Chapter 29
Clayton
Where are you?
Good morning to you too. Not even a greeting? And I’m at the front desk…where I always am.
Little Trouble, I’m reasonably sure I greeted you already this morning. Particularly with my tongue on that perfect pussy of yours. Do you need a reminder?
I am a little forgetful.
Then get your sweet self up here and I’ll make sure you forget nothing.
I’ll be ri—dammit. Our new guests just arrived. I’ll take a rain check. Bye. Have fun at the distillery later!
I texted a quick goodbye, more disappointed than was wise that she wouldn’t be joining me.
I’d seen her only a few hours ago and already missed her.
Missed hearing her sass me and her head resting on my chest. Leaning back in my chair, I wondered what the hell I was doing with her or in general at this point.
The week and a half I’d spent in this small town felt like something out of time.
It was another me experiencing everything, because the me I’d known for close to thirty-five years didn’t do any of this.
Yet it felt oddly right. From pruning vines under Jeremiah’s watchful gaze to getting a new wardrobe of jeans and T-shirts, nothing felt as off as I would have expected.
None of that felt as right as waking up with Reese in the morning.
Since our talk several days ago, we’d spent every night together.
Unsurprisingly, the sex was incredible, but the quiet times with her were as special.
I heard about her family history here and saw every plan and dream she had about the expansion project.
Some were so wild I wondered exactly how she planned on seeing them through, but if anyone could do it, I knew she could.
Reese Henley was a force of nature, and she was all mine.
For the moment.
The thought sat like lead in my gut. I didn’t want to think about it, but there were no other options I could really consider. She belonged here, and I didn’t. Besides that, I had a company to take over at some point.
Speaking of which, my computer dinged with an incoming call.
Clicking the accept button connected me with my brother’s rather grim face.
Not that I was expecting anything less, given the files he’d sent over to me last night.
I’d read through them as Reese sat with her Kindle on the opposite end of her couch.
Only when she noticed me getting more and more agitated did she put what she’d just read to practical use.
Lucky for me, the shower at her place was a hell of a lot better equipped than my room.
“I wasn’t expecting that satisfied smile this morning.” Lachlain was looking at me like I had a second head. “Damn. I see you took my advice. A relationship looks good on you, brother.”
“It’s not a relationship.” The words came automatically, but they felt wrong. Fuck me. There was no way I could entertain a relationship with Reese. The trouble was, I wanted to.
“Po-ta-toe, po-ta-toh. Whatever you’re calling it, the sex is obviously stellar if you could look happy after what I sent over yesterday.”
“Lachlain,” I hissed, not wanting to talk about Reese with him.
“Fine. Fine. We won’t talk about her. Yet. Instead, let’s discuss how our stepfather is robbing us blind.” Lachlain kicked back in his chair, and I noticed he was in his home office. At least there was no risk of being overheard. “We are damn lucky Gage is so good with a computer and nosy as hell.”
“I am not nosy,” a voice called from the background. “Move.”
Gage appeared on the screen, elbowing my brother out of the way.
He was what Lachlain liked to call our bonus brother.
We’d all met at prep school, with Gage being a grade between us, and had formed a fast friendship.
His family forced him into law to continue the legacy, but he’d abandoned the family firm for Conti-Montgomery as an in-house counsel.
Lucky for us, he spent his free time trying to hack into systems to test our security.
“I read everything, but give it to me straight, Gage. What the fuck was going on?” I’d poured over page after page of contracts last night, all in a similar vein to the situation with Palm Cove.
Montgomery paid invoices for up to ten times what was requested and agreed upon.
The resorts got their funds, but the rest seemingly went directly into Reginald’s pocket, or at least an off-shore account linked to him.
All of which put Montgomery in a precarious financial situation, which was likely why he was willing to offload it now to me.
Gage moved his chair in front of the computer. “I’ve got to hand it to Reg; he’s trickier than I expected, but not as smart as he thinks.”
I disagreed with that assessment. “He’s got to be smart if this was going on under everyone’s noses.”
