Better Together

by Annalisa Carr

  “It’s fine.” Tallulah looked at Aiden who nodded. The smell reminded her of how hungry she was.

  They followed the waiter to the table and ordered two beers while they studied the menu.

  “I wouldn’t have taken you for a beer drinker,” Tallulah said, picking up the menu.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I would have guessed you were more fine wines.”

  “That shows what a poor judge of character you are. You shouldn’t make snap judgements.” Aiden lifted his eyes from his menu and gave her a reproving look that transformed into a grin. “I’m adaptable. I think I’ll have the Sicilian.”

  “A margarita for me.” Tallulah put the menu down and picked up her drink. It was icy cold, and she relished the cool relief as it went down her throat. She wriggled her stiff shoulders. “You were right. We needed to get out of there. I eat too much pizza though.”

  “No such thing as too much pizza, and I’m getting bogged down in numbers,” Aiden said. “I also think it’s a huge disadvantage not being familiar with the company. I have to learn as I go along. I don’t know what the management team think of me. Clueless I should imagine.”

  Tallulah shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about them. They don’t seem to be doing much of a job.”

  Aiden raised both eyebrows.

  “The first time I temped here, people were hard working. Everyone looked busy. Now everyone seems discontented. No one arrives before nine, and the office is empty by five. Haven’t you felt the change in the company?”

  “I don’t know.” Aiden rested his elbows on the table. “I haven’t spent much time here. I worked on the construction sites in my university holidays, but that was nearly fifteen years ago, and it was very different from head office.”

  “Construction sites?” Tallulah couldn’t imagine it. She narrowed her eyes and tried to picture Aiden stripped to the waist, hauling bricks up scaffolding or whatever it was they did. She hurriedly moved her mind back to the present and Aiden in his slightly crumpled linen suit. She fixed her eyes on his hands.

  “Yes. My father had both of us working for the company in the holidays.”

  “Your sister worked on the sites as well?” She’d caught glimpses of Francesca around the building, and she looked even less like a casual worker than Aiden.

  “Not in the same role.” Aiden grinned and pushed his hair back from his face. “My father wanted us both to go into the family business.”

  Not many people would describe a money-spinning multi-national as ‘the family business.’ “So why didn’t you?”

  “Construction never really interested me,” Aiden said. “I studied molecular biology at university. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I finished, so I did a PhD. It made my father furious. He called it a waste of time.”

  “Then what did you do?” Tallulah was fascinated.

  “I got a job doing analysis for a venture capital company in the US. They funded new advances in gene therapy. I loved it. It was such a buzz to turn ideas into successful businesses.”

  “What did your family think of that?” Tallulah asked.

  “My father wasn’t pleased. He didn’t speak to me for three months after I moved to the US. He wouldn’t answer my phone calls or anything.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She talked to me, but every time she called, she asked me to do as my father wanted. Francesca couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to go into the company, but at least she thought it should be up to me.”

  “You’re on good terms now?”

  Aiden let out a bark of laughter. “I think my father sees this as the thin edge of the wedge. I suspect he thinks I’ll go from acting CEO to permanent CEO, with him pulling the strings.”

  “And will you?”

  Aiden gave her an incredulous look. “Not in a thousand lifetimes. I like what I do.”

  The pizzas arrived. Neither of them said anything for the next few minutes.

  “How old were you when your mother died?” Aiden asked, looking up briefly from his pizza.

  “Fourteen.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about it. It was a subject she mostly avoided, even with her siblings.

  “What happened then?”

  “We went into care,” she said. “I was fostered.”

  Aiden pulled a face. “Was it bad?”

  “Not really.” She pushed at her pizza with the tip of her fork. “I was lucky, but I missed my brother and sisters.”

  “How many do you have?”

  “Two sisters and a brother. They’re all younger than me.” She didn’t mention the twins. They were completely lost until they reached eighteen at least, but she hoped that then they would try to find out about their birth family. She’d like to see how they’d grown up. Her mother’s last lover had probably been their father. He’d been barely out of his teens, but already a petty criminal, with a streak of violence running through his character. At least he’d left the children alone. Until they annoyed him, and then if they moved fast enough, he’d let them get away. He’d beaten her mother though.

  “You weren’t fostered together?”

  “No. Not many people can take on four children. Especially ones that might be trouble.”

  “Were you trouble?”

  “Not me.” Tallulah had always been serious and determined to work towards a goal. She’d had her first-ever opportunity to think about her own future once she was in foster care, and she knew she didn’t want to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Ellie Becks had taken a wrong turning early in her life. She had given birth to Tallulah at the age of sixteen, and as long as Tallulah could remember, her mother had struggled with various addictions. She’d always hoped a man could save her, but most of the men she brought home needed saving themselves.

  “What happened to the others?” Aiden asked. “Do you still see them at all?”

