Chapter 15
Tallulah hadn’t wanted to go home. Once Aiden had left, she knew the evening would pass very slowly, and she didn’t want to spend it thinking about him and Sasha. That would just be pathetic. She considered calling Zoe, or maybe finding out if one of her housemates wanted to do something that evening, but in the end, she couldn’t be bothered. The files were stacked on her desk, and she was curious to see if the numbers in the next one had been manipulated in the same way as the numbers in the one she’d looked at the night before.
She started to methodically go through the papers.
Again, there was a difference between the equipment on the order form and the equipment that had been delivered to the construction site. She made copious notes on her laptop. At nine thirty, she’d written a breakdown of the anomalous finances. This has to be deliberate, she thought. No one makes this sort of mistake. Not consistently.
Sitting back in her chair, she stretched her arms above her head and yawned. She hadn’t meant to stay so long, and now she couldn’t be bothered to move. It was time she went home, but the effort involved kept her in her seat. Her head started to throb as she thought about who might have been taking the company’s money and why.
The sound of footsteps approaching pulled her out of her musings, and she pushed herself to her feet, feeling a little nervous. Who’s still in the building at this time of the night? The place was locked up, and there were two security guards on duty, so it wasn’t as if she was in danger. Still, she waited until the steps slowed outside her office door. Maybe it’s one of the guards doing a check on the building.
Aiden pushed the door open and walked in. “Why are you still here?”
“I forgot the time.” She let out a huge breath of relief. “I got absorbed, and then I couldn’t be bothered to move. I was just thinking it was time to leave.”
“It’s nearly ten o’clock. Have you eaten?”
“I had a sandwich. What about you?”
“I’ve been out to dinner.”
“So why are you back here?” she asked.
“I came to pick up a couple of files.” He avoided her eyes. “Actually, I needed to get rid of my dinner guest, so I put her in a taxi, and I’m hiding out here.”
Tallulah stared at him.
“I don’t think I’ll bother with the files. I’ll take you home.”
“I was going to walk,” she said.
“I’ll walk with you for the exercise.”
Tallulah shook her head. “It’s an hour’s walk, and I—”
“All the more reason I should go with you. I don’t want you by yourself in this part of the city at this time of the night.”
Tallulah rolled her eyes at him. “I’ve been doing it for years.”
“That’s different,” he said. “I didn’t know. Now I do. I’d worry.”
Tallulah wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “Aiden, I need to tell you that I’m not going to have an affair with you while you’re engaged. It’s not the sort of thing—”
“I never asked you to.” He pushed a strand of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “You don’t need to worry about Sasha. She’s the past, and anyway, we weren’t ever engaged.”
“She’s so beautiful.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t want the same things. Come on.” He took her hand. “Let me walk with you.”
“Okay.” She puzzled over whether it was nice to have someone worried about her, or whether she just felt crowded. At the moment, his concern gave her a warm feeling. She’d have to see how long it lasted. And a walk would give her time to think about what he was doing with her and Sasha. She could ask what had happened between them.
Aiden held her hand as they walked through the city. The streets of the business district were deserted at night, and they passed few other people.
“Where did you go to dinner?” she asked.
“A small bistro about fifteen minutes from the office,” he said. “The food was good. We’ll have to try it together.”
We? When did we become we? Tallulah shook her head.
“I went with Sasha,” he said. As if she’d asked.
Tallulah supposed that if there had still been anything between them still, he wouldn’t have sent her home while he headed back to the office.
“She wanted to try again.”
“And will you?”
“I don’t think so.” His hand tightened on hers. “There was nothing there. No attraction, no interest. It was awful. All I wanted was to get away.”
“Mmm.”
“I felt guilty.” He looked down and met her eyes. “She left me, and I was broken up about it. For less than two weeks. That makes me shallow.”
“How long were you together?”
“Almost three years.”
It sounded like a long time to Tallulah. “Shallow?”
“It makes me look bad, doesn’t it? I do wonder if we just drifted along through habit. We met the same people, worked the same hours. I don’t think we ever really talked properly. I didn’t know what she meant when she said that. She was right though.”
“She’s very attractive,” Tallulah said. If she spent a hundred years grooming herself, and squandered a fortune on designer clothes, she’d never look that polished.
“She suddenly wanted to get married. She said she wanted children, but she’d never been interested before. One night, with no discussion, she gave me an ultimatum. I just don’t understand what was going through her head.”
“Why is she in London?” Tallulah couldn’t help asking.
“She made it plain she’s here for me,” Aiden said. “She’s got a promotion with a secondment to London, but she told me she wanted me back.”
“Oh.” If Sasha’s his normal type, then what on earth is he doing with me? She frowned up at him.
“I feel like a bastard. Love can be a bitch.”
“She did dump you,” Tallulah said.
“She did.” Aiden draped his arm over her shoulder. “But three years? And now I feel like she’s a stranger.”
They turned along Pentonville Road towards Tallulah’s street.
Maybe Sasha isn’t Aiden’s type at all. Tallulah changed the subject. “I’ve got an idea.” She needed to think before any more personal talk. “About the accounts.”
“What?”
