I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found (Contemporary Romance)

by Melanie Marchande

  "Look." The customer took a long, deep breath. "It's nothing against you. I swear. But come on. You're not going to lose your job over this. I promise. I won't tell anyone. Are they watching you on camera? I'll open my wallet and pretend to show you something. They'll never be able to tell the difference. I'm old enough to be your father. Grandfather, probably."

  "That's not the issue. I'm not allowed to sell to anyone who doesn't have ID. Doesn't matter if you're ninety. You could be a cop. We could lose our license."

  "I'm not a cop," the customer said, raising his voice a little. "I have a dime bag in my pocket right now!"

  The kid raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

  "Yes. Really. You want it?"

  The kid swallowed hard. "The cameras," he said.

  "Right," said the customer. "Jesus Christ."

  I cleared my throat. I really did just have a frog in it, but both them immediately turned to look at me.

  "I'm sorry," said the customer. "Why don't you go ahead of me? I don't want to hold you up anymore. I left my license in my suitcase. Just got back from France, for work, and I wanted a fucking bottle of Hennessy…" he sighed. "I'm sorry. It's just a hell of a thing. Go on, please. I insist."

  "Thanks," I said, awkwardly sidling up to the counter. I pretty much felt bad for everyone involved, but I knew I couldn't offer to buy it for him, or the cashier would have to refuse the sale. I'd done a brief stint as a grocery cashier in high school, and although we weren't allowed to sell anything harder than beer, we definitely had our fair share of conflicts with customers who thought their hair color should be enough proof of age to buy whatever they wanted.

  "Just got back from France, huh?" I said over my shoulder, for no reason I could imagine.

  "Yeah," he said. "Feels like it's been forever. It's weird, no matter how much I travel I never really get used to it."

  "I'm the same way," I admitted, as I handed the cashier my credit card. "Too bad you don't have your passport."

  The customer's eyes widened.

  "My fucking passport!" he exclaimed, abruptly un-tucking his shirt and reaching inside it. "Shit! I totally forgot. I've been wearing it in this stupid secret pocket thing I bought out of Skymall a couple years back. Forgot to take it off when I got home. God bless you. Seriously. You can take a passport, right?" The last bit was addressed to the cashier.

  "Sure," he said. "It's a legal ID."

  "Thank you, thank you," the customer beamed at me. "Seriously, hon. You just made my night. I was just on a plane for nine hours with two changeovers and my brain's turned into tapioca pudding. You're a lifesaver."

  "No problem." I tucked the bottle of wine under my arm. "I hope you have a better night from here on out."

  "Thanks, sweetie. You too."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Somewhere very far away, a noise was starting to intrude on my consciousness. I ignored it for as long as I could, but eventually, it roused me enough to realize what it was. Daniel’s ringtone.

  I opened my eyes slowly, feeling the mattress shift as Daniel sat upright. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened, so I let myself stay half-asleep, vaguely listening with half an ear.

  "Slow down," I heard him demand. "What did you say?"

  I rolled over, suddenly awake. His voice sounded tense. I pulled myself into a seated position, staring at the back of his head and trying to make out the words on the other end of the phone. Daniel stood, abruptly, pacing over to the window and raking his hand through his hair. "I don't understand. How?"

  The other person was doing most of the talking, which made it nearly impossible for me to even guess at the substance of the conversation. All I knew was that I'd never seen Daniel react this way. I stayed quiet, sitting in the center of the bed in the dark room, very aware of the sound of my own breathing.

  "Well, it must be some kind of glitch, then. If you…" He was silent for a while longer. "You already talked to them? Why the fuck didn't you tell me that in the first place?" His voice was elevated now, and I could see his body grow taut like a bowstring. "I have to hear about this now? From you? Don't they send some sort of notice?" He let out a heavy sigh. "Yes, well, 'I guess not' is right, isn't it? They wouldn't tell you what it was about? 'Suspicious activity?' I mean, what the fuck does that mean?"