  “Of course I do.” Tallulah had raised her siblings. “Family’s important.” From her fifth birthday, she had realised her mother wasn’t to be relied on. She’d looked after herself, and then Zoe, Mia, and Kyle, made sure there was food for them, even if she’d had to steal it. She made sure they were at school every day and that they were clean and dressed. She knew what might happen if social services suspected the family wasn’t coping. She sighed heavily. It had happened anyway.

  “What happened to your mother?” Aiden asked. His eyes were intent, and she got the idea he really cared about her answer.

  “She died of an overdose,” Tallulah said. “That’s what they said. I don’t know what she’d taken. I don’t want to know.”

  “That’s why you—”

  “It was a long time ago.” She’d had enough of the subject. Thinking about her mother depressed her. Tallulah had never been sure whether she was angry at her mother or just pitied her. It was past, and the cards had been stacked against her mother. All Tallulah could do for her now, was to make her own life count, and to do her best for her siblings. If they’d let her. She put down her fork and picked up a slice of pizza in her fingers. It had cooled enough.

  Aiden copied her.

  “My youngest brother is working for Marlowe’s,” she said. That was something she didn’t mind talking about.

  Aiden looked interested. “What’s he doing?”

  “Just a summer job in the mailroom.”

  “Does he like it?”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I blackmailed Human Resources into employing him. Said I’d stay and work for you if they gave him a job.”

  Aiden frowned. “Why does everyone think I’m difficult? They loved me in the US.”

  “Are you sure?” Tallulah smiled to herself.

  “Just ask Loretta.”

  “Loretta?”
>
  “My admin assistant.” Aiden took a drink. “She’s been with me since we started the company.”

  “Mmm.” Tallulah sat back, unable to eat a single morsel more. “And she loves you?”

  “Adores me.” He hoped Tallulah never had a chance to talk to Loretta.

  “Right.”

  “Coffee?” Aiden waved at one of the waiters.

  Tallulah glanced at her watch. It was half past nine. She yawned ostentatiously.

  “I just live around the corner,” Aiden picked up his cup. “Since this morning. How will you get home?”

  “Bus.”

  He frowned. “I don’t like that. Why don’t you come back to my place and I’ll call you a taxi?”

  Going back to Aiden’s apartment felt like a bad idea. “Will the company pay?”

  “Naturally.” He gave her a haughty stare.

  “I’ll ask the waiter to call one. That’ll be quicker.”

  Aiden shrugged. “I’ll wait with you.”

  Tallulah usually travelled everywhere by bus, or on foot. She hated the hot overcrowded tubes, especially in summer. She’d never felt unsafe in London, but if it made him feel happier, he could keep her company.”

  The taxi arrived as they were finishing the coffee.

  “Can you work late again tomorrow?” He bent down to speak through the open door.

  “Yes,” she said. “But not the following day.”

  He slammed the door closed and the taxi started to move. She watched through the window as Aiden walked towards the main road.

  ~ ~ ~

  Half past midnight.

  Tallulah sat up and rearranged her pillow by punching it hard. It was impossible to sleep. Her mind kept circling back to Aiden, and not in a work-appropriate way. Maybe she shouldn’t spend time with him outside the office. Why had she done it? None of her previous employers had tempted her to as much as a lunchtime drink. An image of him stripped to the waist and flashing his muscles on a construction site looped through her brain.

  She gave up trying to blank it in the end and forced her mind to think of ways of stealing money and of ways to go about hiding it. There were several methods to do it through the ordering system. She could think up various strategies for liberating small amounts of cash without even slightly straining her brain. It was a good thing for the world that she had decided a life of crime wasn’t for her.

  She twisted onto her back, pushing off the thin sheet. It was so hot, and a beam from the streetlight outside the building leaked round her screen. An insect moved on the rough plaster of the ceiling.

  One way of defrauding the company would be to order more equipment and raw materials than could be used, at least on paper, and charging for it, then ordering the correct amount in reality and pocketing the difference. The problem with that was that it would involve more than one person. Another way would be to add a ten percent charge onto everything that went through accounting. That would certainly make a dent in profits and could be done by a smaller group of people. They’d have to be fairly senior. When she thought about it, none of it could have been carried out by junior staff. It was difficult for them to get away with requisitioning an extra biro, and stealing even a box of paperclips would be fraught with risk. It had to be someone senior. Images of grey men in suits flitted through her mind, and she finally drifted off to sleep, counting them like sheep.

  Chapter 13

  Aiden was already at his desk when Tallulah arrived the next morning. She hung her bag over the back of her chair and turned as he appeared in the doorway.

  “Did you get home okay, last night?” he asked.

  “Obviously.” She unlocked her computer. “I’ll put the coffee on in a second.”

  “Already done.” He gave her a satisfied smile, walked over and poured two cups from the jug. “Here.”

  She frowned at him. “You really don’t know how to be a boss.”

  He laughed. “I want to call a management meeting this morning. Can you organise it? Ten thirty?”