“There must have been some communication about the orders. Could you ask the IT department to extract all the emails sent from the accounts department? There might be a clue in there as to who was involved.”
“It’ll be a lot of work, trolling through that many emails,” he said. “I’m inclined to call in an external auditing company. I think we’ve enough evidence to justify it.”
“Yeah, but will they find the culprits?” Tallulah had the sense that she was solving a puzzle; the same determination that made her finish a crossword and feel like a failure if it wasn’t completed drove her on.
Aiden shrugged. “It’ll put a stop to anyone stealing anything else.”
He halted, and Tallulah realised they’d reached her building. “I really want to get to the bottom of this,” she said. “I know just how a bloodhound feels when it catches a scent. Come on, Aiden? Just a couple more days?”
He dropped her hand and rubbed his head. “I suppose it can’t hurt.”
“Great. We’ll solve this.” She smiled at him. “Are you going to walk back?”
“I’ll get a taxi,” he said. “Are you going to offer me a coffee first?”
Tallulah chewed on her lip. There was Sasha to consider, and she wasn’t sure if Kyle would be in, and whether she hoped he would or wouldn’t be.
“Okay, but if my brother’s at home, he might be asleep. We’ll have to be quiet.”
She led him up to her third-floor room and opened the door. He paused behind her, his head turning as he studied the room. Compared to his rented luxury apartment, she supposed it was a bit basic, but that was his problem. Hers was Kyle. The sofa was empty, and there was no sign that he’d ever been there. His sleeping bag was neatly folded at one end of the sofa, but Tallulah had done that herself. His rucksack sat next to the table. Where the hell is he now?
She sighed heavily. “What would you like? I’ve got tea, herbal tea, or I could make coffee.”
“Coffee?” He followed her over to the small cupboard which held the basics of coffee and tea. Food and so on, she kept in the shared kitchen, but that was one floor down, so she had the small fridge with tea and coffee in her room. She filled the kettle from the water fountain in the corner and spooned the ground coffee into the cafetière. “Sit down.”
He dropped his jacket on the cushions and hovered behind her as she waited for the kettle to boil. Her shoulders twitched with awareness as she made the coffee, and she carried the cups over to the sofa with a feeling of relief. She sat down at one end, putting her cup on the floor and handing the other to him.
He looked round, eyes bright with curiosity. “Interesting place. You share it with your brother?”
“Not normally. He’s having a bit of a teenage crisis,” she said. “He’s staying while he sorts himself out. I hope he’ll go back to his foster parents eventually. He should get as much education as he can.”
“Is that what you did?” Aiden prowled over to the window to look down on the street. He glanced at the table top.
“It’s what I’m still doing,” Tallulah said. “I’ve one more year at college. I’m trying to decide if I should take a year out and do one of the intern programmes, or just do my finals and then look for work experience.”
Aiden leafed through the piles of paper on the table. “Did you do these?” He held up a pen-and-ink drawing of a monster-sized cat and an armour-clad superhero.
“Yes. I’m working on a graphic novel with a friend. She came up with the story, and I’m doing the art.”
“I like it.”
“I’m going to exhibit some of that at a comic art festival this summer. That’s why I’ve got them out.” She sat back in the corner of the sofa, trying to hide her discomfort. She didn’t really like people looking at her drawings until they were finished.
He put the drawing down and strolled over to the screen that held her sleeping area. A futon bed and a wardrobe were hidden behind the screen, and he peered round it before coming back to the sofa.
Thank goodness I made the bed this morning. She glanced sideways at him as he sat next to her.
“I like your room,” he said. “It has character. Like you.”
“Where do you live when you’re in New York?” she asked.
“I’ve a loft apartment. Two bedrooms, big open-plan living space. It overlooks the East River, and although it’s on the 22nd floor, I can still hear traffic. Police sirens, taxi horns, music from car stereos. All night sometimes.” He grinned at her. “I love it.”
“It sounds like my sort of place,” she said.
“You’ll have to come and visit.”
She examined his expression from the corner of her eye. “I’d like that.”
“Will you come?” He cupped her cheek, turning her face towards him.
“I—”
He kissed her, a brief touch of his mouth, before pulling back at least an inch, leaving her lips tingling at the abandonment.
She squinted at him, his face too close for her to focus on. He leaned forward again. His mouth lingered on hers until her lips softened and parted, and she kissed him back, letting her tongue tangle with his. His hands moved to rest on her shoulders. Her head sagged against the back of the sofa, and she lifted her arms to bury her fingers in his hair.
He wrapped his arms round her and pulled her out of her corner and across his lap.
“You’re so small”—one of his hands flattened on her stomach—“and so perfect.”
Heat pooled in the skin beneath his palm and leaked down her body.
She drew in a shuddering breath, unable to think properly. How did we get here? I want him. There had been no build up. One moment they’d been colleagues, the next conspirators, and then he’d pounced on her.
“So delicate.” He dropped a kiss on her nose.
“Aiden?” She could feel the thud of his heart beneath her hand.
“I’ve thought about doing this since the first time I saw you.”
