I wasn’t an artist, though, as much as I’d like to be. I was essentially a glorified bookkeeper. I kept track of the money that passed between hands, the money that could potentially pass between hands, and the money that went out to pay for supplies, labor, and all that fun stuff. The guys upstairs sent a request down to us to ask that we figure out how much it would cost to do a specific project. We gave them a basic number, numbers that were impacted by unforeseen events, and a median number that was usually the one quoted to the client. It was all supposed to be random. But some of the project leaders upstairs had figured out how to get around the system and send their projects directly to the assistant accountants—(the fancy title Lesley, me, and three others shared)—they favored and—for some reason—the majority of those came to me.
Forty. It was going to be a long day.
I settled in and got to work, my ten key buzzing as my fingers never missed a digit. I was through about fifteen projects before lunch, which was something of a record for me. But I had so many left to do that I couldn’t stop. Another lunch missed.
I never seemed to have time to eat anymore.
“Hey,” Lesley said, stopping by my cubicle on her way back from lunch with a couple of the other assistants, “we brought you a sandwich.”
I looked up, so grateful I could feel tears threatening at the back of my throat.
“Thanks, Les…”
“We saw him downstairs.”
My eyebrows rose. “You did?”
“Getting out of a car at the front of the building.”
“I wonder why. Doesn’t he usually park in the garage?”
“Usually, but I think he was with someone.”
“A girl, I bet.”
“Likely. But we couldn’t see who was in the car.”
“I always miss the good stuff.”
I sat back and picked at the wrapper on the sandwich she’d brought me. She was talking about the CEO of the company. He was young, maybe in his early thirties, and had never been married. His family owned a chain of hotels with locations all over the world, so he didn’t need to work. But—the rumor went—he fell so in love with art when he was in high school that he was determined to do something with it in his future career. Then in college he took a graphic art class and decided that was what he wanted to do with his life. So, after some argument with his parents, he started this company, and it became an overnight success.
The rumor mill also said that he was something of a womanizer, that he’d been caught on more than one occasion with a woman he shouldn’t have been with. The rumors differed on why he shouldn’t have been with the women of his choice. Some said these women were married to equally wealthy men, some said that they were underage girls, or girls who worked for him. Personally, I suspected there really weren’t any illicit affairs, just many, many affairs. I mean, the guy looked like Ryan Reynolds and George Clooney had somehow had a baby together. He was tall and incredibly fit with these broad shoulders that just did things to a girl’s equilibrium. And he had dark hair, piercing blue eyes, a smile that could melt ice, and the deepest voice any man had the right to have. Not Barry White or James Earl Jones deep, but the sexy sort of deep that makes you feel a man’s sexuality without ever setting eyes on him. You know what I mean?
He was gorgeous and rich and talented…the perfect man. Was it any wonder that he was often seen around town with some of the most eligible women in the country?
What surprised me, was that he’d never been married. What kind of a woman would let a catch like him get away?
If he was with me…but that was never going to happen.
“Back to work, ladies,” Mrs. Constantine said, as she made her second cubicle check.
I groaned as I turned my attention back to my computer. Enough fantasizing for one day.
Chapter 2
Jason
“Birthdays are just a reminder of how much time has passed in your life.”
I bent and kissed my grandmother’s cheek. “Then I suppose it’s a good thing that this is my birthday, not yours.”
“Yes, it is.”
I wanted to laugh, but she was so serious that I was afraid of upsetting her. Instead, I patted her hand and moved back into my chair.
Justin, my brother, was watching me closely over the head of his new baby, Alexa. It was such a big name for such a tiny baby. But she was beautiful—dark-haired like her father, but she had the sweetest dimples that could only have come from her beautiful mother, Sara—and spoiled beyond words even though she was only three weeks old.
“Thirty-three,” Justin reminded me, as though I didn’t already know. “It’s time to start thinking about the future instead of focusing so much on the here and now.”
“As though you ever let me forget.”
“Isn’t that what older brothers are for?”
“To remind little brothers that they need to live a little instead of locking themselves up in their office all day and night,” Sara said with a soft smile.
“My business is what is most important in my life right now,” I said.
“Yes, well, there’s more to life than work,” Justin said, lifting the baby away from his shoulder so that he could see her precious, little face. “Isn’t that right, Alexa?”
And this spoken by the guy who ran the family business, a business that had been around for so long that his job was pretty much just a figurehead sort of thing. He wasn’t dealing with supply issues, personnel issues, or using every bit of his charm to get high-profile clients to come check his company out. He didn’t have to attend all the meetings, both with clients and artists, which were required at my company. He had time to spend with his wife, to take her on luxury trips and shower her with gifts. He had time to make babies and attend all the doctor’s appointments. I didn’t. I barely had time to sleep four hours a night. The last time I’d even wanted to spoil a woman, she ended up walking out on me in the middle of a very expensive dinner because I was fifteen minutes late.