  My throat started to tighten. Whatever this was, it wasn’t the usual misplaced panic from one of his business associates. This was the real deal. My mind was racing - what could it possibly be? Had he lost a major partnership of some kind? I knew they'd been negotiating some kind of sponsorship deal with one of the big software companies - maybe it had unexpectedly fallen through.

  Daniel had his back to me now, staring out the window at the ever-flickering city lights. I turned on my bedside lamp, and he didn't even seem to notice. When he finally turned back around and started pacing to the other side of the room, I saw that his face was ashen.

  I'd never seen him like this - not even when my ex-friend (and his ex-girlfriend) Flo threatened to turn us over to the INS for our sham marriage.

  "What's wrong?" I hissed, but he didn't seem to hear me. He was still lost in his own world, listening to whoever was on the other end of the phone and completely oblivious to me. I sat in miserable silence for what felt like an eternity, before he finally hung up the phone with some vague promise (or threat) of talking again soon.

  "What's wrong?" I repeated. He looked so distant that I almost thought he hadn't heard me again, but he finally looked up at me, almost as if he were startled to see me there.

  "I don't…I don't know, exactly," he said, walking slowly back over to the bed and sitting down heavily. "That was my broker. He was trying to execute some late-night trades that I'd asked him to take care of, and he discovered that my accounts had been frozen."

  I frowned. "Why?"

  "Apparently, there was some…concern." He cleared his throat. "A judge issued a freeze order due to what appeared to be insider trading. The thing is, I didn't…I never…" He took a deep breath. "It's all a mistake. It has to be. I never acted on any inside information. I know better."

  "Sure," I said, numbly. I vaguely understood the concept from the news, but I never thought I'd be in the middle of an insider trading scandal. "But I mean…why would they think you did?"

  "I don't know," he said. "That's just the thing. I have no idea what information they acted on, because they didn't tell me. They didn't warn me, they just froze everything and planned to tell me about it later, I suppose. My broker only found out because he called in a few favors with some people he knows in the justice system. Apparently, I've been the talk of the town." He stopped and let out a little bewildered laugh. "They've been monitoring my activity for some time. Which isn't unusual, but what I don't understand is what they saw that triggered them to do something so drastic. It has to be a mistake. I'm sure it'll all be cleared up in the morning, but…"

  "But?" I prodded. I had no idea what else to say.

  "I don't know," he said. "God. I'm going to go make some coffee. Maybe that's a bad idea. Is it too early for a brandy? Too late? Christ, Maddy, what am I going to do?"

  "I don't know," I said, honestly. "But I'm sure it'll be fine. Right? It has to be fine. If you didn't do anything wrong…"

  "I didn't," he said, forcefully, standing up again and pacing around the room.

  "I know you didn't." I raised my hands in a supplicating gesture. Truth was, I didn't have the first clue if he was lying to me or not. Of course he'd say he was innocent. Even to me. He wouldn't be stupid enough to admit it to anyone if he'd done something like that. This was, after all, a man capable of committing marriage fraud.

  I took in a deep breath. I knew that he occasionally invested in the companies of people he knew, which had always seemed like an odd move to me - I didn't think I'd be able to resist the temptation to act on insider information if I were in his shoes, and I told him so. Apparently, he felt differently about it. And he also apparently knew h
e was being watched, or suspected it, so why would he do something so stupid?

  Okay, hello, marriage fraud.

  But that was different. With online stock trading, there was a virtual paper trail three miles long. If he did indeed do something questionable, he'd have a hell of a time ever proving his innocence.

  He wouldn't be that stupid. Would he?

  Marriage.

  Fraud.

  I shook my head to clear my thoughts. Daniel seemed to have gone back to barely being aware that I was alive, and I really wanted nothing more than to take a long walk outside in the cool night air until my head felt clearer, but that was really a terrible idea, even in this part of the city. The only other option was to start quizzing him about the what the hell exactly was happening, and he'd already made it quite clear that he had no idea, so that wasn't going to be very productive.

