Chapter Seventeen

Belle

The next week passed in a blur. I tried not to pay attention to anything Drake McManus did. It was easy when I was at the hospital, but once Mom was released home into round-the-clock professional nursing care, my excuse for staying home and not helping with some of the key points in the merger fell apart, since she had professional care and support long enough for me to get a few hours at the company. I knew the company better than anyone, except maybe Carol, so I needed to make sure everything dovetailed. But after that, I was out of here. I could go back to my life and plans from before the company started to die. I could apply to graduate school and get out of L.A., where I felt so trapped. I could leave the world of false glamor behind and do something real in my life; something that mattered. Instead of handling PR four-alarm fires, I could help save the environment or get an advanced degree in conservation like I’d always planned.

Hell, maybe I’d get it in Oregon, Maine, or England. Who cared? I could get as far away from The City of Angels as possible. I didn’t want to be in the town Drake McManus owned. It was too painful.

He wasn’t set to come into the offices today. He and Dad were working cheek by jowl to rehab the charity so I’d only have to worry about bumping into vice presidents and turning over financial records to help smooth through the transition.

Good.

If I’d had to see him, I’d have fallen apart.

Still, the one thing I didn’t expect as I opened my office up at six a.m. was to find George Peters slipping through my door.

I groaned, figuring the universe was having a field day. Drake seemed to be dating the hottest starlet in L.A. and the human pest was back to hovering over me again like my own personal Steve Urkel.

“George, it’s super early.”

“Like I’m not a VP as well. I knew that his team was coming in to set everything up. I figured you’d need an extra hand,” he said, pulling up the other rolling chair in my office and bringing it closer to me than he had to.

George didn’t seem to think that “personal space” applied to him.

“You haven’t talked to me much since you got back,” he said, placing his hand over mine on my mouse.

I jerked back like I’d been scalded. “Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?” he asked. “You didn’t have to go at all. I tried to stop you. Hell, I’d have gone with you. I can see how upset you’ve been since you got back, how depressed. Do you think I’m blind?” His deep hazel eyes peered into mine.

“I think you pay a creepy amount of attention to me,” I snarked back.

“Maybe,” he said, standing and looming over me. He wasn’t as broad as Drake—who was?—but he was wiry and muscular, far stronger than I was. For a crazy moment, I regretted that I wasn’t near my purse where I kept my pepper spray. “But he did something to you. I knew if you left he’d tear you apart, play his mind games, and he did.”

“He didn’t do anything, and you should apologize for that stunt you pulled on the tarmac. You nearly jeopardized all the negotiations before they started. You did that alpha male crap and could have cost us everything!”

George chuckled and placed his hand on my thigh. “I think we know exactly the kind of negotiations you two were up to.” He pushed his hand up further and I grabbed it then, pushing it away.

“George, stop this. We’re not an ‘us.’ We’ve never been an ‘us,’ and even if Drake never existed, we’d still never be a couple. I can’t stand you, and if you don’t get your goddamn hand off my thigh, I’m going to claw your eyes out and then have Dad fire and blacklist your ass. Actually, I’m going to have those second two things happen anyway. Do you want to keep your eyes?”

“That’s cute,” he said. “That’s why I love that spunk of yours.” He leaned down and kissed me, his bulk pinning me for one panic-raging moment.

Fear lanced through me but so did rage. How dare he? I brought my knees up as hard as I could into his stomach. He let out a breath and staggered back as I grabbed the desk phone and slammed it down hard on his head. George groaned and fell to the carpet, giving me time to rush out and to the café across the street.

I couldn’t dial 911 fast enough.

***

“I can’t believe this!” my father screamed into his cell. “Neil, you can’t be serious. We have video footage of the attack. There’s his hair jammed in the phone base. The cops came to court and testified to what they saw on scene and the judge still let him post bail?”

My stomach turned days later and only a few hours post George’s arraignment. Daddy had pulled every string he still had to speed George to justice, but now there’d been bail.

Mom’s mouth fell open in concern but she tried to school her features to neutral. “Maybe he won’t be able to afford it.”

“It’s only set at one hundred thousand. George has that or has enough friends to do it. He’ll be out by morning,” Dad said, covering the end of the line. “I’m trying to see what else we can do before his trial.”

