Any mention of that topic instantly died as his sister, looking angrier than he could recall seeing her of late, demanded, “Have you seen it?”
A quick search of his memory banks came up empty. “I might be able to answer that question better if I knew what you’re referring to, Lisa,” he said, deliberately using a calm voice and hoping it might rub off on her.
He’d just been contemplating asking Ramona to spend the weekend at a bed-and-breakfast he’d come across this morning while doing a little research. Paul sincerely hoped that his sister’s tirade wasn’t going to take too long or interfere with his plans.
Lisa contemptuously tossed a magazine on his desk. Paul looked at it and read its name. He was not unfamiliar with the periodical. “The latest issue of Keeping Up with Medicine. I must have my copy here somewhere.” Picking it up, he offered her back her copy.
Lisa made no effort to take the magazine. Her expression was stony. “Obviously, you haven’t read the table of contents.”
“I haven’t had the chance.” An uneasiness began to weave through him although he couldn’t quite pinpoint the source. “Why? What’s in it?”
“Look at page thirty.” Lisa was seething as she bit off the words.
Paul dutifully turned to the page in question. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw. His heart all but stopped as the title of the article jumped out at him: Armstrong Fertility Institute: Answer to a Prayer, or Beginning of a Nightmare?
He quickly skimmed the first paragraph in silence. The tone of the piece told him that the article was strictly focused on character assassination. In short order, he scanned the title page and the last paragraph. There was no byline. Credit for the article went to Anonymous.
He could understand Lisa’s anger, but his was compounded. He didn’t want to think what he was thinking—but he couldn’t help it.
Paul felt a fire burning a hole in his belly. Reining in his outrage, he looked up at his sister. His voice was low, dark. “Who wrote this?”
Lisa shrugged in frustration. “It doesn’t say. I’ve already called the magazine, but they gave me the standard runaround. They ‘can’t reveal their sources,” she told him. “Whoever this writer talked to knew a lot. They’ve got material in there that goes way back to when Dad was running this place.” Lisa clenched her hands at her sides. “How did they get that kind of information?” she demanded angrily.
And then her eyes widened.
Paul was oblivious to the light that had suddenly come into his sister’s eyes. Neither did he notice the shift in demeanor as she mumbled, “I’ve got an idea. I’ll get back to you on this.”
Lisa left far more quietly than the way she’d entered. Paul was lost in his own thoughts, entertaining his own set of suspicions. Suspicions that caused him to be, in turn, angry, furious and incredibly disappointed. He tried to tell himself to reserve judgment, not to jump to any harsh conclusions until he talked to Ramona.
But everything pointed to Ramona being the culprit.
He had walked in on her in the vault taking photographs of the files. Taking photographs, for God’s sake.
All sorts of bells should have gone off when he saw that. Industrial spies behaved that way, not company PR managers.
How obtuse could he have been?
Almost against his will, Paul followed his thinking to its logical conclusion—and he didn’t like it.
Had everything been a lie? Had Ramona seen a way to use him, to placate him with her body so that he didn’t ask her any more questions?
And that story about her mother, was it even real? Or was that just a product of her fertile imagination, created on the spur of the moment and fashioned out of something she’d noticed while going through the files?
He didn’t want to believe it. But how could he not believe it? Sick at heart, he skimmed another two paragraphs in the article Lisa had brought to his attention.
This had Ramona’s stamp all over it, he thought. Phrases jumped out at him. Phrases he’d heard her use.
Paul didn’t want to dignify any of what he read in the article with a public denial, but he, Lisa and Derek were going to have to put their heads together and do some heavy-duty damage control here. The institute would suffer otherwise. For all he knew, it might already be too late. Coming on the heels of the formless rumors, this just might be a death blow.
He couldn’t allow that.
Damage control. The thought struck him as ironic. Supposedly, that was what they had Ramona for, to implement damage control. But what they had actually done was to naively invite the fox into the henhouse.
He shook his head. Despite everything, he still wanted to believe Ramona wasn’t responsible, that someone else was behind this. Someone with a vendetta against the institute or against his father or perhaps one of the three of them.
He was going to have no peace until he confronted Ramona with this article. No matter what the outcome, the sooner he got that over with, the better.
But first, he needed to check something out. Paul turned his chair to face his computer keyboard and began to type. Each strike of a letter cost him.
Ramona caught her lower lip between her teeth.
She reread the figures twice, then lifted the sheet on her desk to look at another spreadsheet that was just beneath it.
She wasn’t wrong.
Wow. She hadn’t even been looking for this when she started going through the files. The figures had caught her eye quite by accident.
There was a discrepancy.
A very large discrepancy.
No matter what she did, the tallies just didn’t add up. Somehow, unaccounted for money was disappearing between spreadsheets. It wasn’t obvious, but it was there, buried beneath invoices and laughable charitable write-offs. Laughable because a place like the Armstrong Fertility Institute didn’t have charitable write-offs, it had A-list clients, some who came in through the front door, others who slipped in quietly via the “special” entrance, unwilling to let the public in on their private pain of infertility.