  Suddenly, a thought occurred to me.

  "Were the investment accounts the only thing they froze?"

  He stared me, dully.

  "What do you mean?" he said, at last, slowly.

  "I mean, do you think there's a chance they froze any of your other assets? You should probably find out."

  He blinked, pulling his phone out of his pocket. I saw him tap the screen a few times, then throw it on the bed and exclaim "fucking shit!"

  I picked up the phone and looked at it. He was on the purchase page of his own app store.

  We're sorry, but there seems to be a problem with your payment method. Would you like to enter another card?

  The expression on his face was positively wild. "Why the fuck would they do this? What am I supposed to do now?" he shouted, at no one.

  I could think of several reasons why they might want to freeze all of his assets, actually - even if he wasn't considered a flight risk, if he was engaging in insider trading, any judge might reasonably assume that some of the tainted funds existed in one of his non-investment accounts too. It made sense - but he almost certainly didn't want to hear that right now.

  I wanted to pinch myself and wake up from this perfectly ordinary nightmare, but I knew without trying that it wasn't going to happen. Unfortunately, this made entirely too much sense to be imaginary.

  "Do you have some cash somewhere?" I asked, in a small voice. "I mean…you know, in case they can't unfreeze everything right away."

  He blinked again, slowly. "Yes," he said. "There's some in the safe. But not enough to live on for very long. And the company…we’ll have to suspend operations, we can’t even make payroll."

  "The accounts are in your name?" I frowned at him, realizing how little I knew about the day-to-day functions of the place I used to work.

  "No, but I have direct access. They froze all of those, too."

  "Well, as far as personal expenses go, I'm sure that Lindsey can help out, right?" I was trying to stay calm and reasonable, but it was getting more difficult by the moment.

  "Lindsey," he repeated, sitting down heavily on the bed again. "God. I'll have to call her as soon as it's late enough."

  "I'm sure she wouldn't mind hearing from you now," I said, gently. The sky was just beginning to be tinged with light around the edges. "She's your sister."

  He shook his head slowly. "No," he said. "I'll let her get her sleep. There's nothing she can do now."

  I couldn't argue with him there, so I sat back on the pillows and stared at the wall.

  "Is this a bad dream?" he said, finally, after a long silence.

  "Sorry," I replied, managing a wan smile as I patted him on the leg. "But I'm pretty sure it's not."

  Suddenly, I felt very thirsty. I got up and walked down to the kitchen, fetching a water bottle from the fridge and drinking half of it in one gulp. Unsurprisingly, it didn't really make me feel any better.

  There certainly wasn't going to be any more sleep tonight. This morning. Whatever. I felt like I should eat something to settle my stomach, but I also felt like even a handful of saltines would probably come right back up, in my current state. I wandered fitfully around the apartment for a while, my arms hugged around my chest, shivering a little but unsure if I was cold or just on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

  I couldn't stop running it over and over in my head. Why? How? Is this real? Did he do it? Why? There was no explanation that made sense to me. I didn't know much about professional investing, but I had a feeling that the broker would be working with some kind of secure system that wasn't easily compromised. If someone wanted to frame Daniel for insider trading, could they realistically do it?

  How many times had I heard the "I was hacked!" excuse, especially from public figures? Was he really trying to pull that one on me? His own wife?

  My stomach lurched.

  I looked up and realized that Daniel was in the kitchen, contemplating a bottle of whiskey. I hurried out to snatch it from his hands.

  "No," I said, putting it back into the cabinet. "I promise that's not going to make anything better."

  "You don't think so?" There was just a touch of wry humor in his eyes - just enough to remind me that he was still the same as he always had been. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him close and just listening to the sound of his heartbeat. It took a long time, but he finally embraced me back, squeezing my ribcage so hard it almost hurt.