I stood and rubbed at the back of my neck. “It doesn’t even matter. When the date comes, I’m going to throw everything I have at that creep in my testimony.” I shuddered, my mind flashing back to those three monsters at the bar in the Bahamas. If Drake hadn’t been there, I didn’t even want to know what would have happened to me. I’d been able to save myself this time, but I wished he’d swept in to save me. I wish I could tell him what was happening, but it was too embarrassing to say. “I’m just gonna go upstairs and get some sleep. Tell Carol I’m sorry, but I just need to get some rest. I know she worked on dinner, but…”

Mom gathered me into her arms and squeezed tightly. It pained me to feel how thin she was. She might be out of danger as far as her aneurysm went, but she was also struggling with the cancer still eating through her, and was still all skin and bones.

“Don’t worry, baby. We’re here for you.”

“I know you are,” I said, kissing her forehead and hugging Dad, too. “I know you’re trying. I just need a minute.”

Dad snorted. “I need a crowbar and five minutes alone with George’s kneecaps.”

“The law will get him, but I just need to rest,” I said.

My legs felt heavy, as if they’d been made of iron as I trudged up the stairs. Then I crossed slowly into my bedroom and flung myself down on the mattress. Like always, my fingers snaked under my pillows and pulled out the collar. The diamonds were cold and hard against my fingertips, offering none of the warmth or comfort that Drake would have.

I curled up into a ball and held the collar to my chest, letting the memories of all our times together wash over me.

“I was wrong,” I said, my voice small and cold. “You weren’t a distraction, Drake. You were the only thing that was real.”

***

“Sis,” Carol said as she turned off the lights in her office across the hall. “You don’t have to burn the candle at two ends like this. Four days ago, George almost… I don’t even want to think about what he did. You don’t have to work. We’ll get the transition handled. With two companies this big, it won’t all happen overnight.”

“I have to work,” I said.

It was true. By day, I kept flashing back to what happened with George, with what he’d tried to do. At night, I’d hold my collar and toss and turn, pleasant memories of my time in the playroom with Drake haunting me. The only thing that seemed to help at all was to have something else to focus on, to have the details of the merger working through my brain. Besides, this morning I’d found something unusual. An account no one from our company seemed to have authorized. It looked like a slush fund of several million dollars, and it made absolutely no sense.

“I just… there’s something weird with the books is all.”

Carol snorted. “You run our books. There’s no one on Earth who’s sharper with them. I doubt there’s even a penny out of place.”

“Maybe,” I said, biting at my lower lip. “I’m just finding this weird pattern. I dunno. It’s like a few million dollars just got moved off the books. I can’t quite figure it out.”

“That has to be a glitch. No way that’d get past you,” Carol said in a cloying tone. Sighing, she threw her arm over my shoulder and gave me a tight hug. “All right, Nancy Drew, just don’t miss dinner, okay? Mom wanted to try something simple. It’s just spaghetti, but she wanted a celebratory dinner for how much better she’s been feeling.”

I chuckled. “As long as Dad didn’t make it. He’s the worst.”

“Agreed. Seriously, leave the accounting mystery to the CPAs. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Just keep taking care of you, okay?”

“An hour more, I promise,” I said as she shut the door to my office.

With my head down and my vision focused on the computer screen, I was hot on the trail of the missing funds. Well, the almost four million dollars of spare cash that clearly was in a slush fund that no one seemed to have authorized.

“The hell?” I blurted out loud, confused by everything.

The knob turned, and I quirked my head back, expecting it to be Carol checking up on me. Shit, had I missed dinner? Except my heart sank when I saw who was at the door.

“George!” I screamed, getting to my feet and brandishing my chair as best I could like a weapon. It was a huge rolling chair and a third of my size. I wasn’t doing well handling it. Flailing would have been a better description for how I was doing. “Get the fuck away from me!”

George shook his head and pulled out a gun. “I’m really sorry about all this, Belle.”

“Because I wouldn’t sleep with you?” I asked as he kept the gun trained on me.

He shook his head as he stalked over toward me. Arching his arm up, he shook his head. “No, because you know too much.”

With that, he brought the butt of the gun down hard against my skull, and I fell to the floor and into darkness.