Her petite form went rigid.
“I don’t want you to go back to the Marines, Luke. I don’t, and I can’t say that I’ll be okay with it if you do. But I won’t ask you to stay, either, because my heart can’t take knowing you wouldn’t choose me. And it wouldn’t be fair to even ask, or seeing it as you not choosing me, but that is how it will feel. Asking you to stay would be like asking you to stop being who you are. And I love who you are, I just don’t know if I can be with you.”
His skin was tingling, his nerves on edge. He wished he had come to a decision on what he wanted to do, but he hadn’t.
“Nat, I wish that it was simple, but it isn’t.”
She frowned. “You know the answer. When people are confused they always know the answer, they’re just not sure if it’s the right thing to do.”
Sometimes the depth of her wisdom struck him senseless. There was an element of truth to what she was saying, but he really didn’t want to go into that mode of thought. Not now.
“What do you think the answer is?” He actually was interested to know, to hear what she thought.
“You want to go back.”
“I don’t know that yet,” he retorted. “I really don’t. And there’s no point putting things off between us because you don’t know if you want to be with me.”
She shook her head at him. “I never said I didn’t know if I wanted to be with you. I have always known that.”
Her words gripped him in a way that he never expected. “Then be with me, Nat. That part is simple.”
To his dismay she shook her head. “Is it, Luke?” she asked. “Have you considered staying? Have you thought that maybe you could be happy to just stay, since you went and did what you had to do for ten years, so maybe it could be time to change direction? Is there anything here that you’d want to stay for?”
Shit. That was the essence to all she was saying. That last question.
Is there anything here that he’d want to stay for?
Of course there was. But the thing wasn’t a thing, it was a person. It was her. Natalie.
The woman standing right in front of him, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake he had made years ago and allow her to believe whatever she wanted. To believe that he didn’t want her, or that she wasn’t important to him.
“You,” he replied, shocking her. “You. You’re the only thing I’m sure about.”
She held his gaze for a few long, agonizing seconds. “You won’t stay just for me, Luke. Your decision can’t just be based on that. On…me. It won’t be enough.”
“Nat, a lot happened to me over the time that I’ve been a Marine, and I can’t just decide to stop because a mission went wrong. I need time. I need to think about all my options carefully.”
She pressed her lips together. “I think that…we should have a break. I’m not helping you by casting off my worries onto you, because you do need time. It’s important.”
“A break? For how long?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
He was at a loss for words. What should he say? He thought he’d said everything he could have possibly told her so she could see how he felt, but it didn’t work.
It was what she needed, though, so he would give it to her even though it crushed him.
He didn’t say anything else. He just leaned forward and planted a kiss on her forehead.
Then he left, feeling more unsettled than he’d ever felt in his life.
* * *
Natalie
* * *
It was how the conversation steered itself.
She hadn’t meant to launch into how much she wanted him to stay and that she knew he wouldn’t choose her, but the words just came out.
It was as they spoke that she realized they would just go around in circles if they continued the way they were.
She wanted him to stay because she didn’t want anything bad to happen to him if he resumed his active duties as a Marine. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go back to the Marines or stay here, at home.
Circles. Those were things they couldn’t talk about and come to a decision just like that. Especially him.
Her heart soared when he told her he would stay for her. But then in the same moment of euphoria, reality snuck in and showed her that she wouldn’t be enough for him.
Because…if she was he would have stayed years ago. She’d seen it happen before. A couple enters a relationship and one of them makes the other give up something they love, then that would be the cause of their downfall. The one who made the sacrifice would end up hating the other and dwell on the lost thing that they gave up. She didn’t want that to happen to them.
She didn’t want that to happen to Luke.
So a break was the answer that came out of her mouth.
What she didn’t realize was how lost she would feel for the decision.
Three and a half weeks passed and she didn’t see him.
She didn’t contact him, and he didn’t contact her. She at least thought she would have seen him when he came to visit Jessica, but he didn’t come by the apartment. There was just no contact, nothing.
She supposed that was what a break was. A break in contact where nothing would happen.
Did she feel better for it? No, not really, but she went back to the analogy of going around in circles.
So what she did was try to place her focus elsewhere. They were supposed to be wrapping up the deal for Mokito in two weeks so she was busy with that.
She’d just signed off the reports from Sentac, one of the companies Mokito was taking over. But she was still waiting for the hard copy reports from J.J. Belmont.
They’d been difficult with her by not responding to her messages and questioning her requests when they did. She’d explained that it was her process to get the hard copy version of any reports emailed so that it could be verified. They’d missed their deadline for the hard copy twice.
Apparently they’d posted it, but it didn’t reach. She didn’t believe that.
