by Rita Hogan
“I’m positive. Watch the game. You’ve been at this all day; I’ve only begun.”
Three hours later, Brooke wanted to shout, Bingo. She was fairly confident she had discovered something. She was certain enough to say something to Landon about it. Looking up from her computer, Brooke saw him fast asleep on the couch. Tomas had gone to bed an hour ago.
Saving her files, she closed her laptop, then switched off the television before making her way to the couch. Brooke paused for a moment, looking down at Landon’s sleeping form. He was beautiful. How could she ever have thought that Tomas was more handsome? When he slept he was even more wonderful to look at with the weight of the world no longer resting on his shoulders. He looked at peace, and void of all his past pain and sorrows. He looked free.
Landon may be in love with her, but something held him back. The truth worried Brooke. All day on the guided tour a tiny sense of doubt tried needling its way into her joy. She had refused to succumb, fighting for her happiness.
There was enough room on the oversized couch for her to sit alongside Landon’s sleeping form. Carefully, she lowered herself to his side. Brooke hesitated to touch him. Instead she studied him for a little while longer. In the stillness of the late night, with nothing to distract her, she wondered if he would tell her what was holding him back. What was it that he needed in order to be truly free? Did he need her to remember who she was first?
He loved her. She not only believed it, she felt it to the very core of her being. Somehow she knew she had never before experienced anything like it. Those odd moments of certainty, that sixth sense of feeling made her absolutely positive that there had not been, nor would there ever be, another man for her.
Knowing he would awake but needing to touch him, Brooke smoothed the hair from his brow, the way she had earlier in the conference room. She savored the way his warm smooth skin felt on the tips of her fingers. Bending slightly she kissed his forehead, her lips lingering for the briefest of moments.
Landon’s hazel eyes flickered open for a second before closing again. To Brooke’s surprise, he reached for her, pulling her down to him so that her head lay in the crook of his arm and chest. Except for his breathing he was motionless for quite a while; she thought he had fallen asleep again.
With her own eyes feeling a little heavy, she knew she had to wake Landon. It was getting late and they had an early morning.
As if sensing her thoughts he murmured in a sleepy voice, “Lay here with me for a little while longer.”
Turning so she was lying lengthwise alongside him, she nestled her head against his solid strength and laid her arm across his chest. His was wearing a t-shirt. Wanting to feel him, she placed her hand on his upper arm. Hanging onto the edge of wakefulness, she heard him say, “Since we’ve taken on this high school theme to our dating, how about we do something high-schoolish?”
It was her turn to respond in a sleepy voice. “What’s that?”
Landon shifted in order to look at her. “Make out.”
Brooke’s eyes opened wide, no longer sleepy. “Landon . . . what is your middle name?”
“Robert.”
“Landon Robert Gray, how can you make such a request when earlier this morning you told me I couldn’t say things like that?”
He was able to ask her because he understood that their dance wasn’t based on passion alone. The heat and the fire were there, but the movements of their love were eternal. Regardless of the reason, they were forever connected to one another, bonded in a way that could never be severed.
Landon would be able to temper the pouring out of his affection. His tragic mistake had forced him to become a man of great self-control. It had taught him the hard lesson of keeping his impulses in line. Tonight, with measured constraint, he would touch and taste, but only if she wanted the same.
He pulled away from her as much as the couch would allow. “All right,” he said quietly to her playful indignant response.
Suddenly, Brooke pulled him close, taking his lips with a hunger that nearly shocked her. “You don’t get off that easy,” she chastised breathlessly. “I can’t stop thinking about you, about us and wanting you so badly it hurts, but I don’t want to make things difficult for you either.” She made an attempt to sit up, but Landon held her in place.
“If I were a hormone-crazed teenager, I’d be sending you off to your room right now.”
“Like you did last night,” she interrupted.
“Yes, like I did last night, only because I had been holding you in my arms for hours and I was close to losing control. Tonight we’ll take and give, but only a little,” he said before possessing her mouth with his. Full of need for her, his lips soon sought the delicate skin of her neck. When his tongue tasted the flesh along her collar bone, she gasped with pleasure. Finding the hem of his shirt, Brooke reached under the warm fabric to touch the firm skin of his back. Tracing her fingers along his spine she felt the muscled planes. He groaned at her touch.
After a while of caressing and tasting, Landon knew he was drawing closer to the outer edge of his self-control. Inwardly, he focused on turning things around as soon as he could. Reluctant to end things too abruptly, he changed the tempo of their dance—slowing the pace, a soft sweet kiss here, and another there. When Olivia’s hands moved to the front of his chest, he gently took her hands in his in an effort to minimize the contact. She has no idea! he thought. His kisses moved from her lips to the palm of her hands, lingering there for a moment. He inhaled the soft floral fragrance of her perfume on the inside of her wrists.
“I like the way you smell,” he said before kissing her palms once more.
