Chapter 6 #2
“I’ll keep you updated as soon as I know anything.”
“Right,” he answered. “How’s your dinner? Did you get room service?”
“No, I went to the restaurant for some seafood.”
“Oh, fresh seafood sounds great. Well, enjoy. Hey, maybe we should honeymoon somewhere seaside.”
“Yeah,” she said, hoping he didn’t hear the quiver in her voice. “Yeah, let’s talk about that when I get back.”
“I’ll look at a few places until then.”
“Great. That sounds great. Well, I should go…”
“Oh, right, yeah. Uh, well, I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, definitely. Enjoy your meal.”
Ava’s muscles relaxed slightly as she ended the call and set her phone aside. Alex pushed the food around on his plate, his eyes fixed on it. “Everything okay with the Pillar Pro?”
“Yeah,” she answered, her voice an octave higher than it should have been. She grabbed her glass and polished off the rest of her champagne. “He’s, uh, fine. Having dinner.”
“Oh,” Alex said with a nod. “Sure. Sounds…appropriate. Refill?”
“Sure,” she answered. “You dropped five hundred bucks on that bottle, we should at least enjoy a second glass.”
“Might take a third to polish this bottle off.”
“Oh, I see,” she said, her tension from the call fading. “You’re trying to get me drunk.”
He clicked his tongue as he refilled their glasses. “You’re on to me.”
“Joke’s on you, though. We’re already married so I can’t do anything stupid.”
“Ahh,” he said, a grin spreading across his face. “You’re right. But the joke’s actually on you because I didn’t even need to get you drunk to get you down the aisle.”
He raised his glass in the air. “To us. We’re like a…crime-fighting duo.”
She clinked her glass against his. “And we are definitely going to figure this out.”
“Just as soon as we finish this bottle. How about a walk on the beach to finish it?”
Ava flicked her gaze to the rolling waves as the sun lowered in the sky. She could use the downtime before they dove into the investigation again. “Sure.”
They finished their meals and refilled their glasses with the last of the bubbly before he led her onto the terrace. She kicked off her shoes and tucked them under her arm before she stepped into the still-warm sand.
It shifted gently under her as they approached the water. The dusky glow of the evening surrounded them while they strolled along. The waves crashed against the sand feet from them, and the scent of the sea filled her nostrils as a gentle breeze blew her blonde locks around.
“So, how did our builder buddy take the news that things are a little more complicated?” Alex asked.
She shrugged, her eyes trained on the water. “About as well as he could, I guess. I’m pretty sure the entire situation makes him uncomfortable.”
“I guess it would be weird to find out your fiancé is married. You never told me why you didn’t tell him?”
She sipped her champagne as they strolled along. The liquor mixing with the surf, and their close friendship made honesty easier. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, or you don’t want to say?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated with a shrug. “I guess…it just…I don’t know.”
He slid his arm around her shoulders, and she allowed him to pull her closer while her mind searched for an answer to the question that had plagued her since he’d asked her yesterday.
Had she really not told Chris because she didn’t think about it on the day-to-day?
Or had she kept it from him for another reason?
A gust of salty air whipped past them, sending a shiver down her spine.
“You cold?” he asked.
“Yeah, it’s getting chilly out here.” She rubbed her arms as their footsteps slowed.
He tugged off his blazer and slid it around her shoulders before he rubbed her arms, staring down at her as the stars began to twinkle in the growing darkness.
Her fingers tightened on her now-empty glass as she stared up at him through her eyelashes. Her heart seemed to tear in two, ripped between her past and her present.
A jolt shook her as Chris’s engagement ring clinked off of her glass. “We should head back,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
He hesitated, his fingers still gently strafing up and down her arm before he bobbed his head. “Right.”
She flicked her gaze down the beach. “I really want to get into more of those files.”
“Yeah, definitely,” he said as he cleared his throat. “Although there’s no rush. I mean, you could totally go to bed on time and start tomorrow morning.”
“Nah, I’ll never sleep. I’d rather dive into those files now. Unless you’d prefer I kick your butt in Mario Kart.” She shot him an amused glance as they reached the restaurant.
“As if you could,” he said with a grin.
“Oh, you need schooled, huh?” She slipped her shoes back before they passed through the eatery to retrieve her car from the valet.
“Maybe. How about this…for every year we complete, we play a round of Mario Kart.”
She jabbed a finger at him, skirting around the pink convertible as the valet brought it to a stop. “You’re on.”
After they made the short trip to his beach house and changed, she settled next to him on the couch, financial records in hand. They toggled between reviewing financials and video gaming.
Evening turned to night. The hours ticked by as they continued to dive deeper into the situation.
As she pulled another folder onto her lap, tossing her controller aside, she shifted, pulling her legs under her. The cushion shifted, pushing her closer to him. He naturally moved his arm, letting it fall around her shoulders.
She leaned closer as she compared the numbers to the ones on his screen. Her eyes narrowed, her pulse increasing as her eyes switched from paper to screen. She checked every account, afraid of missing a trend.
Her fingers tapped the paper before she snapped the folder closed and pulled another one onto her lap. “Go to the prior year.”
He pulled up the accounts for the year before, shifting his laptop toward her.
Her eyebrows pinched together as she focused on the numbers, carefully checking and double-checking before she grabbed another folder. “Year before, please.”
She skimmed through these numbers, verifying them against their digital counterparts.
“You on to something, Sparky?”
Her fingers moved over the pages, her eyes scanning, searching. Only the soft rustle of paper filled the air. “I think so. Go to the first year.”
“Do we have to? That’s when I was poor.”
“You weren’t poor,” she answered with a chuckle. “You just weren’t a billionaire.”
“I was nearly destitute. I poured everything into StoneCorp.”
She hummed a response as she finished comparing her numbers. “Maybe so, but you had an awesome wife who married you before you were Wired’s Man of the Decade.”
“I know,” he answered as she slapped a hand against the pages stacked on her lap with a triumphant grin.
“I found something!”
He stiffened next to her, his back straightening. “What is it?”
“These irregularities don’t start until about six years ago. Can you cross-reference that time frame with the employee list? We can rule out anyone gone before then and prioritize searching people who started six years ago.”
“Can I?” Alex asked, sliding the laptop toward him. “Babe, is the internet obsessed with cats?”
His fingers swept across the keys, tapping out a frantic rhythm before he slapped the enter key resoundingly. A list of employees filled the screen, noticeably smaller than the previous one.
“That’s our starting point. One of these people has to be our thief,” Ava said.
A smile twisted up the corners of Alex’s mouth. “Progress!”
“We did it!” She grinned at him as he twisted to face her.
His face hovered inches from hers. Her smile faded slightly as their close proximity sent warmth rushing through her body.
They leaned closer, the distance between them diminishing with every breath. Her eyes slid closed, and for a moment, the outside world ceased to exist, a tempest of emotions raging within her.
Her heart, a battlefield of desire and duty, couldn’t resist the overpowering pull toward Alex, years of buried feelings surfacing, despite the looming shadow of the breach of loyalty to Chris.
Their lips nearly met when the chime of Ava’s cell phone shattered the silence between them. Ava jolted back, reality slapping her in the face as startled confusion crossed her features. She reached for her phone, the light illuminating her face as she read the notification.
Alex slid closer, peering over her shoulder. “What is it?”
She shifted her display to face him, snapping her gaze to him, her brow furrowing.
The message beamed from her screen. Playing with fire can get you burned.
Her stomach clenched as she stared focused on the message again.
The room shifted from the warmth of their near kiss to cold apprehension. Their investigation was ruffling feathers, and it may have drawn the attention of a very dangerous player.