Running the Numbers

by Roxanne Smith

  Wes’s expression went from whiny and vexed to arrogantly delighted. “The old rumor mill is a useful thing. How can you blame me, Sadie? I learned the trick from you. Fooled the whole office into thinking our relationship ended because I’m a prick who took advantage of you for a career boost. Sorry, but I felt I owed you one.”

  Her energy, fueled by anger, left her abruptly, like water condensing into air. Poof. She slid off the hood. She approached him, tapping the stapler against an open palm. “Did Amanda tell you I’m not getting the promotion?”

  Wes’s eyebrows snapped together. “I want the job, but I’m not stupid enough to believe Duncan would choose me over you. Amanda said that?”

  Sadie sighed. “Yep. Officially, Duncan won’t announce anything till spring. At least now I don’t have to spend the next couple of months trying for no reason.”

  Amazingly, something like guilt crossed over Wes’s pointed features. He nibbled on his bottom lip. “All I did was suggest to Reba that you and Blake were alone together an awful lot. Reba’s a gossip machine. It didn’t take but a couple hours for the whisper to find Amanda this morning. By then, it had turned into you and Blake definitely sleeping together behind her back. I only meant to stir up a little drama, Sadie. I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” She scoured his face for an answer, annoyed with his apology. She wanted a reply she could sink her claws into; she wanted a fight. A bit of her strength returned. The unfairness made her want to crush him. “Jealousy? How much of me do you want, Wes? You want blood, you want tears? You want me to take you back and pretend you didn’t turn into a possessive freak after what happened?”

  His dark eyes turned stony, and he cocked his head. “Is that what we call it now? A thing that happened?”

  The prick of tears behind her eyes forced her to blink rapidly to keep them at bay. “This sucks. I don’t want to do this.” She made to step past him, but he caught her arm, gently.

  “Sadie, I realize you needed space at the time, and I didn’t give it to you. But when will you accept that what I craved was the opposite? Neither of us gave the other what they needed. I’m not the bad guy. I don’t think there can be a bad guy.”

  The words smacked of truth, a truth she’d perhaps denied for a long time. She’d turned away from him and given herself over to grief and then healing. It wasn’t something she could do with an audience. At the same time, Wes had needed someone to go through it with him. Should she have tried harder? Maybe there’d been some middle ground waiting to be discovered had she been less selfish with her pain.

  She swallowed. “It’s too late to do anything about it now.”

  “Says who?” He let go of her arm but stepped in front of her to block her path. “Not long ago, we were going to have a baby.” His tone held a touch of surprise, as if it was unbelievable. It sort of was. “We were going to start a family. Tragedy can bring people together or tear them apart, and we let it destroy us when it could’ve made us stronger. Closer.”

  Sadie stepped back from him. “But that’s your way, Wes. I don’t share my pain. It’s mine.”

  “Fine.” His face relaxed, and he gave her a small, kind smile that she hated, hated to see because it brought back a lot of memories she’d made herself forget. “If you can’t come to me, I’ll come to you. Space is what you need? It’s yours. I’ll just be there when you need me.”

  This freaking guy. She squinted at him. “You sabotaged my friendship with Amanda and her relationship with Blake. How can you stand here and speak as if you’re truly expecting a second chance? I don’t need you. I won’t ever need you.”

  “Because it’s not a big deal. It’ll blow over. Unless you’re really sleeping with Blake.” He peered at her.

  Wouldn’t he love to know. “I’m not. I wouldn’t.”

  “Yeah, well…” Wes arched a finely plucked eyebrow. “He would.”

  “What the hell do you know, anyway? We aren’t tied to our pasts. He’s trying so hard to move on, but people like you are exactly the reason he’s still beating himself up over a ten-year-old mistake.” The words flung toward Wes as though Sadie had no control over them. She jumped to Blake’s defense with the slightest provocation.

  Wes was the one to take a step back this time. “I think your reaction says more about your relationship with Blake than you realize.”

  “And I think you’re still an idiot who doesn’t know when to back off.” She turned her back on him, angry with herself for initiating the confrontation. Getting him to take his due credit hadn’t undone the damage. It wouldn’t take away the suspicion from Amanda or anyone else now that it had taken root.