But she had waited until after her forty-dollar steak was delivered to the table.
“Speaking of work,” I said, standing again. Lunch was pretty much done, and I did have a meeting in twenty minutes. But escaping from the conversation was even more important at this point. You’d think at my age that I wouldn’t have to put up with everyone else’s opinion of what I should do with my life, but, apparently, in this family it didn’t matter how old I was. As long as I was single and work obsessed, I was going to hear about it.
“I’ll drive you back to the office,” Justin said, handing the baby to Sara.
“I can walk. It’s not that far.”
“No, I want to.”
I bit back a groan because I knew what that meant. More lecture.
I dropped a kiss on my grandmother’s cheek and Sara’s, running my finger over the baby’s cheek before I turned to follow Justin out the door.
“Mom and Dad wanted me to remind you about the homeless shelter thing next week,” Justin said almost as soon as we were settled in the back of his town car.
“I’m sure it’s already on my schedule.”
“And the community center—”
“I’m aware of my obligations, Justin.”
He nodded. “You need to get out more, brother. You’re too tense.”
“You’d be tense, too, if someone was constantly reminding you of things you already knew.”
“I’m just trying to make sure you’re on top of things.”
“I am.”
“Mom will probably call later. She feels bad that they were out of the country on your birthday.”
“I’m a big boy. I understand.”
Justin smiled. “Yeah, well, you know Mom.”
“I do.”
The car pulled to the curb outside my office building. I started to get out, but Justin grabbed my arm.
“Take my advice, brother. Leave the office early. Go to some bar and find a pretty girl to keep your bed warm
.”
I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Is that something you’d say in front of your wife?”
“No. That’s why I’m saying it now.”
“Yeah, well, that was you once upon a time. Not me.”
Justin sort of clicked his tongue as he shook his head. “You’re missing out. Once you settle down with one woman, you’ll have nothing to look back on and be happy you did.”
“Once I settle down with the right woman, I won’t have a reason to look back and feel nostalgic. And you shouldn’t either.”
I got out of the car and left him to think about that.
I was vaguely aware of a group of women watching me as I crossed the lobby to the private elevator that led directly to a little alcove outside my office. As the door closed, I caught the eye of one woman, a tall blonde dressed conservatively in a long skirt and proper suit jacket. She smiled in a way that suggested that it wasn’t her chosen mode of dress, that she was more comfortable in something a little more revealing. And I was sure it was quite a sight, a woman who looked like her in so much less. But as the doors closed and she dropped a suggestive wink, I sort of shuttered.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want a woman in my bed. I did. The last time had been longer ago than I cared to remember. It just seemed like I never had time anymore. Opportunities presented themselves, but it felt like my time was better spent bent over my draft board and computers than chasing after something that took more effort than it was worth.
But I supposed Justin did have a point. I was tense. Things were good with the business, but it seemed the better things went, the less I was able to indulge in the part that drew me to begin the business in the first place. I was spending less and less time creating and more time in boardrooms, dealing with issues that had nothing to do with the heart of the business.
Maybe a night out was in order.
I almost decided to go for it—when the elevator doors opened. Shelly, my personal assistant, office manager, friend, surrogate mother, and God knew what else, was standing there waiting for me, a file folder in her hand.
“We have a problem with the Watson account. They’re saying that we quoted them a figure much lower than what they actually ended up paying. They want to see a detailed bill. They say their accountants think there’s something nefarious happening on our side of things.”
I just stared at her for a second, wishing I wasn’t hearing what I was.
“That’s the third company this month.”
Her lips tightened, but she didn’t say anything.
“Who’s in charge of that account?”
“Philips and Collins.”
“Weren’t they…?”
She nodded.
I grabbed the file folder and marched into my office through a side door, sinking onto the couch as I opened the file and began sifting through the paperwork inside. Just like the other two complaints, the same designers were involved, the same supervisor, the same accountant. Even the assistant accountant…
“Who is this?”
“Joey Forman—an assistant accountant here for about a year now.”
“Was this assistant accountant involved in the other two complaints?”
“No. Just this one.”
“Call Joey up so we can talk.”
Shelly immediately headed out, carefully closing the double doors at the front of the office as she did. I turned my attention back to the paperwork, comparing the numbers on the estimate to the final billing. There were several places where the bill had been pushed up, mostly on the cost of the billboards the client had ordered and the cost of materials. We have a very specific formula we use to estimate cost for our clients. The numbers on this seemed to add up, so I couldn’t imagine what could have changed unless the client had asked for more billboards after the initial process.
I got up and searched through my computer, bringing up the same paperwork on the other two complaints we’d had earlier in the month. Both had been resolved at no cost to the client. We ate the deficit. But now…it couldn’t be a coincidence that the same team was involved in this sort of complaint so many times. And I was determined to get to the bottom of it, especially since Watson Pharmaceutical was one of our biggest clients.
