship? “I don’t really believe it.”

  “But part of you doe
s. I see the number of hours you work. So does Jace. Do you know that he never used to work in this office that much? He never used to be here much at all before you were hired.”

  “That’s because he bought those franchises and he wanted to keep a close eye on them.”

  “I’ll buy that, but he could do that from his home office after hours. Instead he’s here when you come in and most nights until you leave.”

  “Everyone is watching our every move, aren’t they?” she asked. It was never going to end.

  “I’m sure. I’m only saying this so you realize that he sees something in you. He was impressed with your work long before you two started seeing each other,” Sue said.

  “Anyone could have found the things I did in the beginning.”

  “But not everyone would have found what you did with Scott.”

  “Just luck and hard work,” Lauren argued.

  “I would have never expected you to be this stubborn. It’s probably giving Jace fits,” Sue said, laughing. “I know this place is full of rumors. You can’t get past it with as many as we employ. But just know one thing. Jace is nothing like his father. Matter of fact, Mr. Stratton is starting to be more like his son. That’s a good thing. Trust me.”

  “Thanks,” Lauren said. “I appreciate everything you said.”

  “Give Jace a chance. Don’t get caught up in everything you hear unless it’s coming from his lips. He seems to be on uncharted territory too.”

  “I doubt it,” Lauren said.

  Sue left and shut the door and Lauren went back to work. She stayed there until close to seven and still hadn’t seen or heard from Jace.

  Sue was wrong about the two of them. If Jace really cared, he would have come in to see her, but he didn’t. He left her alone, letting her believe that maybe their time was coming to an end after witnessing what happened with Scott and Katy today.

  ***

  Jace was getting sick of looking out his office door waiting to catch sight of Lauren leaving.

  He knew she was still in the building. He wanted to run after her when Katy shouted out what she did, but figured he’d give Lauren time to calm down. Give her time to compose herself.