Chapter 36

Crissy

I got home and went in search of my father, but ironically, he was nowhere to be found. Sissy wasn’t home, and Mel was probably out spending my father’s money again on some frivolous purchase. So I left a note on the refrigerator door. I just told them all I was going out to dinner with a friend and that I’d be back in pretty late. Then I made my way upstairs and tried to figure out what I would wear.

I heard my phone vibrate on the bed. No doubt it would be Grant sending me his address. I flipped through the things in my closet, trying to find the perfect outfit for tonight. This was something that hadn’t been planned beforehand, and a part of me was excited. All his lessons for me had been planned out up until this point, so I knew this wasn’t just any old lesson.

Maybe my dream was about to come true. Maybe this was the night where Grant Jacobs told me he was in love with me, too. It’d be hard, what with me working for him and our age difference, but I knew we could get through it. We were strong as a couple. That power couple you always saw on television.

I knew that could be us.

I pulled out a deep orange dress that clung to every curve I had. I slipped it over my head, pulling it down my shoulders before I hiked my tits up in it. It was padded just enough to cover up the barbells, but not enough to where my erect nipples wouldn’t poke through. I decided to forego the panties and wear my matching orange heels. Then I flipped my hair over and fluffed it out. It was full of volume and ready for Grant to wrap his fingers in. I sighed, and my body shivered with anticipation for what was to come.

I could feel it in my bones.

He was going to tell me tonight, and I would say it back.

I touched up my makeup and splashed on a deep red lipstick, then threaded some earrings into my ears. I smoothed my hands over my dress one last time, my shoulders bare for him as my curves shone through the fabric. Then I grabbed my coat. The air was chilly tonight. Foreboding, if I didn’t know any better. I was ready to be in the warm, strong arms of Grant for the night, and part of me almost amended the note I left on the fridge. Part of me wanted to write that I would be gone for the evening just so I could stay in his arms.

But something inside told me that was a bad idea.

I took out my phone and typed in his address. I listened to the navigation guide me to his house, but once I hit a certain point, I remembered where to go. I pulled up behind his car and made my way to the porch, foregoing ringing the doorbell and simply walking in.

“Grant?”

I shrugged off my coat and hung it up as smells from the kitchen wafted up my nose. Salmon and lemon and butter floated around my head as light hints of garlic trailed underneath my nostrils. My heels clicked across the floor as I walked through his massive foyer, and that was when I finally heard his voice ring out.

“Care for some wine? There’s a glass on the table just for you.”

The blood-red wine matched my lips, and as I came into the kitchen, I saw the spread he was cooking. Homemade yeast rolls and steamed vegetables. Massive slabs of salmon and mashed sweet potatoes. He looked like he was prepared to feed an army, but all I could do was salivate. I had no idea the man could cook like this.

Was there anything he couldn’t do?

I went over to the glass of wine on the table and picked it up. It was odd for Grant to have not looked at me by now, but maybe he was just timing the salmon. I’d never cooked with it before, but I knew timing was everything. I sipped on the wine, noticing how heavy in alcohol it was, and I smirked. He didn’t have to get me loose in order to have his way with me. I’d lovingly give myself to him time and time again.

Smelling this dinner only solidified what he was going to do. You didn’t cook a meal like this for someone unless you had something important to tell them.

And I was ready for those words to hit my ears.

“I hope you’re ready for—”

His words caught in his throat as he turned around with the salmon. He stood there, his jaw agape, as his eyes caressed my body. I cocked my hip out as I tipped the wine up to my lips, watching him as he watched me. For a second, his chest didn’t move with his breaths, and it wasn’t until I called his name that he began breathing again.

“I’m ready for whatever the night brings,” I said.

“You look incredible,” he said.

“And you cook incredible,” I said, grinning at him. “I didn’t know you had such a talent.”

“I was the cook in my family, even growing up. Just something that developed out of necessity.”

I loved learning new things about him. Things about how he was raised and how he lived his life before me. I wanted to know it all. I wanted to sit for hours while he talked. I wanted to know all the ins and outs of his life. His secrets and his motivations. I wanted to know his fears, and what kept him up at night, gnawing at him. I wanted to know what he held dear, and what was most important to him.

What he loved.

“Sit,” he said. “Take a load off.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” I said, winking.

