Chapter Five #2
Nick Northby’s tone was almost Holiday Nick, charming and persuasive, and though he wasn’t facing me, I knew he’d be wearing a charismatic smile.
He was trying to work his way around Kate, whom he considered to be the gatekeeper.
He had no idea what he was dealing with.
Kate may be younger than me, but she had long ago made herself my protector.
Kate thought I was too soft. A pushover. Too pliant.
‘Listen here, pal –’
I cleared my throat to let them know I was in the room.
When Nick turned around, my breath caught.
It was right up there with the most annoying reaction I’ve ever had to someone who was clearly my sworn enemy.
Why I still found him attractive – after this last week – was beyond me, but my eyes drank in the sight of him.
On the island he had worn only shorts, but now his long legs were clad in black jeans.
They made him look taller somehow, and well, very hot.
He also had on a grey T-shirt and gorgeous – and expensive – brown boots.
‘Abbey.’ The cold, business tone was out of his voice. Instead, he sounded excited, like the time we had gone fishing and one of the lines had started jumping. ‘I worked out how it was done,’ he said, eyes gleaming.
My heart sank. My worst fear was that I had inadvertently played a part in Eric’s crime, somehow. I mean, I signed things for him, took calls and deliveries and responded to hundreds of emails a week.
Nick was watching me and when my face fell, he rushed to reassure me. ‘No, no. It wasn’t you. I found out how he did it. I can prove you weren’t involved.’
I didn’t fully take that in as I continued to stare at him with sad eyes, thinking about having to sign over custody of my daughter to my sister and what that would mean for Ella to have Kate as a parent as opposed to me. Would I be allowed to see her in prison?
He had a document wallet on the bench, and he opened it, pulling out four different bulldog-clipped, highlighted documents. I walked closer. He smelled like freshly showered goodness. Delicious.
The first was a general ledger segment from the Delacqua Adelaide and then one for the hotel in Sydney.
Then there was a bank statement from what I assumed was Eric’s slush fund and the business account.
There were several highlighted amounts circled in red pen and I picked up the pages to look at them.
‘Okay, see here. Why would he pick the Adelaide business?’ Nick asked.
I have no fucking idea. But then I thought for a second, and there was a simple reason Adelaide differed from the other hotels. ‘Because it was losing money and had to be supported by head office,’ I said.
‘Exactly. It was already being supported so it would be easier to hide the trail. And he took money from Sydney because it had the highest profit margin. He started off eight years before you worked there, small amounts being siphoned from the transfers, first a few thousand dollars, but he gets bolder later on.’ He points to a large amount from just three months ago.
I still couldn’t understand. ‘How was it not picked up by the end-of-financial-year audits?’
‘That took a bit of working through. We’ve let go of the finance director, at any rate.
It was poor management at the least, and I’m not convinced he didn’t know.
’ He opened the fourth document and flicked quickly to the page he was after.
‘But Linden was quite clever. He actually has it accounted for in the Sydney P second, my breathing changed; third, my eyes looked briefly up to meet his whisky-coloured ones and then dropped, focusing on his mouth, the narrow top lip and the pouty lower one.
I had the overwhelming urge to remind him of those two weeks. How they felt, what they meant.
‘There is only you. I need you,’ he breathed.
I closed my eyes, wishing desperately that he’d said that about us, about me. ‘When do you leave?’
‘I’m here for a bit. Maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a month. It depends on how successful we are.’
His hands were still on my paint-covered arms. I wanted him closer, so much closer. His thumb brushed over a bit of dried paint.
‘Are you painting by yourself? Do you need help?’
What the fuck was that? We weren’t friends.
I pulled my arm back. ‘I don’t need anything from you.’