  And it definitely wouldn’t get Sadie the job as chief accountant.

  * * * *

  Sadie wasn’t totally surprised to find Blake on her stoop at nearly ten at night. She opened the door for him to enter. “A little late for a visit.”

  “I got away from Amanda as soon as I could.”

  Sadie closed the door behind him. “Even I’m tempted to believe we’re intimate when you talk like that.”

  He blushed, as she’d expected. “I wanted to check on you. Are you okay? What Amanda did…” He shook his head and began to pace. “What a crappy thing to do. I wish I could tell you she was being a jerk and hadn’t meant it. But I asked Duncan, and he confirmed it.” He stopped pacing and gave her a pointed look. “By the way, I also convinced Amanda we’re just friends. I can’t tell you she isn’t suspicious, but she’ll come around.”

  Sadie didn’t care about Amanda. In fact, she had a hard time thinking about her at all. The injustice of her “friend” to not bother with Sadie’s side of the story before attacking her and crushing her entire world was somewhere in unforgivable territory. “They’ll hire Wes. There’s no one else.”

  Blake shrugged. “They might bring in someone from the sister office in Alpine.”

  Sadie hadn’t thought of that. She hadn’t thought of much. She’d been so certain of her success and Wes’s failure. Still, it was almost too much to hope.

  Pity swamped Blake’s face. “Sadie, I’m so sorry. I know how much the promotion meant to you.”

  She nodded and kept her thoughts to herself. Did he really know? Did he know her heart was broken? Did he know how deeply the despair ran? Did he realize the extent of the damage?

  Wes remorselessly spread a vicious rumor with numerous and wide-ranging repercussions. Besides destroying relationships, it put her and Blake into the line of fire regarding office regulations, which were against fraternization due to ethical concerns. Imagine what a senior accountant and the company’s auditor could pull off if they were to get any ideas during a snuggle-fest.

  Her cheeks heated as the image of her and Blake tangled and sweaty popped into her head. She pushed it aside but, for one moment, she let herself imagine how it might feel if the whole world—Amanda, Wes, Kennedy, the firm—faded away, leaving her and Blake with nothing to worry about but each other. She took a deep breath and ruthlessly cut herself off from the reverie.

  If Wes had stooped so low in the interest of stirring up a little drama, what might he do with real power? As her boss, he could call private lunch meetings every day, control which accounts she supervised, even assign them according to how often she acted as he pleased, rather than contingent on any experience or skill. He’d govern her, own her, dominate her. He’d have complete control over her, more complete than when he’d been her boyfriend.

  The thought terrified her. But what scared her more was what she’d have to do to escape it. “I appreciate your concern. But I think you should go.”

  “But—”

  Her patience skidded straight into its breaking point. “It’s a small, small town we live in, Blake. And there’s more than your relationship with Amanda to consider if someone were to see you here. Now the rumor is floating around the office, and it won’t take long for Duncan to pick up on it. That’s if Amanda didn’t go straight to M
ommy with her broken heart. When we’re called in to see Mrs. Avery to defend ourselves against a fraternization write-up, maybe then you’ll get it. Hopefully, I’ll get my resignation turned in before that happens and they’ll let it go. I’ll have a harder time getting another job with a mark on my currently unblemished record.”

  Blake’s beautiful hazel eyes looked poised to pop. “You’d quit because you didn’t get your way?”

  She pushed against his shoulders, firmly, but he didn’t budge. Being tiny was frustrating sometimes. “Yes, Blake, you jerk, because that’s who the hell I am. Determined. Greedy. Ambitious.” The words dripped with as much caustic sarcasm as she could slather them with.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I won’t put myself in a position I’ve already wrestled away from. Regardless of whether it’s personal or professional, Wes Black will never rule me again.”

  Blake seemed to get it then. He studied the floor for a minute before nodding. “One question.”

  “Shoot.” She showed her impatience with crossed arms and a flat glare.

  “It’s no secret Amanda and I are dating. Why haven’t I already been confronted for breaking the policy?”

  Because Mama Avery played favorites and would get involved the minute rumors turned nasty. Because Sadie had already gotten away with flouting the policy once before, with Wes. Because fate decreed it. “That’s something you can ask Iris Avery.”