Here and there were Mr. and Mrs. Average American who had scraped together everything they had in order to obtain the one precious thing they didn’t have: a baby. But none of the records, some of which went back over two decades, showed that any of the procedures were done pro bono. Everyone paid, some more handsomely than others, but everyone paid.
And yet, there were write-offs. How could that possibly be?
The word embezzlement popped up in her head in big, bold neon letters. It was a horrible thought, but it was the only explanation.
She had to tell Paul.
Derek might have been the one who hired her, but there was something about him that held her at bay, that didn’t allow her to completely trust him. And as for Lisa, well, so far she hadn’t gotten close to the woman, so the issue of trust hadn’t been allowed to take root one way or the other.
But Paul was another matter. He’d gotten to her. Beneath his somber exterior was a kind, sensitive man who was also one hell of a lover. The corners of her mouth curved, remembering.
The doctor, bless him, was still trying to track down whoever had gotten her mother’s eggs for her. The whole file was encoded to safeguard the recipient’s identity, but Paul told her he was doing his best to get it deciphered. God knew he didn’t have to go this extra mile for her, and yet he was. He understood what she was going through.
Which in turn made things very difficult for her.
Ramona sighed. She wanted to tell Paul what else she was up to, but she knew that the minute she made a clean breast of it, everything that had happened between them—that was happening between them—would be held suspect. And she would lose him.
And she couldn’t even blame him.
Ramona drew in a ragged breath, wishing she’d never gotten involved in this investigation. But, in an odd way, if she hadn’t, she would have never met the man who’d set her whole world on its ear and sent it spinning.
You can’t mi
ss what you never had.
Paul had told her that the evening when they’d gotten locked in the vault. And she knew that the converse was right, because if she ever lost him, she would be acutely aware of what she no longer had. Of what she’d lost. With all her heart she hoped she would never find out what that felt like.
And yet, how could she not? She just couldn’t envision a happy ending to this.
Ramona heard the sharp rap on her door and hoped that whoever was standing on the other side would be quick about whatever they wanted. She wanted to talk to Paul as soon as possible.
She managed to successfully cover her impatience as she said, “Come in.”
When she looked up and saw Paul walking in, her heart did a little dance in her chest. She wondered if she was ever going to be able to look at the man and not think of that night in the vault. It was almost as if she’d been born all over again that earthshaking night.
Paul was frowning.
It never occurred to Ramona that the frown was directed at her. She just thought that something had come up at work that displeased him.
Or maybe he had an inkling about what she’d just discovered. After all, he was an extremely intelligent man. Far more intelligent than she thought anyone gave him credit for because of his quiet demeanor.
Flashing a smile, she said, “I’m glad you’re here, Paul. I was just about to come looking for you.”
Yes, he just bet that she was. Undoubtedly to tell him another lie, or pump him for more information.
“Oh?”
There was something in his voice, something that didn’t sound quite right, but she had no clue what it could be, so she plowed on.
“Yes, I found something you might be interested in.” Ramona turned the spreadsheet around so that he could see it more clearly. “This was in the database,” she explained, “but I printed it out. It makes it easier to follow. I work better with paper and pen,” she added.
He wasn’t looking at the spreadsheet in question. He was looking at her. And still frowning. “Yes,” he said darkly, “I know.”
It wasn’t her imagination. There was something wrong. She wanted to ask him what it was, but first, she needed to bring this matter to his attention. He needed to be made aware of it.
“I think someone is embezzling from the institute.” He looked at her sharply. “Here,” Ramona coaxed, “look at this.” Pointing to one column on the first page, she then indicated another column on the second sheet. “Somewhere between these two points, this amount of money disappears. And this isn’t the only place. It happens several times with different entries. I double-checked the figures, but the totals I come up with don’t change.” She leaned back in the chair, knowing this had to be hard for him to take in. “I think you’re going to need to call in a forensic accountant.”
For a moment, Paul wavered, not knowing whether to believe her. If she was right about someone embezzling funds, then this could be disastrous. It was tantamount to one more nail in the institute’s coffin.
On the other hand, he reminded himself, this could just be another example of Ramona’s artful camouflage, designed to draw all attention away from herself.
He knew what he wanted to believe, but that didn’t make it true.
Ramona narrowed her eyes. Something was really off. “You don’t seem very upset about this,” she noted. “Am I wrong?”
That was when she noticed that he was holding a magazine in his hand, rolled up the way someone would when they wanted to kill an annoying insect that crossed their path.
“Have you seen this?”
Paul tossed the magazine on her desk, watching Ramona’s face for her reaction. The initial surprise gave way to another expression. Guilt?
His heart froze.
Struggling to keep the extent of his anger under wraps, he pointed at the magazine. “I think you’ll be particularly interested in the article beginning on page thirty.”