  I don't know how long we stood there, but by the time we broke apart, the sunrise was cutting sharply through the window above the sink. I squinted against it, turning away and walking back up to the bedroom with no clear idea of why I was going there. Maybe, if I just climbed back in bed and curled up under the covers, it would be like none of this ever happened.

  Not likely.

  ***

  It felt like an eternity before the judge's offices opened and Daniel was able to start putting in phone calls. Of course it was a labyrinthine process with voicemails and extensions and leaving messages with five different people, but eventually he did get a call back, which he took alone in the bedroom, with the door shut. I wasn't sure if he was trying to protect me from it, or if he just couldn't handle the added stress of being around another person. Either way, I wasn't really offended. I couldn't imagine what he must be going through, although it was no walk in the park for me, either.

  I managed to eat some leftover pot roast by the time lunch rolled around, but Daniel was still subsisting off of juice and water until dinnertime, when he ate a few handfuls of almonds from the cupboard and then went back to call his broker again.

  When he finally talked to me, I learned that his broker had located the trade in his transaction history, but could not account for it. The firm's security specialists were already working on it, but they apparently didn't have high hopes of finding any answers soon. Whoever had originated the trade had successfully covered his tracks - well enough that they had to launch something that they called a "forensics" investigation. I had absolutely no idea what that meant in this context, but I suspected it didn’t actually involve the scalpels and bone saws that I was picturing.

  He'd also put in several calls with the owner of the company whose stock he'd allegedly sold. The whole thing had to do with a merger or an acquisition or something that he explained in such a scattered way I gave up trying to understand - but he insisted that he knew nothing about it, that in fact he could present cell phone records to the judge showing he'd had no contact with the man in weeks.

  The company owner in question was in the middle of his once-yearly vacation in which he went completely offline. His very capable assistant who managed his affairs in absentia could shed absolutely no light on the situation, but she promised to send word to her boss's emergency contact number and he'd get back to Daniel as soon as he possibly could.

  By the end of our conversation, my head was spinning and I felt like I understood even less than I had before. Hell - I was married to the man, but even I couldn't see how he was going to convince a judge of his innocence. How could he prove that he and his friend had no contact? They might have talked on pa
y phones, or burners, or…

  I shook my head, as if I could physically knock the thoughts out that way. It was ridiculous that I was even considering the possibility of Daniel's guilt. But I was just trying to be realistic. How would the courts see it? They certainly wouldn't be sympathetic towards a man like him. Then again, with his money, he could hire one of those lawyers that everyone hates.

  Then again, he didn’t actually have any of his money just at the moment.

  Daniel finally called Lindsey in the late afternoon, and after she'd finished berating him for not calling her immediately, she got a ticket on the next plane out. I felt a tremendous sense of relief knowing she'd be here. I didn't get to spend as much time with my sister in law as I would have liked to, but everything I knew of her indicated that she wasn't easily shaken. She was the perfect person to have around in a crisis. And maybe, just maybe, she'd have more of an idea of how to comfort Daniel than I did.

  I went with him to the airport to pick her up. I was surprised that she didn't just hire a town car or something, but maybe Daniel was just anxious to see her. If he was, he certainly wasn't telling me about it. In fact, I wasn't one hundred percent sure that he realized I was in the car until he turned and spoke to me.

  "I know the head of the security here. I think they'll let us through so we can meet her at the gate."

  "Uh…" I glanced at him, sidelong. "You sure about that? I really feel like we don't need trouble with the TSA on top of everything."

  He didn't say anything, but thankfully, Lindsey was waiting for us by the passenger pickup area so the issue never arose.

  She went to Daniel wordlessly, her face drawn and tight, and pulled him into a long hug. Neither one of them moved for almost a full minute. When Daniel finally pulled away, I searched his face for something. Anything. But his expression was still stony.

  I picked up Lindsey's bag and started hauling it towards the trunk, which finally got Daniel's attention.