Caleb didn’t really see what the fuss was about and told her to go ahead and sign them off, but she had to sort of insist on it for safety purposes, to which he then agreed.
Today was their next deadline and it looked like they had bent to her will, because when she walked into her office, there was a large envelope on her desk from them.
She smiled at the thought of getting lost in her work and decided she would tackle the reports first.
She grabbed a large cup of coffee and dove in straight away. Most people would have called her crazy for doing this because it actually involved manually going through each report for the month and seeing if it matched what they provided in the emailed version. That way she could spot anything that didn’t look right. It was essentially trying to spot anything fraudulent. She looked at their share value first and found that was okay. It matched and was fine.
However, by the time she got to the expenditure report, she started to see a few discrepancies. The total figure the company sent for their earnings in March last year didn’t match the spreadsheet they sent. Neither did June, August or September. And the total figures weren’t just off by a few hundred dollars, it was thousands. Taking the total yearly figure outside what they reported to Mokito.
J.J. Belmont was a small construction company that lent their services to larger property development companies. An acquisition like what was being planned with Mokito would be good for them. But not good for Mokito if there was something fishy going on in the background.
Mokito wanted them because they were predominately based in Japan with a small firm in Chicago. Taking over a company that could provide the construction services they needed was a great business idea and made sense for the plans they had to expand in the U.S.
How could Natalie give her stamp of approval on something that didn’t look right? Now she didn’t know which reports were true, but experience told her that the hard copy was the right one.
She’
d seen things like this before, where company records didn’t match, and it almost always had some element of money laundering or embezzlement going on. The hard copy would say one thing and the online reports another because most people dealt with everything over the internet. The smaller companies were the worst for this, because they didn’t have the high tech systems the larger ones used. Most larger companies also had an automated system linked to their business bank accounts, so she would have been happy to get the printouts for those, which were as authentic as bank statements. Unless there was some kind of high tech embezzlement, and that went outside her remit.
She continued to look through the files they sent and scanned over the list of suppliers and services they used and definitely knew something was up because two of the service companies listed in the hard copy records were different to what they provided in their spreadsheets.
She was about to call Caleb when something else caught her eye.
It was a name. A name at the bottom of the document and the signature.
It said Joshua Montrose.
She scanned over it several times and matched up the accountancy firm he worked for just to confirm if it was him. He had a unique name, and even though her instincts were kicking into overdrive, she was going to go the extra mile to be sure that there was no mistake.
She typed the accountancy firm into Google first, and when she looked at their About Us page and clicked on their team, his name came up.
When she clicked on his name, a picture came up confirming that it was indeed him.
Joshua Montrose, accountant for Johnson’s Accountancy, which was listed as a service on the hard copy of J.J. Belmont’s records.
She flicked to the spreadsheet.
Hammonds Inc. was listed as their accountants in the spreadsheets, and the accountant there had apparently signed everything off and dealt with everything tax related.
Shit, why did she have a feeling she was about to confirm her suspicions of Joshua.
Chapter 14
Natalie
* * *
She thought she’d do a little more investigation before raising any alarm bells.
So the first place she looked to was her own home.
Joshua had come around for dinner. Usually Natalie would excuse herself and disappear to her room, but she stayed, and he didn’t seem to like it.
While Jessica served up a delicious-looking feast, floating around like she was on air with the biggest smile on her face because Natalie had joined them, Joshua had this put-out look.
“Girl, you know we’re gonna starve when you up and leave us.” Laura giggled and leaned into Natalie. They sat beside each other so Jessica and Joshua could sit together.
“I’m not upping and leaving you,” Jessica bubbled.
“Well, Miss Lady, here,” Laura teased, leaning into Natalie with a mischievous look in her eyes, “doesn’t cook like you. Remember when she poisoned us.”
“That wasn’t my fault, it was the fish.”
“Honey, usually, if fish doesn’t smell right, you don’t cook it, and you especially don’t cook it and give it to others.” Laura smirked.
“Ughh, why you gotta throw shade, always.” Natalie nudged her in her side.
“‘Cause it’s true. You can’t cook for shit.”
Everyone started laughing while Natalie cringed at the memory. Cooking wasn’t one of her strong points, and back in L.A. she dined in restaurants most of the time because she was so busy.
Jessica did most of the cooking here when they ate together, like tonight, and Laura and Natalie just simply ate.
“I’ll have to step my game up.”
“Well you guys will be more than welcome to come to our home for dinner.” Jessica beamed, looking at them both, but her focus was on Natalie.
It was funny how, over the whole time Natalie had been back in Chicago, they hadn’t really talked about Joshua that much. Not the way they used to talk about guys when they were in high school or college. Natalie sensed, though, that that was because Jessica must have figured out by now that Natalie wasn’t a hundred percent in favor of him.