“You’ve got a point.” Gage rubbed his eyes, the move indicative of when he’d spent too much time in front of a screen.
“Hold on, this jackass is joining on his phone. God forbid I have a moment in the spotlight without you.” Lachlain’s face appeared in another square before Gage continued, “In every case, you signed a contract agreeing to the amount requested and forwarded that to accounting and the Board. It looks like someone in IT prevented the invoice itself from automatically moving into the system as it should.”
Our accounting department had established a software that made invoicing and payments seamless and relatively problem free. That was until Reginald somehow figured out how to take advantage.
“That gave Reg a chance to doctor the approved amount or create a whole new document with your signature and place that contract into the system instead. Everything tracks to his IP address in the building or his apartment. The man was good, but not good enough to think of that. He also thought it was good to have a copy of your signature saved on his computer. Jackass,” Gage muttered.
“I was able to trace everything to a specific computer in IT. Lo and behold, the person using that computer quit about two weeks ago.”
“And no one questioned the costs?” I didn’t function in a vacuum. The board would have seen the agreement. Someone in accounting should have questioned why we were paying so much.
“Negative, bro.” Lachlain leaned back. “Everything the Board saw, including what was paid, contained the ‘real’ cost. Reg and our IT criminal grabbed the invoices as they came in, and altered those too. They were good, but I’m better.”
“I had Gage check out everyone else in IT and accounting. It looks like it was only one guy involved. Accounting paid the doctored invoice without question, but that’s more about trusting the system than any negligence, I think.
It better be, or I’m cleaning house.” My brother rarely let his ruthless side show, but I knew he would raise hell if needed.
“What do we need to take him down?” I wanted Reginald out of my hair and company once and for all.
Lachlain waved a stack of papers in his hand.
“I tracked down the original contracts you signed and all the original invoices. We’re damn lucky Grandmother is on those emails as a board member and printed every last one, because the system is wiped clean.
Not a trace of them was to be found, and I wasn’t about to go to Board members.
That would simply tip off Reg because none of them would stay silent.
As it is, Grandmother is champing at the bit to know more.
” A grin lit up my brother’s face. “I never thought I’d be grateful for that woman’s printer and love of paper, but here we are.
I told her I was going to upgrade her so she would never run out of ink again. She saved our asses, Clay.”
I was going to buy her ten printers at this rate.
“Your brother also hired a PI to find our wayward IT guy and convince him that helping us is better than years in jail for embezzling.”
“Do you think we found all the contracts?” From the looks of what Lachlain sent me, Montgomery was out well over two hundred million dollars.
Gage’s face turned grim. “No, I don’t. He’s been doing this for a while, Clay. I would guess since before your mother even died.”
I hurled the pen I held across the room.
I wished I could do the same to my stepfather.
I always felt Mother was nothing more than a pawn to him.
A way for him to get the prize he desired and even more so, revenge on my father.
The fact that Mother passed him over for Father had stuck in his throat.
In the end, it looks like he tried to get revenge on both of them, but he’d be the one paying the price.
“We need a little more time, but you’re going to have to come back soon. Probably sooner than you would have liked.” My brother’s face matched our friend’s. “What are you going to do about Reese?”
“This is a place Father would have loved. If she’ll take the help, it’s hers. We haven’t talked about a deal yet, considering my two weeks of servitude aren’t up, but we will. That we can take Reginald down makes the agreement I had with him null and void. Reese never has to know about it.”
She’d get her dream. That I could help her eased something inside of me this whole mess had caused.
Gage and Lachlain shared a look. There was a moment’s hesitation before my brother leaned closer to his phone. “I didn’t ask about a business deal, Clay. I asked about her. What are you going to do about the way you feel about her?”
Even I wasn’t sure how I felt about her, other than to know nothing in my life had prepared me for Reese Henley. Except, there wasn’t much I could do. Long-term wasn’t in our future, and we both knew that. Didn’t we?
Except, the thought of leaving didn’t feel right at all.
“You know, you shouldn’t stare at a sleeping woman.”