He tipped the salmon onto my plate before he plated his. He seemed a bit rigid, like there was something plaguing his mind. He filled his wine glass before he sat across the table from me, not beside me like he usually did. I saw a folder sitting on one of the chairs, filled to the brim with paperwork.

“Bringing your work home, I see,” I said.

The sentiment didn’t garner me so much as a grunt, much less a verbal response.

We ate in relative silence, and his eyes didn’t come up to mine again. For a man who was about to profess his love to me, he sure was acting weird. I tried to do little things, like tuck my hair behind my ear or scoot my foot toward him, but he was too far away for me to reach. At one point, I even coughed, trying to get him to whip his gaze up to me to see if I was all right.

But all he did was continue to drink his wine and eat his dinner.

“All right, Jacobs. What gives?”

“Hmm?” he hummed.

“You’ve been distant all evening,” I said. “You cook this fabulous meal, but them we eat in silence. You haven’t once attempted to wiggle me out of this dress. I came panty-less for you because I figured that’s what you would want with this spontaneous lesson or profession of something, and that file over there’s giving me more attention than you are. What gives?”

He wiped his mouth off before he set the napkin down over his plate. The dream of him professing his love to me slowly melted from my mind, and in its place was a reality that slowly dawned on me.

I’d never been broken up with before. Was this how it happened?

“We need to talk,” he said.

“Shit,” I said as I stood to my feet.

“Crissy, you really should sit down.”

“If you wanted to go ahead and end things, you could’ve done that in a phone call,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

“You didn’t need all this pomp and circumstance just to end things,” I said. “We both know this thing had a termination date. All you needed to do was text me and let me know the termination date had arrived.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

I grabbed my glass of wine and tipped the rest of it back before I set it on the counter. I turned and headed for the front door, making my way toward my coat. I didn’t need to sit here and look the man I loved in the face as he ended shit with me. I’d been through enough.

Much more than I ever would’ve imagined with him.

“Hold on, Crissy. Would you just stop fucking walking for a second, Miss Marks?!”

His hand came down onto my arm, and he whipped me around. His eyes connected with mine as he pulled my body to his, and for a split second, I saw fear rage behind his eyes. Something was plaguing Grant that he was afraid of, and I lifted my hand to cup his cheek. His eyes fluttered shut, nuzzling into the palm of my hand. For the first time since I’d met him, he was showing me his vulnerability.

Something had happened to him, and he couldn’t talk about it.

“What’s going on, Grant?” I asked. “What’s raging in that mind?”

“You’re going to hate me if I tell you,” he said.

I pulled my arm from his grasp and cupped both of his cheeks. I pulled his lips down to mine, tasting the wine and feeling the trembling he was trying to desperately keep at bay. Someone had hurt my Grant. Someone had done something to him, and if I had anything to do with it, they would pay.

“Try me,” I whispered.

He took my hand and led me back to the kitchen table. He sat me down in my seat before he picked up the folder, sitting down in the chair next to me as he handed it over.

“I figured out what’s going on with the company,” he said.

“Holy shit. You did? What the fuck’s going on?”

I opened the folder and saw the first few pages. Things were highlighted and circled, and my eyes fluttered over them as I pushed my plate out of the way. Numbers and calculations that didn’t match up, insane amounts of money taken out with insurance for a deal that was obviously set up to go south. I.P. addresses skimming money off the top of everyone’s budgets.

Holy shit, I bet it was Dylan. That fucking asshole was a creep of the highest order. It wouldn't surprise me one fucking bit if this damn I.P. address led straight to his fucking desk. He was a greedy motherfucker who took whatever he thought he was entitled to, and he would be the kind of person that would take money he thought he was owed.

I ran the calculations in my head and realized the numbers given to us with regard to the company acquisition were inflated by more than eighty percent. My eyes scanned the accounts that had been skimmed from dating back months. I saw the additions of the money in the margins and realized they matched up within one-hundred thousand dollars of the money the company would make if they bought out Tike Oils.

But that didn’t make sense, did it?

“It makes sense,” Grant said.

“Someone’s embezzling from the company and planning to replace it?” I asked.

“Yep,” he said.

I continued shuffling through the pages. I started coming across numbers and names I didn’t recognize. Names assigned to the I.P. addresses that were being tracked. They all had the same name, “J&Mtech.” I guessed those were probably the work computers assigned to everyone in the building.

But there was one address that didn’t have that name.

