Love and Arson

by Woods, Karen

  “I wish he’d told me about this.”

  “He didn’t want to put any pressure on you to stay. But now you’ve decided to stay in the area, and you’ve already figured out everything’s not as he would like for you to think it is, I have to be honest with you about it. Don’t let Harry know you know.”

  “How will he take it if I leave Devlin?”

  “If you’re going for your own happiness, he’ll under-stand and rejoice in it. Seeing you happy is very good for him.”

  Dani absorbed that.

  “If you could do anything you wanted to do with your life, Dani, what would it be?”

  “Ummm... Anything?”

  “No limitations. Your wildest dream. What is it?”

  “Wild dreams lose some of their power when they’re verbalized.”

  “You’re scared to tell me what you want out of life?”

  “There are just some things that are too personal to discuss.”

  “Are you still contemplating going into the convent?” he asked.

  She sighed. “No. I’d only be using the vows as a shield to protect myself. At best, that would be cowardly. At worst, sacrilegious.”

  “All you have to do is to decide what you want and go for it. I know you can do whatever you set your mind to doing.”

  “That’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me, Jase,” she told him.

  “It’s a small wonder even speak to me.”

  “I’ve forgiven you. You were just looking out for Dad because you love him.”

  “Would you like to go out for dinner tomorrow? Just the two of us?”

  “I promised Beth I would watch Jaime for her tomorrow night. Dad and your mother are going to a wedding of one of her cousins’ children in Boston. Sissy’s going to be gone. You were supposed to have plans with your buddy, Rafe. Something about meeting him in D.C.? And Thea will be leaving in the morning to go to New York. Did your plans fall through?”

  Jase cleared his throat. “I forgot all about Rafe.”

  “That’s not like you, Jase.”

  “No, it’s not,” he told her firmly as he punched in a code on his cell phone. “Yeah, it’s Jase Wilton. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

  “Almost home. It was such a lovely evening. Thanks for convincing me to go.”

  “I’m glad you had a good time... Did you dance with anyone twice?” he asked in amusement.

  “No, but it was wonderful. I’ve never been the belle of a ball until tonight. It’s a heady feeling.”

  “I think you’ll find you’ll be quite sought after at any of these events you attend. You’re the Devlin heiress. That makes you a target.”

  “A target?”

  “For men who want to get their hands on the Devlin fortune,” Jase informed her, in a blunt tone.

  She swallowed her disappointment. “I should have thought of that. It didn’t even enter my mind. That changes my perception of the whole evening.”

  Jase took her hand. “You’ll get used to it.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think I will,” she told him. “Not at all. Oh Lord, I’m an idiot.”

  The headlights shone on the opening gate. Jase drove straight through. “Are you sleepy?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Want to take a swim?”

  “No, I think I’ll spend some time at the computer. There are a couple of things I need to look into.”

  “And people call me a workaholic,” he teased.

  “People are right. I watched you. You planted seeds for at least three deals tonight, and you have just about convinced Richard Olsen to come to work for Devlin in the acquisitions department.”

  “People tend to be more relaxed in these situations. A lot of initial discussions are done at parties. That’s the reason I go to so many of them. It never hurts to be thought very successful. People tend to seek you out.”

  He parked the car in front of the garage. She opened her door and slid out of the Mercedes Coupe.

  “Thank you for driving me home.”

  “There was no sense in all of us taking our cars,” he said as he leaned on the roof of his Mercedes.

  Jase came to her. He stroked her face. “You are so lovely.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring his touch.

  “Jase,” she said, just before he kissed her.

  The caress started sweet, but didn’t stay that way for long. This man made her feel a level of desire she’d never before experienced, not even with Edward.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself over to his kiss, kissing him in return with all the passion he inspired in her.

  As the kiss ended, she found the strength to step back from him.

  “Don’t tempt me, Jase. It just isn’t fair,” she told him, her voice hoarse.

  He smiled at her. “Who said life was fair?” he asked as he came closer.

  She placed her left palm on his chest. “No one.”

  “You know how much I want you. I don’t think I’m wrong in thinking you feel the same way towards me. Am I?”

  She was quiet for a moment. Deciding she couldn’t lie to him, she said, “No. You aren’t wrong.”

  “We could go back to my place, Dani. But if we did, I doubt either of us would get more than twenty feet from the bed for at least a week, maybe more.”

  The images in her mind were tempting. Almost too tempting. It would be so easy to take what he was offering, to give what she wanted to give.

  She shook her head. “No, Jason. We could, but I won’t do that. I made God a promise I’d be celibate unless I married. Keeping my word to God is important to me.”

  “Do you really think God really cares about sex?” he dismissed.

  “Yes, I do. The bible and the historic teaching of the church both say He does care about all our behaviors, public and private. Judaism said He cares. Islam says He cares. Buddhism has rules about what is and is not proper sexually, as do both Hinduism and the Bahá’i. Virtually every religion and philosophy in the world has rules about sexuality, and most forbid or at least discourage non-marital sex. Do you really think there wouldn’t be that kind of widespread agreement on this if that wasn’t part of the natural law written on the human heart by God?”