  * * * *

  If Blake had learned anything during his time at Avery & Thorp, it was that Sadie was always right.

  Always. No sooner had he walked into the lobby on Tuesday morning, the very next day, than Reba handed him a tiny hot-pink sticky note. Iris Avery was waiting upstairs in Duncan’s office.

  He took his time. In his office, he had a cup of coffee to fortify himself and asked Kennedy if his tie was straight. “Have you and Sadie decided if you love each other or hate each other today?”

  Kennedy grinned. “I could ask you the same thing, playboy.”

  He knew she meant it as teasing, but it was an unpleasant reminder of how close he still was to the man he was trying to escape. “You know Sadie and I aren’t involved, right?”

  She brushed lint from his shoulder. “Maybe not in the nitty-gritty under-the-sheets way that people assume when they hear how ‘close’ you two are. But, Blake, I have to be honest with you.”

  “Please. By all means.” In reality, he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Kennedy was right almost as often as Sadie was.

  “You two like each other.”

  “We’re friends. Of course we do.”

  Her lips pressed together in a frown. “It’s more than that. You can pretend with each other all day, but don’t expect someone with my deep sense of intuition to fall for it. You like each other, you enjoy one another’s company, and I think, had you come into this office without the past clinging to your shoulders like football pads, you’d probably have gravitated toward Sadie from the beginning. You only have your own hang-ups to blame for getting stuck with Amanda.”

  “Hey, I’m not stuck.” Of course he wasn’t stuck. How absurd. He liked Amanda just fine.

  Kennedy’s expression said she didn’t care what he thought. “Whatever you say. Maybe my instincts are off. Now, don’t be nervous. Iris called me for a meeting one time, but it was only to ask if I felt I deserved the raise I’d petitioned for. I said, ‘obviously,’ and we went back and forth on the pros and cons for thirty minutes before she caved. She likes a fighter, Blake. But, you know, not too much of a fighter. She also doesn’t like to be challenged. It’s a bit of a tightrope situation, but I bet you’ll do great.”

  Blake walked through the bookkeeping parlor toward the spiral staircase feeling a little less confident than he had ten minutes ago. Next time, maybe he’d skip the pep talk from Kennedy.

  Nina’s small desk outside Duncan’s inner office was vacant, the glossy surface clean of debris and paperwork, as though no one used the space. Duncan was nowhere to be found. Iris Avery sat behind Duncan’s large oval glass desk, reclined and surrounded by an air of self-assuredness men and women with power and money wore like an accessory. Blake believed he’d probably had his fair share of it at one time. A few years ago, he’d have never dreamed of being nervous around a woman like Mrs. Avery.

  Perhaps the fact that he was dating her daughter and had been accused of cheating was what had his stomach tied in knots.

  She certainly looked like Amanda’s mother. Her silvery white hair cut stylishly short was brushed back from a square, dominating forehead. Her eyes were the same light jade green behind silver square-framed glasses. She wore a power suit that would’ve made any businessman on Wall Street look twice, the second time with respect.

  “Mrs. Avery,” Blake greeted her with his hand outstretched.

  For one terrifying moment, he feared the older woman would continue to stare at his proffered hand.

  Finally, she sat forward and took it, and they shook over the desk. “Mr. Cobb.” She readjusted her glasses as he took his seat. “I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.”

  As if there’d been some choice in the matter. “No problem at all, ma’am,” he replied good-naturedly instead and forced himself to relax. He didn’t necessarily have to feel confident to be able to call on a lifetime of cockiness and arrogance, like muscle-memory for his personality.

  He waited for Mrs. Avery to open the conversation, which she did after a full minute of blinking at Blake and turning a fine black pen in her manicured fingers. “Mr. Cobb, it’s come to my attention there’s something off here in the Jackson office. As you can surely understand, given how new you are to the position, this is cause for worry. We don’t want your time here getting off on the wrong foot.”

  Was he sweating? Blake was certain he was sweating. Big, fat drops would start rolling down his face and soaking the inner seams of his shirt any second. “Yes, ma’am, I understand.”

