by Lauren Esker
"Daddy! I have to go to the bathroom!"
"You can use the bathroom at the preschool!" he called back, opening Janice's message.
"I have to go to the bathroom now!"
"Well, do it then!"
"Fletcher, I'm so sorry," Janice was saying on the phone. "Nathan has an ear infection and he was up all night. I'm calling from Urgent Care. I'll try to come in later, if I can—"
"Daddy, I can't get my skirt off!"
"Coming, coming." He tapped out a quick one-handed text telling Janice it was fine, grumbling under his breath, and abandoned the packing to go take the skirt off Olivia that he'd just put on her.
He got to the bathroom to find his stark-naked daughter perched on the toilet. Her clothes were crumpled in a heap on the bathroom door, abandoned in the sort of pile you got when the child in them turned suddenly into a snake.
"I took it off, Daddy," she announced.
It was definitely going to be one of those days.
Chapter Three
Debi arrived at the downtown office of Sperlin-Briggs Enterprises a few minutes before nine. Her meeting with Veliz had gone about like they always did. Debi told her caseworker about any changes to her life and work circumstances since the last time she'd checked in (there were none), Veliz made small talk as if they were friends (they weren't), and Debi escaped as soon as she could do so without getting a black mark in the no-doubt-extensive file the SCB had on her. Then she walked around downtown Seattle for awhile—prowled, rather—to work off her nerves and her hangover until it was time for her appointment with the Sperlin-Briggs people. After a last mirror-check in the lobby's glass doors to smooth down a few errant blonde curls, she took the elevator upstairs.
Sperlin-Briggs had a large outer office that gave her a painful twinge at the memory of her pride's once-luxurious office building; the sumptuous dark-red carpets, glossy furniture, and deep-green plants could have been lifted right out of the old Lion's Share offices. Under normal circumstances, Sperlin-Briggs must give off an air of quiet sophistication and money.
Right now, though, all she was getting from it was "post-hurricane disaster zone" or possibly "fleeing to a Caribbean island one step ahead of the IRS." Boxes of files, rolled-up architectural blueprints, computer equipment with its cords trailing, stacks of books, and snowdrifts of loose papers covered every available chair, desk surface, and most of the floor. Lighter patches on the walls showed where pictures had been taken down. Some of them, in their frames, still leaned against the walls. Two plants in large ceramic pots had been moved to the door, so she had to step around them to get in.
No one was in sight, but Debi could hear voices from somewhere deeper in the office suite.
"Hello?" she called.
The distant murmur of voices continued unabated. She picked her way through the mess, noticing as she did so that it seemed to have a distinct division between the left and right sides of the room, as if everything was being very deliberately split down the middle. Well, she'd known Briggs and Sperlin were getting a divorce and dividing up the company. She just hadn't expected it to be so literal.
She stepped into a short hall going off to the right. The door at the end stood open, giving her a glimpse of a conference room that was just as much of a disaster area as the front office. Two widely spaced office doors along the hallway read CHLOE SPERLIN and FLETCHER BRIGGS on tasteful brass nameplates. Briggs's door stood slightly ajar, and the voices she'd heard came from within.
Debi knocked, nudging the door open enough to see floor-to-ceiling picture windows displaying a striking view of downtown Seattle. The centerpiece of the office was an expensive-looking cherrywood desk, turned at an angle to the windows so its occupant had a view of both the city and the door.
There were two people in the office, a balding older man in the chair in front of the desk, and a dark-haired man in his thirties seated behind it. The dark-haired man—Briggs, she assumed—turned his sharp gaze on her.
"Finally! It's about time. Go start some coffee, would you? And then see what you can do about the mess out there. Next time try not to be late."
Debi's mouth dropped open. Her eyes flicked to the clock; it was 9:01. Briggs had already turned back to his business associate as if she wasn't even there.
"Excuse me!" she managed to retort past the fury choking her.
"You're still here? Didn't I just—"
"I'm from Chang & Luntz," she snapped. "The accounting firm doing your books. We have a 9 a.m. appointment, and making your coffee is no part of that."
"What? That's today? Damn it ..." Briggs pinched the bridge of his nose with an exasperated sigh. "Teddy, I think we're about done anyway. I'll call you with the results of the divorce mediation. And see what you can dig up from the tax records in the meantime."
The balding man rose and shook Briggs's hand, while Debi seethed in the doorway. "As your lawyer, Fletcher," Teddy said, gathering up his briefcase, "and as your friend, I feel going through mediation without your attorney present is a mistake."
"Advice duly noted and taken under advisement," Briggs said dryly. "I'll call you on Thursday."
"Since you're ignoring my advice anyway, have you given any more thought to selling off your company and dividing the proceeds, rather than trying to hang onto the assets? You might be more likely to win the custody battle if you're not fighting for the company at the same time. She's going to contest every asset, and to be blunt, she has more resources to draw on than you do. This could drag on for years, and you aren't going to win."
Anger flared in Fletcher Briggs's gray-green eyes. "I built this company from scratch. It was mine before it was Chloe's, and I'll be damned if I'll start over because she wants to get her greedy fingers into every part of it."