  He sighed. “You really believe that, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. God created sex to be holy, a taste of heaven, and to be sanctified within marriage. But like every other good and perfect gift, humans have found a lot of ways to misuse it.”

  “That’s a really oldfashioned way of looking at it.”

  “I know it’s not fashionable to be chaste. It’s certainly not easy. But it’s what’s right. Sex is way too important to treat casually.”

  “This isn’t casual. You can’t believe anything about this is casual.”

  “No. I don’t think either of us would take anything between us casually.”

  “Then?”

  “It’s not marriage either. God calls us to try to live good and holy lives, no matter what state of life we’re in. Sex outside of marriage is just plain wrong. After the disaster with Edward, I promised God I’d be chaste until I was married, or for the rest of my life, if I didn’t marry.”

  “I don’t know what to make of you,” Jase said, with a shake of his head.

  “Believe me, it’s painfully obvious just how differently we see the world. You can’t know how much I wish it were otherwise,” she said before she walked away from him.

  “Dani?” he called out after her.

  “Goodnight, Jase,” she said, without turning back to face him. She simply didn’t trust herself to be alone with him right now.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jase walked into Harry’s home office about an hour after they had arrived home from the party. He had changed into well-worn jeans and a polo shirt. His feet were bare. And his hair was still damp from his swim.

  Dani, having changed into shorts and a t-shirt, was sitting at the desk. Star
ing at the report displayed on the monitor before her, she tried to absorb the implications of what she had found.

  There was little doubt about it. Someone was cooking the books at Devlin. It was subtle, but this wasn’t the only entry like this she had discovered. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars had been diverted electronically into someone’s pockets via a series of electronic transfer orders from one of the Devlin bank accounts to another account at the same bank, during the last month alone. And she wasn’t through looking yet. It was smooth. Too smooth. Only someone with either inside knowledge at Devlin, or a good knowledge of both computers and accounting could pull this off. Both would be much better.

  The accounts balanced. So this was not obvious, unless someone just happened to be looking closely at it. A detailed audit might catch it, but then again, it might not. These transactions looked legitimate on the surface. Whoever was doing this knew what they were doing. There was no way to trace the transactions, except maybe through the bank, but she couldn’t believe whoever had done this would have been stupid enough to have left a viable paper trail. The transactions had come over the website and all the audit trail fields to identify the source of the transaction were garbage.

  “Dani, we need to talk about us, about where we’re going,” he told her in a firm but gentle tone. “And about what we both want.”

  She looked up from the computer monitor. “Yes, we do. But that will have to wait. You’ve got to see this, Jase,” she answered. “We’ve got trouble. Big trouble.”

  Jase looked at the screen for a long moment. From the set of his jaw and the anger in his eyes, she knew he understood exactly what he was looking at.

  “Harry’s gone to bed. We’ll have to tell him about this tomorrow. Just how bad do you think it is?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. This could be it, or this could be just the tip of the iceberg. Everything has to be gone through very carefully and double checked. I don’t even want to think about how much work that’s going to be.”

  “I wish Thea hadn’t left on her client service trip,” Jase said. “We could use her here for this.”

  “She’s just finished the quarterly review. Some of these transactions were part of that. She didn’t find them then. I doubt she’d be any help now,” Dani replied.

  “I don’t understand why Thea didn’t catch this,” Jase remarked.

  Dani shrugged. “I don’t know how detailed a review she does. On the surface, everything looks fine. It’s only when I looked at the audit trails and noticed the suppressed or incomplete fields, I got suspicious and began looking harder. It’s not something most people would have looked at.”

  “So why did you?”

  “The business is still new to me. I’m trying to learn. When I realized the only records I was seeing with suppressed fields contained electronic funds transfer orders, a red flag went up in my mind.”

  Jase nodded. “You know, we both could have had a more pleasant evening if you had taken me up on my earlier offer.”

  She glared at him. “You still don’t know me, do you, Jase?” she asked with a certain amount of bitterness in her voice, then added in a sad tone, “You still don’t know me.”

  “I want to.”

  She laughed, the sound coming out bitter and sharp. “I think we both know what you want, Jase. And the knowledge level is biblical. Period. I’ve seen you with Sarah. She’s the one everyone expects you to marry. You’re just playing with me, Jase. It isn’t fair to me and it certainly isn’t fair to her.”

  “Is that what you really think?”

  “Oh, come on! When have you gone out of your way to just sit and talk with me? Aside from immediately after you went through my things and later when you tried to bribe me to leave?”

  “I thought we had a very good conversation tonight on the way back from Sarah’s,” Jase stated calmly. “And we talked quite nicely at the golf course.”

  “Because we were trapped in a car or a golf cart.”

  He cleared his throat. “Do you have any idea of how hard I had to twist my sister’s arm to get her to set that up? Beth’s so protective of you.”

  Dani just looked at him.

