Chapter Four #3
‘What?’ That came out loudly and my head spun directly to Nick. ‘You think I took money?’
‘You did take money, Ms Parker. Your bonuses were paid from his slush account.’
If I thought my heart had been pounding earlier, I now had chest pain and thought I might vomit. This was utter madness. ‘Oh, my God. I cannot believe this.’
‘We have forensic accountants looking into this, Ms Parker. We will find what we are looking for. We wanted to allow you to confess to wrongdoing before the police are involved. The new owners are being generous and are prepared to be lenient if you disclose what you know. We know you have a daughter.’
I could feel my breath rising and falling now. I looked at the two men I knew sitting opposite me. Yes, I’d only known them for two weeks, but I had spent nearly every second of that time with one of them. He knew who I was.
But he did not move, nor did his expression change. I was angry about the situation, but his indifference made me want to, mostly, just cry.
I reached for a glass of water and was not surprised to find my hand trembling.
I sipped the cold liquid, feeling it slide down my dry throat, using the time to try to formulate cohesive thoughts.
I desperately wanted to put the cold glass against my hot red cheeks.
Instead, I put it down firmly on the table.
‘I … I can’t help you,’ I said, as strongly as I could. ‘I don’t know anything about this.’
Alana shook her head. ‘It’s funny. I looked at you and thought you would be smarter than this, Abbey.’
Fucking viper. I tried to channel my inner ‘new-non-holiday Nick’, mirroring his body language with its arrogance, wealth and privilege. I tipped my chin up an inch and said icily, ‘I’d appreciate it if you would keep it formal and address me as Ms Parker.’
‘You are suspended, pending this investigation.’ Alana tilted her head before adding a drawling, ‘Ms Parker.’ She was enjoying this now.
My attention was caught by Oliver writing down something and passing his notepad to his brother. Nick looked at it and then pushed the pad to Alana.
She looked annoyed by whatever was on that piece of paper. ‘You will continue to be paid during this suspension, Ms Parker. We’ll be in touch.’
Alana and Jeremy got up and walked out. Nick followed them without looking back.
Oliver sat there staring at the table before he met my eyes.
His face softened, and I thought he was about to speak, but then his phone rang and he answered it, leaving the room.
I put my head on the table, feeling the cool, polished surface against my skin.
What the fuck? Had Eric taken money? I could not get my head around it.
‘Abbey.’
He had never said my name like that, cold and professional.
It was one of my favourite things about him, how silky and round my name sounded coming from his mouth.
When I raised my head and looked at him, I knew sadness was written on my face.
Tears were stinging my eyes, threatening to spill.
I wanted to run to him and bury myself safe in his arms. My Nick though.
Not this guy. Who was, what? My boss? Though, maybe I didn’t have a job anymore.
‘I need a minute,’ I said hoarsely. I did actually need a minute. There was no way I was going to approach him feeling needy.
‘Will you come to Eric’s office before you leave, please?’ It was phrased as a question, but issued as a command.
I acknowledged him with a nod, but refused to meet his gaze.
I sat there for a full five minutes, willing the anger to come and take over the sadness. But it didn’t. I was shattered, scared and sad. I wanted to climb into my bed and never emerge again.
I walked past my desk to Eric’s old office, where Nick was standing at the window.
He had taken off his jacket and I could see through his shirt the outline of the arms that had held me, as the city’s blinding bright sunlight poured through the window.
He turned around and walked to the front of the desk, leaning against it, legs crossed at the ankles, looking at me. I stood mute, waiting for him to speak.
‘Hi,’ he finally uttered. He blinked at me, once, slowly.
Hi? Hi? He just accused you of taking money and now hi? This finally ignited my anger.
‘Did you need something?’ I said, perfectly professional and polite, but with a distinctly heaped tablespoon of Alana-like acidity.
‘I need his password.’ He gestured towards the computer on the desk.
I walked to the desk and pulled out Eric’s notepad and a pencil and wrote it down.
‘I want you to put it in.’
‘You don’t trust me to write down the correct password?
’ I huffed then and moved around the desk, roughly moving the leather chair out of the way, and waited for the computer to boot up.
He moved behind me, not touching me, but I could feel the heat of him.
My traitorous body reacted to the proximity of him and his gorgeous scent. Naturally, I ignored it.
I typed in Eric’s password: LynneandLibby1959
‘Thank you, Abbey.’
I spun on my heels to look at him. I could feel my emotions surging back. ‘Nick, please tell me you don’t believe I had anything to do with this. That you don’t think I’m that kind of person.’ The words were out of my mouth before I could think them through. I hated the pleading sound in my voice.