The lawyer shook his head. "You're his accountant? Good luck," he told Debi as he left, clapping a hat onto his head.
Briggs stared out the window for a moment at the view of the Seattle skyline. He looked, in that instant, almost lost—but then he rounded on Debi.
"And as for you, what do you think you're doing, barging into my personal office? Is this the kind of professional behavior Chang & Luntz encourages these days?"
"Ordering me to fetch your coffee and clean up your mess is the kind of professional behavior I can expect from Sperlin-Briggs, then?" she fired back.
"I thought you were the receptionist from the temp agency!"
"If this is how you treat all your employees, I can see why your other receptionist quit."
"She didn't quit. My damned ex-wife fired her. Chloe accused Maya of taking my side. Mainly she's trying to cut me off from the employees most sympathetic to me before I cut her off from the company."
"Is there any particular reason why I need to know about your personal problems to look at your account ledgers?"
"I—no. No, you don't." The transformation was startling; she could see him walk himself back from the anger, slamming it behind professional walls. He straightened his back, and in an instant, the furious but somehow more genuine man she'd just been talking to was sealed behind a cool, professional facade. It was something she recognized because she had a long history of doing the exact same thing.
He was annoyingly good looking, especially those piercing eyes. His brown hair was slicked back in an immaculate wave, and he wore a charcoal-colored suit that she recognized from her experience with her brothers' wardrobes as an expensive bespoke one. Despite his well-groomed appearance, a five o'clock shadow was already emerging along his jaw. He was one of those men who had to shave more than once a day, which had always been a weakness of hers. She liked a little bit of scruff. It was the lioness in her.
And now he was holding out a hand. "I guess we got off on the wrong foot," he said. His voice had made a similar transformation to calm and professional. "Fletcher Briggs. Chang & Luntz is my usual accounting firm, but I don't believe we've worked together before."
Debi smoothed her own professional facade into
place and shook his hand. He had a firm, brisk grip. "CPA Debi Fallon."
"Now that we've got the pleasantries out of the way, I believe your firm charges by the hour, so what do you need to get started?"
She felt a quick, unexpected sting of regret when his warm, strong fingers let go of hers. "I'm going to need access to your accounting system and a quiet place to work. Where is your bookkeeping office?"
"Ah ... yeah. That." He jerked his head in a peremptory fashion. "This way."
As they left his office, Debi had to tuck her hand into her pocket to erase the touch of his skin. There was a part of her that wished he'd stayed angry. She'd been holding herself back for so long that it would have felt good to really go off on someone. Everything in her life was care and caution and trying to walk on eggshells, holding tight to the lioness caged inside her so it didn't get out of control. She was a predator struggling to fit herself into a world built by and for prey, not out of choice but because the SCB was forcing her to.
And the interesting thing about Fletcher Briggs was that, even though he was human, she felt as if she could see a fellow predator looking back at her from his stormcloud eyes. She had felt, for just one moment, like she was in the presence of an equal. And she wanted to have that feeling again, even if it meant stirring him up to make him lash out rather than holding his own predatory nature contained.
***
The striking blonde followed Fletcher down the hall. He had rarely seen a woman that tall. "Amazonian" was the word that came to mind. He was a little over six feet, and he was pretty sure that even in bare feet she would've topped him by a couple of inches, but those power heels made her taller yet. This was not a woman who was afraid of intimidating the people around her.
It was astonishingly hot.
So of course he'd gone and been a dick to her.
Way to humiliate yourself, Fletcher. He was annoyed with himself more than with her. His outburst had been unprofessional and stupid, and he realized that it bothered him if this blonde stranger thought he was an arrogant sack of dicks. A lot of people probably thought that about him. Why it should sting to see disdain on her face, he wasn't sure.
Oh, hell. He knew why. He was attracted to her. He didn't want to be; the last thing he needed now, in the final throes of his divorce from Chloe, was to get involved with another woman. Despite his ex's accusations, he didn't sleep around. The only woman he'd been with in the last decade was Chloe. He definitely wasn't on the market. Didn't need that kind of entanglement.
But—this woman—
There was something about her that compelled him, enthralled him, like no one else.
When they stopped in the doorway of the bookkeeper's office, he had to tilt his head back to look into her clear, leaf-green eyes, sending an electric jolt up his spine. It wasn't just that she was attractive, although she was, with her statuesque curves and those waves of dark blonde hair. But the attraction went beyond the physical. He wanted her, with a kind of primal heat that he hadn't felt for anyone since the early days with Chloe, when they were still in their honeymoon phase, before everything degenerated into endless fights, anger, and recriminations.
He was being ridiculous, he told himself. He'd been sleeping alone since Chloe had moved out, and the solitude was getting to him; that was all it was. He was not lonely, he was very emphatically not looking for another relationship with the wreckage of his last one still crumbling around him, and on top of that, a woman this confident and attractive was probably already taken.
She was looking at him with her golden brows drawn together slightly. Unlike many natural blondes, she hadn't darkened her brows with an eyebrow pencil, which he found appealing but also made him realize he'd been standing a little too close to her for a little too long.