  “You’re so skittish the only times we really talk are when we’re thrown together and you can’t, with good grace, walk away from me. I had to twist Harry’s arm to get him to let me partner with you on the golf date with Norman Richter. Harry wanted to play with you. I’m at the end of my rope, woman. What do I have to do to get you to spend time with me?”

  Reading only truth on his face, she smiled. “Oh...Well, you could try asking.”

  * * *

  He laughed nervously as he ran a hand through his damp hair in frustration. “I suppose I could at that.”

  “Jase, let’s not rush things, okay? We’ll have lunch today and talk.”

  “If either one of us is still awake.”

  “Like I said before, I doubt this is the first time you’ve pulled an all nighter.”

  Jase laughed, then became very serious. “Do you have any idea how it tore my gut to see Steve touch you, hold you, and to see you so at ease with him? He’s my best friend. But the way he held you on the dance floor made me want to punch his face in.”

  “You know there’s nothing between Steve and me.”

  “Yeah. Nothing. Except that you love him enough to set him free for the sake of his career. Yeah, that’s nothing.”

  “Steve’s a good man. I didn’t ask for the proposal. I didn’t encourage it. I didn’t accept it,” she responded sharply as she stood and crossed over to stand before him. “So, don’t you go telling me how I feel about people,” she added as she poked the front of his shirt with her index finger. “You haven’t a clue how I feel, about anyone. If you did, you wouldn’t be going on about Steve.”

  He caught her hand and pulled her into his arms. His mouth covered hers. He wanted to be gentle with her. He wanted to be tender. But the fierceness of his need for her made that impossible. In the portion of his mind that still functioned, he noted that her response was equal to his.

  * * *

  She wasn’t sure who was kissing whom. All she knew was that she was glad he was holding her. She didn’t think her legs would support her.

  His mouth moved its ministrations from her mouth to her ear and then to her neck. She heard a soft, keening, cry, and realized it had come from her.

  The evidence of his desire for her was clear and undeniable as he held her.

  “Jase,” she moaned his name. “Oh, Jase...”

  He whispered, “We have perfect timing, don’t we?”

  “Just superb.”

  “No. This isn’t how I want to be with you,” he agreed. He kissed her again, hard. “Get to work, woman. We’ll talk privately at lunch. I know this little place, quiet, and good food. You’ll love it.”

  * * *

  Beth watched her father closely, the next morning, across his office from him after Dani gave him the news.

  “So,” Harry stated, “someone is stealing from me.”

  “It looks that way, Dad,” Dani said.

  Harry sighed and grimaced. “I want a stop put to this.”

  “I’ve tightened up the security on everything.”

  “It’s time enough to exercise some damage control,” Jase replied firmly after he hung up the telephone. “The account that the latest money was transferred into is a business account in the name of Edward Douglas Contractors.”

  Beth saw Dani’s face lose its color.

  Jase continued, “The address is a virtual office provider in Richmond. Based on my call to the bank on the pretext of determining whether a large check was good, the account’s been closed. We can just about kiss that money goodbye.”

  “Are you feeling well?” her father asked in concern.

  “I’m fine,” Dani dismissed.

  “You don’t look fine,” Jase replied.

  “Edward’s middle name is Douglas,” Dani said as she took a chair in
front of her father’s desk. “We should have a Taypayer Identification Number on this.”

  Jase looked at his notes. He read back the number.

  “That’s Edward’s business TIN,” Dani said.

  Harry hit his desk. “I want that man. I want him very badly.”

  Dani nodded. “I’m sorry to have brought this trouble to you, Dad. Please forgive me.”

  “This isn’t your fault, Sweetheart,” Harry replied. “You’ve been hurt more than I have by this man. But we’re going to stop him. Believe me.”

  “What we’re going to do,” Jase said firmly, “is to get Dani a very good bodyguard.”

  Beth looked at her brother. “We don’t even know this Edward character is still around, if he was responsible. If I had stolen a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, I certainly wouldn’t have stayed around waiting to be caught.”

  “I suspect he’s still around,” Dani replied. “One hundred and fifty thousand is just enough to whet his appetite.”

  “Not a word of this can get out to anyone,” Harry told the three of them. “We’ll call Bob Hunter. I know he won’t say anything to the press until this matter is resolved. This leaking out could damage the business irreparably. Any word on the earlier losses?”

  Jase nodded. “The same pattern. The same virtual office suite address, nothing more than a maildrop. Lou will have to look into them.”

  Beth shook her head. “It’s all too coincidental. What are the chances two thieves would choose exactly the same way to infiltrate and steal?”

  “Pretty slim,” Dani replied.

  “Then my gut reaction is that this is the action of one person or group and they’ve just selected a different name, one that has links to Dani,” Beth offered. “I suspect there may be a move to make it appear the losses were tied to her. I doubt Hastings would have been stupid enough to leave his own fingerprints all over this by using his own TIN. It’s too easy to get one of those. You can call over the telephone without any identification and get that number assigned.”

  * * *

  Dani didn’t know what to make of any of this.