I saw something cross his face, but it wasn’t there long enough for my brain to compute or articulate it.
‘Nick,’ I whispered. I reached out a hand to the groove of his rib cage where it fit perfectly, contacting the solid familiar mass that was his warm, cotton-covered chest.
It was there for barely a second when he moved as if I had burned him, flinching visibly. He stepped away to the window, turning his back on me, facing the view.
‘Go home, Abbey.’
I think there was a tortured sob, which I could only hope was in my head and not in the room as I fled the office, grabbed my box and went to the elevator, which mercifully was waiting for me. I congratulated myself that I did not let a single tear drop until I was in the cab.
Nick
I’d run my mother’s company since I was twenty-four years old, and today’s meeting was the only day I ever hated my job. The only time I wished I was anywhere else, doing anything else.
I’d met Eric Linden about six months ago, in London, when Hartwell was first moving to buy the Australian hotel chain.
Linden was a schmoozer, typical Australian blue blood, raised with a firm belief that he was better than anyone else.
It wasn’t a personality type I was unfamiliar with; it was just interesting to see that Australian snobs were as unlikeable as English ones.
We had found the issues with the funds prior to purchase and managed to get a significant discount on the business, as a result of the PR scandal that was likely to ensue when the press found out a top hotel executive had stolen from the company he’d helped run for decades.
When I opened the email from Alana with the list of names of Delacqua employees to be investigated, an Abigail Parker had been at the very top.
I’d had my assistant pull her HR file, certain there were hundreds of Abbey Parkers working as EAs in Sydney, not believing the coincidence. What were the chances?
But when I saw the HR record, I knew it was her. In my gut, I knew. By then I was back at the resort after dropping her off at the airport. I could still smell her, still feel the pressure of her lips on mine, feel how perfectly her body curled into me.
I closed my eyes against the filtered glare of the office in Sydney, desperately trying to find memories of her fingertips pulling lightly at my hair or her spontaneous hugs.
What came, though, were not the happy recollections of our holiday, but her shattered expression from that horrendous meeting.
Her whispered plea, ‘Nick.’ I’d never heard her voice sound like that before.
Holiday Abbey was happy and confident. She was easygoing and the most honest person I’d met.
I could not reconcile it with the shattered woman from today.
But neither could I understand how Eric Linden had pulled off fraud of this magnitude without help.
I swallowed the emotion. Acquisitions were tough at the best of times.
I was probably jet-lagged and just three days ago I had woken to her warm body wrapped around mine.
My brother made his way into the office.
He’d turned into a man before my eyes and it sometimes surprised me, even though I see him every day that I can, that he was no longer a boy.
He’s a handsome lad. He looks like our mother.
Her sandy hair, blue eyes and olive skin.
He was clearly agitated. He almost ripped the heavy door off its hinges and his hands were balled.
In fairness, he had spoken to me about Alana before we started, and he had specifically told her that he did not want to piss everyone off.
‘It was your Abbey.’
‘She’s not my Abbey, Ollie.’ I was annoyed with myself that my tone was so defensive.
‘I’m not happy with that meeting, Nick. I couldn’t let Alana not pay her. She has a daughter and a mortgage; we both know that.’
I’m not certain when my brother became wise and emotionally mature. It’s a recent acquisition. I looked at him with suspicious admiration.
‘I know. I agree.’ I agreed so much that I had fired Alana on the way to the lift.
‘There is no way on this earth Abbey had anything to do with this. I thought she was going to pass out in that room. And Alana accusing her of sleeping with her boss was well out of line – it wasn’t anything we discussed.
It was wrong and unprofessional. She risked our reputation in that meeting.
The last thing we need is a wrongful dismissal with the addition of discrimination on our first bloody week here.
’ My younger brother’s blue eyes flamed with his impassioned defence of a woman we barely knew.
‘I know.’
‘Nick, we need to fix this. We both know her.’
‘I said, I know. I’ll take care of it.’ My legs were twitching under the table. I had the urge to get up, stop what was happening and go sit beside Abbey and hold her hand. The urge to protect her, it made my heart pound, and it fucking terrified me.
I would fix this. I told myself it was for the business; it was for Ollie.
It was important to find out what happened, so the company could move on.
It was important for his future success because Delacqua would be his one day.
It had absolutely nothing to do with that shattered woman.
Nothing to do with what I’d felt when her hand had touched my chest. Not a thing to do with the internal struggle I’d had of being in the same room with her and not taking her in my arms.
She did not need rescuing.