Feeling less out of control, he sat up, while pulling her onto his lap. Folding her into his arms, he kissed the top of her head, which lay against his chest.
“Do kids really do this sort of thing in high school?” she asked in a breathless and slightly dazed voice.
“They shouldn’t; but yes, they do.”
When Olivia looked up at him, her eyes full of innocence and question, his heart stumbled for a moment. He knew she had no memory of her past, but she was able to remember things that she knew—such as world history, accounting principles, and photography. She may not be able to remember a single moment when she held her camera prior to the accident, but she knew how to use it. Was there no frame of reference for what they had done lurking in the shadows of Olivia’s mind? Was it possible she had never been loved or physically adored by another man?
Landon remembered reading the reports from the private investigator over the six months he had been watching her. No social life to speak of; the words had been branded on his mind. No one besides her aunt was close enough to her to wonder why she had disappeared for several months; no one who could distract her from her vengeful plans.
The shiver of fear which moved up and down his spine caused him to draw her back to him. Thinking about the future and what would happen when he told Olivia who she was caused his anxiety to grow, so much so that he found himself entertaining the idea of never telling her, hoping that she would never remember. He pushed the errant thought aside and focused on the distraction that she was. Holding her slightly tighter than he had a minute ago, he added, “If I were seventeen years old sitting with you right now, I don’t know if I would have been able to stop myself. So no, teenagers shouldn’t engage in make-out sessions.”
Lifting her head again to say something, he stopped her by placing his finger on her lips. With a smile, he said, “Don’t even think about saying it.” He was remembering her comment from earlier that morning.
“How do you know what I was going to say?” she asked good-naturedly.
Landon simply looked at her with an expression that said, “Really?”
Sighing, she laid her head back on his chest. He smiled knowingly into the soft locks of her hair.
After a few moments she spoke, “I almost forgot to tell you. I think I found something.”
“Yeah, what�
��s that?”
“I think Javier has been stealing from the company, but not in the way you originally suspected.”
Landon had forgotten about his general manager and why they were even in Chile. Her words caused his heart to pound.
Standing, she held out her hand. “Come, let me show you.”
* * *
The next morning, Brooke joined Landon’s team around the table in the conference room.
“Good morning, everyone. Before we discuss the plans for today, Brooke believes she may have uncovered something. I’d like for her to share her findings.”
“Thank you,” she offered. “Last night, on a whim, I asked Landon if anyone was looking at the accounts from the years before and after Javier’s start date. I thought of the idea after hearing about the initial approach to the audit, which I believe was the right direction to start with. I offered to lend a hand and was given the green light to analyze the data, which I’ve finished.
“I uncovered three very interesting pieces of information. The first was the consolidation of multiple suppliers into one. Prior to Javier’s assignment as general manager there was a different supplier for the hotel’s prepackaged food items and condiments, one for the vending machine items, and another distributor for personal care items such as shampoo and soap. Six months after he started, the three different suppliers were consolidated into one. I’m sure he was able to obtain better pricing, but I believe it was a deliberate move to mask revenue discrepancies between the three cost centers. You’ll understand why I feel that way in a minute.
“The second thing I noticed was that seven months after Javier started, there was no longer a line item for a vending machine service provider, but all the vending machines are in operation and have been for years.”
Brooke could see the other team members beginning to make the connection, but no one said anything, wanting to hear her out before commenting.
“I did a little research and the average vending machine in a hotel profits about five dollars a day. There are thirty floors in this hotel with two vending machines on each level. That comes to an estimated daily profit of three hundred dollars and over one hundred thousand dollars a year.
“The third discovery I made was a series of erratic deposits. If you look at the ones that were allocated to vending machine revenue, they rise and fall over a period of six months from the time the vending machine service provider was discontinued. If my suspicions are correct, some months Javier deposited the whole amount while other months he did less. He was creating an irregularity to hide the profits he was pocketing. Over the course of the next six months, the erratic deposits began to taper off from the accounts. By then, I suspect he was skimming nearly all of the earnings.”
The group maintained their silence while taking in all that Brooke had shared.
Edward was the first to speak. “I do believe you’re onto something. The question is how he managed to get away with his plan. Someone had to stock the machines and collect the money for checks and balances.”
Brooke nodded her head in agreement. “That’s the part that needs to be figured out. My suspicions are that Javier was stocking them himself. If he was coming in early enough in the morning when there was very little traffic in the vending areas by employees or guests, he could have done it virtually unnoticed. There is also the possibility that he had someone from the outside doing the work. It wouldn’t be difficult to provide that person with a hotel uniform and to pay him under the table.”
“I see where you’re going with this,” said the lead auditor, before turning his attention to Landon. “With your permission, Mr. Gray, I think we should begin interviewing some of the managers. If we ask them who stocks the vending machines and none of them can vouch that it’s one of their direct reports, we go to Javier with the question and see what he says. In the meantime, I think we should keep the rest of the team on track with the original angle. Perhaps he began to feel a little too confident about the vending machines and decided to try something else.”