Even before she opened the magazine, Ramona could feel her heart sinking in her chest like a clay pigeon that had been shot down. Her fingers felt almost numb as she turned to the page he told her.
Oh God, he did it. Jessup went ahead and wrote the article after I’d begged him not to.
She didn’t have to read the article to know that it was slanted. She could see the truth in Paul’s eyes.
How did she make this right?
She took a breath and began to plead her case. “Paul, I can explain—”
Pain shot through him. The last shred of hope that she was actually innocent of this died the second Ramona uttered those words. She was responsible.
And everything else that came before, and after, had been a lie.
“I don’t want to hear it,” he told her coldly, cutting her off before she could start to weave another web to ensnare him. “I don’t want to hear another lie. Just pack up your things and go.” He saw her jaw slacken and fall open, but no words emerged. No further lies. “And I wouldn’t put the institute on your résumé if I were you,” he advised sarcastically. “Because I won’t be giving you a letter of recommendation.”
Oh God, he was hurt. And it killed her that she was the cause of his pain.
He had to hear her out. She had to make him understand, she thought frantically. “Paul, please, you have to let me explain—”
He couldn’t allow it. Because he still cared. Still wanted to believe that this was all a mistake. That she hadn’t betrayed him. And if he let her talk, he’d wind up being swayed.
Being made an even bigger fool of than he already was.
“No,” he cut her off gruffly. “There’s no point. I can’t tell the difference between your lies and your half-truths.”
“I wasn’t lying,” she cried, desperate to have him understand the situation that had developed. “I mean, I was, but that was only a small part of it. The rest of it, it was all true.”
There was pain along with the contempt in his eyes. She was responsible for that. She had to make this right, to turn it around. But now, caught by surprise and shell-shocked, she couldn’t even think straight.
“And why would you expect me to believe that?” he wanted to know. “Just because you say so? I have your word for it, is that it?”
He was mocking her and he had a perfect right to, she thought. All she could do was answer his question as honestly as she could and pray that somehow it would work itself out. That he would believe her. She’d just been trying to do her job and earn some money. She had never planned on falling for him.
“Yes,” she cried breathlessly.
“So I have the word of an artful liar,” he reviewed coldly. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
Every word that he said, every cold look in his eyes slashed at her heart. She reached for him, to make contact, to touch his arm, but he pulled it away. He wanted no part of her, she realized.
“Paul, I didn’t—”
“Save your breath, Ramona.” And then, to her surprise, he laughed shortly. “At least you gave me your right name, and if I’d had half a brain in my head—because my brother clearly didn’t—I would have stopped to look you up on the Internet before ever agreeing to have you stay on.”
His mouth curved in a humorless smile. Ramona braced herself. She knew what was coming.
“There were a number of reprinted articles on the Web with your name on them.” Scanning them, he’d felt like an idiot. “You’re quite the investigative journalist, aren’t you?” His eyes narrowed as his mouth hardened. “You must have had a hell of a laugh at my expense.”
Oh God, this was getting worse by the second. She would have given anything to undo it, to find just the right thing to say to make him believe her. But she had nothing. Nothing but the truth, which he didn’t believe. “I didn’t laugh at you, Paul. I never laughed. You opened my eyes—”
“Oh, please,” he said dismissively. “Begging doesn’t fit your image. By the way, that bit about your mother, that was a really nice touch. You really
had me going there for a while.” When he thought of the time he’d devoted on what amounted to a wild-goose chase…There was a reason he devoted himself to his work instead of socializing. He could depend on medicine. Trusting his instincts when it came to a woman only made him act like a fool. “I even tracked down that so-called sibling.”
“Then there is one?” Her eyes widened. There was hope, real hope for her mother. At least this was going to turn out right. “Who?” Ramona cried.
“Oh, no.” Paul shook his head. He wasn’t about to get sucked back into her lies. “I’m not going to have you bothering some stranger just to continue with this charade of yours. Better luck next time,” he retorted.
Turning on his heel, Paul walked out. He slammed the door in his wake.
Numb, Ramona stood there, frozen, the slammed door reverberating in her chest.
Chapter Fifteen
He began missing Ramona the moment he told her to leave.
It had been a week now. A week since the article in the medical journal had changed the steady, progressive path he’d been on. Not having Ramona in his life had created a melancholy within him that was becoming a greater and greater burning pain in his gut.
Waking, sleeping—what little he got of it these days—the pain was always there. Haunting him. Reminding him that she was gone.
He’d never gone through this kind of thing before, never cared enough about anyone to hurt the way he did now.
He would have thought, with all the turmoil that Ramona’s article had created, that he wouldn’t have time to feel anything except outrage. He, Derek and Lisa had all scrambled to release statements to the press that amounted to some very fancy damage control. It seemed to have taken hold and, for now, the furor was beginning to die down again.
Between that, doing a little investigative work of his own and seeing to his patients, two of whom had just discovered that they were finally, finally pregnant, he was busy enough this last week for three people.
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