And the I.P. address matched the one I’d seen earlier as being the one skimming off the top.

“‘A.M.House’?” I asked.

So it wasn’t Dylan?

Slowly, the pieces began to fall into place. I threw the folder onto the table and stood up from my seat, feeling Grant rise slowly beside me. This couldn’t be right. Something was wrong with the information he’d been presented. Paul had mixed something up, or accounting didn’t get something right.

This shit was wrong somehow. It had to be.

“Crissy—”

“My father isn’t fucking stealing from his own damn company, Grant.”

“He is, Crissy. It’s him.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “There’s a mistake. A fault in the chain. Someone’s trying to cover up their tracks, and they’re blaming my father. He would never do that to you. To the company he built with his own fucking hands alongside my dead mother!”

I knew I was shrieking. I knew tears were pouring down my face. I stumbled away from the kitchen table, and Grant tried to reach for me, but all I did was pull away from him. I flashed my eyes toward him, and I saw the concern tumbling behind them. I backed away, like I’d gotten too close to a fire that was about to sear me to the bone.

He didn’t bring me here to tell me he loved me.

He brought me here to accuse my father of being a thief.

“The thief’s I.P. address is always the same,” he said.

“Shut up.”

“They all point back to a laptop that had been smuggled into the building,” he said.

“Shut up, Grant.”

“The money matches exactly,” he said. “And the insurance policy? Taken out by your father, and it can only be paid out to your father. Not to accounting, like it needs to be.”

“Shut the fuck up!”

I’d just repaired things with my father. I’d heard for the first time that he was truly proud of the person I’d turned into. I was fucking a man who was about to accuse him of something that would send him to jail for years, just when I’d finally started to get him back.

My vision began to tunnel as I stumbled for my coat. I could hear Grant behind me, but I swung around and backed into the wall. I held my hand out as tears flooded down my cheeks. My chest was heaving and my mind was racing.

All signs pointed to my father embezzling.

But I knew that wasn’t him.

“But he…was going to replace it,” I said.

“Then cash in once the deal went south with the insurance claim,” Grant said.

“Something’s wrong,” I whispered. “He...he wouldn’t.”

The wine bubbled up in my throat. I felt Grant’s eyes on me, and for the first time, I didn’t want his stare. I didn’t want his attention or his love or his affections.

I wanted him gone.

I wanted to be alone.

I opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. His hand came back down on my wrist, but I wrenched away from him. I fell down the steps, scraping myself on the cement below, and I heard Grant scramble down just before I got to my feet.

“Let…me…go!” I screamed.

“Crissy, you’re bleeding. Let me clean you up.”

“Stay the fuck away from me,” I said.

“Crissy.”

“Shut up, Grant!”

“Miss Marks!”

“You don’t get to call me that anymore!”

I slammed myself into my car, threw it into reverse, and sped away. I was infuriated. My father couldn’t have done this. There was no way. Not without a good reason. I was pissed, having to choose between siding with the man I loved and siding with my father, who I’d just gotten back. Tears clouded my vision as I raced home, my car bobbing and weaving between the lanes. I wasn’t sure how I got back in one piece, but when I barreled through the front door, I heard my dad and Mel arguing.

“But you promised, Alex!”

“Sweetheart, we just have to wait a little longer,” he said. “Then you can have whatever size you want.”

“You promised me a bigger boat last year,” she said, pouting.

“And you’ll get it, honey. I promise. Remember how I promised you the night I proposed? A bigger ring than I’d gotten you and a bigger boat than I had.”

“You always do this,” she fumed. “You always tell me all the things I want to hear before never going through with them. Alex Marks, you’re a fucking liar!”

“We just need to wait until I get my annual bonus,” he said. “That entire check is allocated to the boat. I swear to you, darling. It’ll be paid outright, and the keys will be in your hand the next day.”

“They better be,” Mel said. “Otherwise, why the hell did I marry you?”

I sat on the steps as they continued to fight. I listened from my perch as Mel bled my father for everything he was worth, and there was an inkling of doubt that swirled around in my mind. Could Grant have been right? Could my father actually be stealing from the company? It was hard to digest, hard to swallow. It was hard to imagine my father not being able to financially fend for himself.

But as I listened to Mel pry the credit card from my father’s wallet and storm from the house, I heard the sound of his defeated sigh as my phone began to vibrate in my hand.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew Grant was right.