  Mrs. Avery leaned back in the chair once more and tapped the fancy pen against the glass in a measured staccato. “If you would, give me a rundown. Be as specific as possible.”

  Dear God, she wanted specifics? Specific as in her daughter reminded Blake of his first wife? Specific as in, yes, he had slept with Amanda, but for reasons he didn’t want to look too deeply into, he preferred Sadie’s company?

  Blake straightened his back but stopped short of loosening his tie and giving away his nervousness. “I, uh, suppose it had to have begun the first time I met Amanda. Kennedy introduced us on my first day. I was immediately taken with her, if you must know.”

  Mrs. Avery lifted a hand to stop Blake and closed her eyes, her mouth set to a wry smile. “Mr. Cobb,” she began, with something uncomfortably close to amusement, “I am well aware of your relationship with Amanda. We will discuss that eventually. However, my main concern is the balance sheet that came across Duncan’s desk with numbers that don’t add up. The report came from you, so I’ve come to you for insight into what we think might’ve happened.”

  Relief came first. A different kind of anxiety followed. This time, Blake didn’t have to worry about guilt but rather a quiet uncertainty that perhaps he’d made a mistake. The report in question was the one he’d meant to ask Amanda about, because the discrepancy seemed to have originated from bookkeeping.

  “Ma’am, I’m sure it’s a simple math error. A wrong number entered.”

  Mrs. Avery’s wry grin turned to a flat grimace. “I suppose it’s easy enough to accidently drop a zero here or there. On the other hand, Henry’s last several reports before his retirement indicated a pattern. The reason I hired you, Mr. Cobb, despite your history of personal affairs, is your remarkable track record in a professional capacity. I am not surprised you’ve entered into a liaison quite against company policy, as you’ve had little regard for it in the past. My interest was more in seeing if old Henry was as incompetent as his coworkers believed. He quietly report
ed a few monetary discrepancies to Duncan, and Duncan shared those concerns with me. Now, since you’ve turned in numbers bearing the same alarming disparity, we know we have a genuine problem on our hands. And you’re up to it in your ears, Blake.”

  The use of his first name seemed both a privilege and a condemnation. “I’m sorry, I have to disagree. Question my ethics as a man any day. I deserve that. But to get myself mixed up in anything like fudging reports, or worse, going so far as embezzling, is not within my character.”

  “I’m aware. It leaves me wondering if you’re blinded by love or merely trying to protect her.”

  The implication smacked Blake in the face like a wet towel. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh?” Mrs. Avery abruptly dropped the pen and sat forward, eyebrows raised as if daring Blake to contradict her further. “You think I’d question my own daughter without good cause? Amanda is in bookkeeping only to avoid accusations of favoritism. But I’ll tell you something no one knows—her I.Q. is a hair from genius level. She’s damnably smart, which has a lot to do with her social handicaps. Difficulty making friends and fitting in, for example. Personally, I think this is a little sloppy for her. Too obvious. However, if it’s not Amanda who’s skimming, then it’s someone who wants us to think it is.” Her expression turned sad and a bit weary. “We have a real problem here.”

  Blake let out a deep exhale. “I’d say so.” And it was his job, as auditor, to get to the bottom of it.

  Even if it meant investigating his girlfriend. Blake decided now wasn’t the time to play coy. “Is she to be made aware of my investigation?”

  Mrs. Avery seemed to consider. “Well, it might cause some undue strain on your relationship, but I do think it’s for the best if she knows. She’ll understand you have a job to do. And if she’s innocent of any wrongdoing, she’ll be happy to help in any way she can.” Her gaze stopped wandering and drilled into Blake. “As for the company’s fraternization policy, it’s set in place for a reason. But I’m a fair woman and understand things happen. I consider these circumstances on a case by case basis. For example, no action was brought against Ms. Felix and Mr. Black, for we were aware of their involvement before he joined the firm. They kept it strictly professional, and Henry saw no signs from either one of anything unethical or questionable by any means. They are both valued members of the firm. That said…” She blinked several times. “That said, I think it’d be unwise to continue your association with Ms. Felix so long as you’re romantically involved with Amanda. As mentioned, I’m fully aware of your history, Mr. Cobb. I would hate to see it repeat itself in my house.”