“I agree with your plan. Tomas and I will begin interviewing the managers.”
One by one all managers and supervisors were called into the conference room and questioned about the vending machines. By lunchtime they had finished interviewing everyone. The answers were all the same: a vending service provider managed the machines. Each of them was completely unaware that the outsourcing to a provider had been discontinued. What would Javier Cesar say when asked why every one of his managers and front line supervisors thought the service was still in place, but with no line item on the books to support their understanding?
When lunch arrived, the team stood from the table to break for the afternoon meal. Within seconds a shot rang out. The people in the conference room heard screaming.
“Everyone down, now!” Landon ordered, his eyes never leaving Brooke. Quickly, he and Tomas withdrew two small but powerful hand guns. “No one leaves this room. Tomas, you stay with the team. Someone call for help. I’m going to see what happened.”
The fear Brooke felt was nearly unbearable. The thought of Landon heading into a dangerous situation made her want to scream at him to not leave. Outwardly no one would suspect how frantic she was. Shadows in her mind began to take shape; trying to form an image of another time when she had felt the fear she was feeling now. Part of her made an attempt to draw out the image, while the other part of her desperately pushed it deeper into the darkness of her forgotten memory. Not now, she told herself over and over.
She didn’t know how much time had passed when she heard her name being called. “Brooke, Brooke! Everything is all right.”
When Landon returned to the conference room, the instant he saw Brooke rocking back and forth with a blank stare, he felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. Her fear had triggered something. Was she remembering another time more tragic than this day? Was she remembering the day Jacob had died?
He reached for her shoulders, gently shaking her in an attempt to snap her out of the trance like state.
She blinked her eyes a couple of times before turning her gaze upon him. She was trying to focus. “It’s all right, Brooke. Please say something.”
“You’re okay!” she exclaimed as she threw her arms around his neck.
“I’m okay, baby.” She hadn’t remembered, he thought to himself with relief.
She withdrew to look at him. “What happened?”
“Javier shot himself.”
Brooke raised her hand to her mouth in shock.
“There was a note on his desk. ‘I’m sorry’ is all it said.”
Reaching for Landon, she held onto him tightly.
A few moments later, he stood from the conference room floor, helping her to her feet. “Let me take you up to the suite. The police have ordered everyone out of the office area. We can’t leave the hotel until they’ve asked all their questions.”
When they were in the suite, he poured her a glass of merlot and sat with her on the couch. Tomas sat opposite the couple in a chair nursing his own glass of the dark liquid.
No one spoke for a long time.
“Brooke, I think you should go back to Argentina with Tomas tomorrow morning. I will be detained here for several more days, seeing to the company’s affairs as well as Javier’s.
“What about the audit?” Tomas asked taking a sip of his drink.
“I think we have enough to pursue the vending machine angle. We will call it a day. I’ll let Edward know shortly. I hope Javier’s mistress remains in obscurity. I would hate to add to his wife, Celia’s, grief.”
“How tragic,” Brooke expressed. She too had been thinking about his wife and children. “Why couldn’t Javier be happy with what he had—a family, a good job?”
Landon reached for her hand. “It’s hard to know why sometimes.” He paused for a moment. “If only I had accepted what someone once said to me.” Brooke squeezed his hand, but didn’t say anything. “We don’t know what Javier was thi
nking or what took place in his past that made him think it was all right to keep a mistress and to steal. Nothing could justify his actions, but sometimes we have a way of rationalizing our decisions until they make sense and seem right.”
Landon was thinking about his original decision to never tell Olivia who she really was, to keep it hidden from her for as long as possible. He had justified his own intentions, but knew it was wrong. Even though he decided to do the right thing, he prolonged the telling for selfish reasons. He wanted enough time between them to strengthen the love she felt for him, making it impossible for Brooke to leave. His hope was that her newfound feelings would fill all the cracks of revenge in the soil of her heart.
“I need to call Natasha before the rumor mill hits the Grand Vue and someone makes contact with her first.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The next hour was spent with Landon and Tomas on the phone making calls, and the police coming in and out of the suite for questions and updates. After calling Natasha, Landon had contacted Edward, instructing him to come up to the suite where he and the auditing team could work to finalize the report.
When the police gave the green light allowing them to leave the hotel, Landon made his way to the Cesars’ home to tell Celia about her husband’s death. Brooke offered to ride with him. She would wait in the car while he spoke with his general manager’s wife.
Landon decided he wanted Brooke to join him inside, if she was comfortable. It might be good to have another woman there for Celia’s sake.
Telling Celia Cesar about her husband’s suicide was extremely difficult for the executive.
The wife was understandably overcome with immense grief.
Brooke moved closer to the petite, elegant woman, holding her as she cried with gut-wrenching sorrow. Somehow, the photographer understood Celia’s heartbreak. It was something she had experienced herself, once upon a time. For what, and for whom, she did not know.