  For once, the whole team, apart from Francesca, was available and arrived in the conference room a few minutes early. Tallulah handed round coffee and placed bottles of water on the table.

  “What’s this all about?” The chief financial officer carried his coffee to where Tallulah sat at the end of the table, laptop in front of her. His large stomach protruded into her personal space, and she caught a glimpse of pale, hairy flesh where the buttons of his shirt gaped above his waistband.

  “I don’t know, Mr Riordon.” She averted her eyes as she dragged his name from the recesses of her memory. “I’m just a temp. Mr Marlowe told me to organise the meeting. I’m sure he’ll be here in a moment.”

  Mr Riordon grunted and returned to his seat, leaning sideways to mutter something in his neighbour’s ear.

  At ten thirty exactly, Aiden pushed the door open and strode across the room to take his seat at the table. Everyone turned towards him.

  “What’s this about?” Riordon’s aggression was barely concealed. He was the sort of senior management Tallulah was used to. “We only met last week. Your father called meetings once a month and no more.”

  “I’m not my father.” Aiden stood up again and removed his suit jacket. Underneath it he wore a thin tee-shirt. Despite the air conditioning, the room felt hot and airless, and Tallulah was glad of her cool cotton dress. She tucked the full skirt around her knees and waited for the meeting to begin.

  “I won’t keep you long,” Aiden said. “The matter I brought up at the last meeting, regarding the anomalies in the cash flow, is becoming more urgent. Your report didn’t convince me, John.” He frowned at the chief business officer. “I want you all to think hard about your areas and let me know if you have any suspicion that something is awry.”

  “The anomalies weren’t that unreasonable,” John Etherton said. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “For a project that big.”

  “Really?” Aiden’s frown deepened. “In my view, they show shoddy financial planning, incompetence, or something worse.”

  Tallulah typed the word ‘fraud’ on her keyboard and put a question mark next to it.

  Riordon frowned. “Are you sure about this? I checked and couldn’t find anything sinister.”

  “Absolutely,” Aiden said. “My father was extremely worried when he told me about it. He hoped we wouldn’t have to get an external auditing team in, but if we can’t get to the bottom of it ourselves, we won’t have an alternative.”

  “External auditing team?” The chief business officer frowned. “We’ve had them before. Regulations and tax issues, you know?”

  “This would be a team experienced in fraud,” Aiden said.

  There was a silence while the members of the management team inspected their neighbours and, after that, a flurry of conversation.

  Aiden raised his voice. “Anyone who has any concerns can come to me at any time.” He stood up and left.

  Tallulah finished typing and closed her document. The men loitered to converse in lowered voices, expressions of deep worry on some faces. She let them all drift out of the room before she closed her laptop and went back to her office.

  Aiden came over to her desk. “Did you see anything suspicious in any of them?”

  She shook her head. “They all looked concerned, but that’s understandable. There was a bit of muttering about your officiousness after you left, and some talk of you being mistaken. They wondered if your father’s ill health had made him over suspicious.”

  Aiden dragged one hand through his hair.

  “Should you have warned them?” Tallulah asked.

  “It won’t do them any good, and if any of them are involved, they might panic. That might make them careless. I can’t believe John Etherton thought
that sort of anomaly was acceptable.” He scratched his head. “I really have to get a haircut.”

  “It suits you,” she said. The shaggy hair gave him a rakish look.

  A single wavy strand fell into his eyes, and he pushed it back before drifting into his office while Tallulah wrote up the minutes and considered the problems in the company. She was becoming obsessed, and it wasn’t even a permanent job.

  “Can you still work late?” Aiden opened the door between the offices a minute later and leaned into hers.

  “Yes.” Tallulah stood up, forcing herself to hide her enthusiasm. “I’ve had a brainwave. It’ll be a bit of extra work, but it might save us some time in the long run.”

  Aiden nodded. “A brainwave? I’ll look forward to hearing about it.” He propped one shoulder against the wall. “Would you consider extending your contract for another month? Maybe a little longer?”

  She rubbed her hands over her face. It was hard to say no to the money. Working for Aiden wasn’t boring either. “At the same rate?”

  Aiden rolled his eyes. “At the same rate. I’ll talk to HR.”

  “Okay. No more than a couple of months, though.” Her final year started in October, but her blood warmed at the thought of spending more time with Aiden, although what she wanted to achieve from it, she had no idea.

  At lunchtime, she accessed the construction files for the completed housing development in Hertfordshire. She printed the entire report which appeared to be the size of an encyclopaedia and looked like a thick paving slab when she placed it on the corner of her desk. Taking the financial report for the project, she put that on top of the brick and gave it a wistful look. She wanted to start on it immediately but still had a pile of her regular work to get through before the end of the day.

  At five o’clock, Aiden looked in again. “Ready to make a start?”

  She picked up her files and followed him into his office, dropping the papers on his desk. He eyed the stack and raised one eyebrow. “What on earth—”