After today, there was no way that she could be.
“Thank you, you know we’ll be there.” Laura nodded vigorously.
“You too, right, Natalie?” Jessica asked with hope.
Joshua focused on her now, too.
“Sure, I’ll come.” This was so frustrating. She wasn’t sure how to launch into any form of conversation with Joshua without looking like she was snooping around.
Anything would look like she was snooping considering she didn’t talk to him.
She had to think. Maybe she could provide parts of the truth and see his reaction.
“Good. I would love for you and Joshua to get to know more of each other,” Jessica cooed, giving Joshua a kiss on his forehead.
Her words were, however, a great cue for Natalie to take.
“It’s funny you should say that, Jessica. I noticed that Joshua’s company managed the accounts for J.J. Belmont. That’s one of the companies your dad’s company is working with.” She tried to say that as casually as she could, and she tried to remain as calm as she could when she saw the sort of taken aback look he had on his face.
“What? Baby, why didn’t you say?” Jessica nudged him in his shoulder.
“Oh, I hate talking about business outside of work,” he replied, probably as an attempt to put off any further discussion.
“Holy shit, you work for the Donovans too?” Laura beamed.
“No, it’s not for them.” Joshua looked on edge. “I didn’t realize you had access to that information, Natalie.” He focused back on her.
“I’m the senior financial analyst at the company. All business acquisitions have to be inspected by me first.” Again, she strived for casual and gave a nonchalant shrug.
The look on his face now was classic. It was one of worry and uneasiness, even though he tried to act like hearing what position she had didn’t get to him.
“Wow, that’s some power. Jessica made it seem like you were just helping out at the company.”
She guessed Jessica would have said something like that and not really been specific in saying exactly what Natalie did.
“No, I do more than help out.” She placed emphasis on her words so he would take the hint that she was suspicious of him.
It worked, because he looked her straight in the eye and there was a sort of understanding that she saw in his expression.
Natalie felt bad for Jessica because she took that to mean progression because they were talking.
“Look at you guys,” Jessica beamed. “And there I was worried you’d have nothing in common.”
It turned out they had more in common than even Natalie expected.
The question was, what should she do now?
* * *
Joshua left about half an hour later.
He suddenly remembered he had an urgent call to make.
Neither Laura nor Jessica thought that was weird.
Laura went to bed after he left and Jessica started doing the dishes. Natalie tidied the dining room, using it as time to be alone to think about how she would proceed with Joshua.
There was no way that she could even allow herself the night to think about what could be going on. She would worry too much, and all the possibilities of what Joshua could be up to would keep her awake. It was best to talk to Jessica now.
When she was finished redressing the table, Natalie made her way into the living room where Jessica was sitting on the sofa watching a rerun of America’s Next Top Model.
“Hey girl.” Jessica beamed on seeing Natalie.
“Hey.” Natalie tried to keep the quiver of concern out of her voice.
“Come sit with me.” Jessica patted the space next to her, so Natalie went over and sat down. Jessica gave her a smile of gratitude. “Thank you for making an effort with Joshua. I realize that it’s hard to talk to him sometimes because h
e can be so reserved and you’re more talkative.”
Natalie felt like a hypocrite. How could she say that she only stayed for dinner and gave Joshua the time of day to try and get intel on him. While he didn’t say anything to her, his reaction suggested guilt.
“Jessica, can I ask you something?” This was her trying for subtle.
“Of course.” Jessica nodded.
“How much do you know about Joshua’s work? I mean, I know he claims to not want to talk about business outside of work, but does he say anything to you in private?”
“What do you mean? And why do you say it like that? That he claims?” Jessica looked a little annoyed.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry.”
“What is going on, Natalie?”
Natalie drew in a breath before continuing. “I saw something weird in the reports at work today,” she told her.
Jessica’s brows knitted together and she sat up straighter. “Weird? Like how?”
“I don’t know how weird it is yet, but Joshua’s name was attached to it.”
Jessica gave Natalie a long hard stare. “You’ve never liked him, have you?” she accused, now glaring.
“Jessica, this has nothing to do with me liking him or not.”
“Oh my God. Is this how you’ve become? A woman on some sort of mission to kill relationships?”
The way she said that suggested she was hinting at something else.
Luke.
Natalie immediately knew that Jessica was referring to her situation with Luke.
“That’s not fair,” Natalie retorted.
Jessica shot up, enraged. “You know what’s not fair? You trying to destroy my happiness. Joshua is a good man. He loves me, and I have no reason to question him in anything. I trust him. Just because you messed up your relationship with Luke doesn’t mean you have to mess with mine.”
Only You Page 11