I was still staring at the numbers when Shelly tapped on the door.
“Joey Forman’s here, Mr. Brooks.”
“Send him in,” I said without bothering to look up.
There was something that all the bills in question had in common, and I was on the verge of seeing it when I heard steady footsteps approach the front of my desk. I touched my finger to the computer screen, running it slowly over the columns of numbers, and it finally clicked.
“Damn,” I muttered under my breath.
“You wanted to see me, Mr. Brooks?”
The voice was very definitely female. I looked up, having imagined a nerdy, young man with thick glasses. Instead, I found myself looking into large, round, blue eyes and a gentle but nervous smile.
She was petite, dressed in a simple black shift that looked like it had seen better days more than a few years ago. However, it hugged all the right places, giving her curves where they mattered the most. It was short enough that it showed off a nice curve in her calves and delicate ankles above her practical flats. But it was that face that made me want to stare at her for hours and hours. There was a perfect roundness to the curve of her jaw, and her nose was so delicate that it was hard to imagine that it was used for much more than to adorn her beauty. And she had the thickest, waviest head of golden-brown hair. I wanted to run my fingers through it—and that threw me for a bit of a loop. I’d never been so instantly attracted to a woman before, unless you counted the month or so I was obsessed with Natalie Portman in high school.
Her smile faltered a little.
“Joey Forman?” I asked, not sure what else to say.
“Yes.”
I thrust the estimate she’d done in the Watson file, careful to keep my fingers far from hers.
“Do you recognize this?”
She studied it for a minute. “It’s an estimation I did last month.”
“It is. Can you explain to me why even the highest estimate is thousands of dollars less than what the client was billed this week?”
Her eyebrows rose. “No,” she said. “Everything on here is accurate.”
“The cost of billboards hasn’t changed?”
“No, sir. We’ve worked with the same company for as long as I’ve worked here, and they have only changed their price once in that time. Six months ago. They lowered it by about two hundred dollars a billboard. And they offer a discount for multiple billboards that’s not reflected in this estimate, so the final bill should actually have been less than this.”
I sat back in my chair, wishing she’d had something different to say.
“Could you come over here and look over the estimates for two other clients, please?”
She hesitated an instant, but then she did as I asked, moving to stand behind my chair. I pulled up the paperwork in question on my computer screen and slid over, gesturing for her to move beside me. When she did, I caught a slight scent of vanilla that threatened to make my head spin.
Concentrate!
She leaned closer to the computer, and it caused her arm to brush against mine. I leaned back to give her more room and that just opened up a lovely view of her back, of her rounded little ass pressed against the thin material of her dress. I found myself imagining what it would feel like to run my hand over that ass, imagining the soft material of the dress mixed with the warmth of her flesh. And that, contrasted with the feel of the skin on the back of her thigh when I slid my hand under that skirt…
“There’s a little discrepancy on this one,” she said, pulling me out of my reverie.
I sat up and forced myself to focus on the spot she was taping with her slender forefinger.
“What discrepancy?”
“I think whoever worked on this one forgot to
add in sales tax on this line. It should actually be about eighty dollars more than this.” Her finger ran slowly over the screen in almost the same spot my finger had touched just a moment ago. “And here. Same mistake. Should be about ninety dollars more.”
“That’s a good catch. I hadn’t noticed.”
She shrugged. “I do this every day.”
She picked out a couple of other places where the accounting assistant had made a few mistakes, but nothing that was overly significant. Nothing that could account for the discrepancy between the estimates and the final bill.
“Can I show you something else?”
She nodded, stepping back as I reached for the keyboard. She leaned against the front of my desk, crossing her ankles over each other, muffling a yawn with the back of her hand.
“Tired?”
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
I hadn’t meant to make her feel bad. She clearly was tired. Now that I could see her a little closer, I could see the dark smudges under her eyes. But she wore it well.
I gestured at the computer again. “These are the final billings for the two estimations you just looked at.”
She leaned over again, studying the computer screen as if she was reading great literature instead of bills. After only a second, she made a little sound, kind of like my brother clicking his tongue.
“The billboard prices are inflated. If this is for five billboards, whoever drew up the bill charged for seven. And the material costs are a little inflated. It shouldn’t have taken this much paper or billboard fabric to cover this order.”
“And the other?”
“Same thing,” she said. “Whoever sent the receipts downstairs must have mixed up the account numbers or something.”
Again, that was the last thing I wanted to hear. Because I was pretty sure where the mistake had been made, and I was also certain that it hadn’t been a mistake.
“Thank you,” I said.
She moved around the desk again, pausing where she’d been standing before, her hands behind her back. I looked at her, my thoughts again wandering to places they shouldn’t have been going.
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