Business. Right.
"Before you go in there, I should warn you that it's going to be a mess."
A spark of amusement leaped into her green eyes, where the fire of her earlier anger had not quite died. "From the state of the reception area, I hadn't guessed. Did your ex-wife fire your bookkeeper too?"
"She quit," he admitted.
Debi nudged open the door and glanced into the bookkeeper's office, at the files spilling everywhere in disarray. "I can't imagine why."
Her disdainful look made his spine prickle. "It doesn't normally look like this. We're in the asset disclosure phase of the divorce. Everything in the business is in both Chloe's and my names, so every last thing we own, from the properties to the paperclips, has to be itemized so it can be divided."
"Ah," she said. "So that's where I come in."
"Precisely. I need you to get the books in order and give me a detailed account of what our balance sheet looks like, outstanding debts owed, that kind of thing. I need—" He stopped. How much should he tell her of his suspicions? She was a professional; if Chloe or someone in Chloe's family had been skimming money from the company, she might be able to find the signs. On the other hand, he'd been regularly contracting accounting work through Chang & Luntz, and no one had ever mentioned anything amiss. Making himself look like the paranoid asshole ex-husband wasn't going to win him anything, especially if Chloe's lawyers talked to her.
Debi was waiting, golden eyebrows arched.
"Tell me about anything you think I should know about."
"How specific," she said dryly.
Considering that she had a point, Fletcher tried to brush off the sarcasm along with the vanilla scent of her perfume. "Passwords are on a sticky note inside the desk drawer." What else would she need? Damn it, this was usually Janice's job. "There's a break room down the hall; feel free to help yourself to coffee or anything else."
"To work, then," she declared, removing a box from the chair behind the desk so she could sit down.
Fletcher hesitated in the doorway. Back when his business was a small start-up, he'd done everything, but it had been awhile since he hadn't been able to delegate most of the minor people-managing tasks to someone else. Just walking off and leaving her felt strange to him, but it wasn't like she needed him hovering either. "Tell me if there's anything else you need, all right?"
Her only response was an absent "Mmmm." She didn't look at him; she was already flipping through files.
Right. Standing here staring at her wasn't going to get any work done, and between the delays with Olivia this morning and then the meeting with his lawyer, he was already behind.
He didn't think she noticed when he left.
***
Thank God, she thought he'd never leave. Debi waited a few minutes to make sure he was really gone before opening her purse and taking out her reading glasses.
She hated them. Of all her siblings, she was the only one who needed glasses—or, she thought, settling the earpieces behind her ears, perhaps she was just the only one who would admit it. Her brothers had teased her brutally, Mara told her they made her ugly, and Roger, as pride alpha, forbade her to wear them where anyone outside the family could see, because it didn't fit the family image he wanted to project. The Fallons were strong and fierce and beautiful. Poor eyesight didn't go with their modeling of apex-predator perfection.
In some ways it still hadn't sunk in that Roger was gone. He would never give her another order. But that made it all the more important for her to keep up the family image on her own, she thought as she moved some files out of the way and booted up the computer.
She quickly lost herself in her work. She really did love it. She'd always been better at numbers than at people; math was soothing in its simplicity, with a correct answer for every problem. Numbers couldn't lie. Where others might find tedium, Debi found peace, and the hours slipped by unnoticed.
Physical discomfort and exhaustion finally pulled her out of her work reverie. Glancing at the time readout in the corner of the computer screen, below a stack of Excel tabs and the window for the office's bookkeeping database, she was astonished to discover that it read 6:02. Already 6 p.m.? Really? She was starving
, thirsty, and had what felt like a permanent crimp in her neck. Also, she really needed to use the restroom.
She had a worried moment when she thought she was going to come out of the back office to find the lights had all been turned off and she'd been locked in. But the lights were on and Fletcher's door was half open. From within, she could hear the low murmur of his voice in a phone conversation.
At least she wasn't the only compulsive workaholic around here.
Otherwise the office was completely silent. She located the restroom behind the break room and used the toilet—when she flushed, it sounded terribly loud in the silence—and splashed some water on her bleary, tired eyes. The glasses had left a red crease in the bridge of her nose. She rubbed at it and wished she'd thought to bring her bag from the bookkeeping office so she could dab on a little extra concealer to cover that and the unsightly blue shadows beneath her eyes.
All she really wanted to do was get something to eat, go home and crash, preferably with a bottle of decent wine or at least cheap whiskey, but she was professional enough to know that she wasn't going anywhere before she finished the day's work. Not numbers-related, this time. She'd already figured out that she was going to be here for at least a week. The outward messiness of the bookkeeping office was an accurate reflection of what the accounts were like; she'd be cleaning up this disaster area for days. But she had already found a few things that she needed to share with Fletcher.
Do I really have to do this tonight? She could just leave, get the rare steak she so desperately craved, and save the unpleasantness for tomorrow. But putting it off wouldn't make it any more fun. And if he turned out to be one of those people who sacked anyone who brought him bad news, then hell, she wouldn't have to come in tomorrow at all.