She wriggled round so that she could see his face, but his expression was hidden in the dim light. “We can’t—”
He rubbed his cheek against her hair and slid his hand up to cup her breast. “Of course we can.”
A bolt of desire shot through her; she gasped and pressed herself closer to him as he kissed her again. In the back of her mind, she heard a familiar sound, but it didn’t seem important, so she ignored it.
“Hey?” A voice broke into her world of physical sensation. “What’s going on here? Remember my youth?”
Tallulah pushed Aiden away. She sat up, slid off his lap, blinked, and focussed on her brother, who stood in front of the sofa, arms folded, and a very disapproving expression on his face.
“Kyle?” She pulled herself together. “Where the hell have you been? I haven’t seen you for days.”
“Never mind where I’ve been. What do you think you’re doing? That’s your boss.” He pointed an accusing finger at Aiden, who rubbed his face.
“I know who it is.” Tallulah’s mind began to function again. She’d think about her inexplicable behaviour later. “I still want to know where you’ve been.”
“What business is it of yours?” Kyle’s voice was hostile. “You’re my sister. Not my keeper or my mother. And it looks to me like you might need a keeper.”
“You’re staying with me,” Tallulah said. “I’m responsible for you. I want to know where you are.”
Kyle kicked the sofa. “Tough. We’ve had this conversation.”
Aiden opened his mouth. “Don’t—”
Tallulah jabbed her elbow into his midriff.
He grunted.
“I’ll handle this.” She took a deep breath and made herself remember how old Kyle was, and how he’d left his foster home because he felt controlled. She forced herself to keep calm.
“Look Kyle, I was worried. I couldn’t sleep. And you’re right. It isn’t really my business. But please tell me if you’re going to be away?”
Kyle kicked the sofa again. “I suppose I could have called.”
Tallulah hid her sigh of relief. “How’s the job?”
Kyle glanced at Aiden, whose face was blank. “Okay, I guess. That woman in Human Resources told me I could work on one of the construction sites next week. See the buildings the company produces.”
“Sounds good.”
Kyle glanced at Aiden again. “I still want to know what you were doing with him.”
Aiden folded his arms and leaned back.
“Tallie, you shouldn’t sleep with your boss. Even I know that. And—”
“I’m not sleeping with him,” she snapped.
“It looked—”
“And if I have to keep my nose out of your business,” she said, “then I think you owe me the same.”
“You’re my sister. It’s my job to look out for you.”
Next to her, she heard a peculiar snort come from Aiden, and she turned to glare at him. “I think it’s time you left.”
Aiden pushed himself off the sofa. “Show me out.”
Tallulah grabbed his arm. “Come on.”
As they walked down the stairs to the main entrance, Aiden nudged her. “It’s obvious he’s your brother.”
“Why?” Tallulah asked cautiously. Kyle looked nothing like her; his height and mop of hair came from his father, a West Indian who’d lived with Ellie Becks for a few months.
“Same sense of responsibility. How old did you say he was?”
“I don’t think I did. He’ll be eighteen at the end of the year.”
“How long is he staying with you?”
Tallulah shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope he’ll go back to his foster family at the end of the summer. They’ve offered to help him go to university.”
“And—”
“He doesn’t like being told what to do, but at least he’s talking to them again.” She undid the locks on the door.
Aiden paused. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He cupped the back of her head and pulled her towards him.
Her heart rate picked up. “I don’t—”
He kissed her thoroughly, leaving her standing in the doorway as he ran down the steps. She touched her fingers to her mouth and waited until he vanished around the corner before closing the door and slowly climbing the six flights of stairs to her room.
Kyle was sitting on the sofa eating a chocolate bar.
“That’s mine.” She made a grab for the candy.
He pushed the remains into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “So, what’s going on?”
Tallulah shrugged and flopped onto the sofa next to him. “Seriously? I haven’t a clue.”
“I meant it,” he said. “Even I know it’s a bad idea to mix it with your boss.”
“I know.” Tallulah dropped her head, letting her hair hide her expression. “I must be mad. It’s just a temporary job though.”
“Right.” Kyle rolled his eyes.
“What about you? What have you been up to?”
Kyle glanced sideways at her. “You’re not going to nag me, are you?”
“Probably not,” she said. “If you’ve done something really bad, I might drop a brick on you while you’re sleeping, but—”
He laughed. “I’ve been staying with one of the girls from the post room. You met her. She’s called Tanya. She’s really nice.”
“What about not mixing it at work?” Tallulah pushed her hair back and raised her eyebrows. “She’s only seventeen.”
“Eighteen now, and at least she’s not my boss.” He swallowed the last of the chocolate. “And everybody knows most people meet their partners at work.”
“Partners?”
He grinned.
“Why don’t we meet Zoe for dinner tomorrow night?” Tallulah said. She needed to see her siblings, remind herself what was really important. “I’ll ring her in the morning. You could bring Tanya along.”
“Mmm.” Kyle looked dubious. “She’s younger than you.”
“So? So are you.”
“Why don’t you try and find Mia?” Kyle avoided answering. “Get her out with us.”
“She probably won’t be able to come. I’ll ring her.” She stood up. “I’m going to bed. It’s a workday tomorrow.”