Jimmy

A knock came at my door, and I groaned. The last thing I wanted to do with my Friday morning was interact with anyone. Markus and I had indulged in way too much alcohol the night before, and I was fighting off a terrible hangover. I told him about Ashley. About how she had lied to me and how I thought she was still lying. Markus gave me some decent advice, which all centered around the fact that I had to come clean with her. I couldn’t keep holding her at arm’s length until she spilled the beans to me.

I had to tip the can and spill the beans myself.

“Come in,” I said.

I heard the door open as a pair of soft footsteps padded in. I looked up and saw Ashley entering my office, her hair hanging down past her shoulders. She had her contacts in today, and her skin looked like it was glowing. I had a hard time ripping my eyes away from her in the dress she had worn to work. Her heels flexed her calves, and the soft fabric draped along her curves.

I sat up at my desk as my eyes traveled to hers.

“What’s wrong?” Ashley asked.

I furrowed my brow as she took another step forward.

“Why have you been treating me like a pariah?” she asked.

I slid my chair back from my desk and walked around to perch on the edge of it. Her brazen demeanor was shocking, to say the least. Ashley was always so quiet and timid. But with her power dress on and her hair down and her vision free of her glasses, it was like I was staring at a new woman, a powerful woman.

It was alluring.

But it also meant her hormones were raging.

“I’m not going to ask you again, Jimmy,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I said.

“That’s a lie, and you know it. Yesterday, you didn’t want to be around me, and you didn’t call me after you were done with Markus last night.”

“I don’t answer to you,” I said plainly.

“That. Right there. That tone of voice you take with every employee you can’t stand. You’ve never taken that tone with me, and I haven’t done anything professionally to deserve that tone.”

“You’ve lied to me and taken sick days when you weren’t sick. You know personal days aren’t paid, so you took advantage.”

“That’s what this is about?” she asked. “You think I was trying to swindle you out of money?”

I was growing more and more worried as her gaze grew hotter. She was angry. Very angry. Angrier than I’d ever seen her before. Ashley wasn’t an angry person. She was the most patient person I knew. My eyes fell to her stomach quickly before finding her eyes again, and I envisioned having a child with her. How her body would morph and how people in the office would look at her. How her hormones would rage like this and how she would start craving random things in the middle of the night. I’d have to move her in. Go to her doctor’s appointments.

The mere idea of it all tugged a grin across my cheeks.

I wouldn’t mind having a child with Ashley. With her intelligence and my looks and her beautiful eyes and my persistent demeanor, we would have an unstoppable force on our hands. I would have someone to pass my company down to, someone I trusted in this climate of people I couldn't trust.

“I know something’s wrong, and I’m not leaving until you tell me what it is,” Ashley said.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it for a second,” I said.

“Jimmy, we need to go—”

Ross’s eyes fell on Ashley, and even he was taken aback by what she looked like. Ashley’s eyes swung to Ross, and I could see the worry that crossed his face. Her anger was apparent to someone more than me, which gave me relief.

I wasn’t reading into things any more than anyone else would.

“What?” Ashley asked.

“Some of the investors are here,” Ross said. “They wanna see you and Ashley.”

“Why are they here?” Ashley asked.

“They’ve caught wind of our issues,” Ross said.

In an instant, Ashley took off for the door. She left me in her dust as she shoved Ross out of the way. He shot me a look, and I shrugged him off, trying to tell him to let it go. She was hormonal, that much was for sure, and I didn’t know if it was wise to have her in a meeting like this. But there was nothing I could do about it until after this meeting, and my only hope was that Ashley kept it together long enough to get through this damn thing.

Ashley was already fielding questions as I sat down at the end of the table. They were demanding to see the numbers, and she was trying to push back, trying to keep everything concealed despite her anger toward me.

I stood from my seat and cleared my throat to catch their attention.

“Ashley, it’s okay. Show them the documents,” I said.

“For the record, it’s not any of their business,” Ashley said. “The only accounts they need to be concerned with are theirs.”

Then she got up from her chair and went into her office to get the information.

“As you can see, the transactions go back a long way, but none of them come from the investors’ accounts,” Ashley said.

“But you’re telling me twenty million dollars has been funneled out from underneath the nose of this company?” Mr. Matthews asked.

“Over a long period of time, yes,” she said.

“Do you have any idea who this L.R. person is?”

I watched Ashley tense as she threw her gaze over to me. There was something about her eyes that changed. The anger in them almost completely subsided, and in its place rose a worry that flipped my stomach. My mind began to swirl again as she drew in a deep breath. She needed to stop looking at me. She needed to hold her ground and answer their questions.

It was what I’d hired her for, and the last thing we needed was to look like she was being prompted.

“We have some theories, but nothing concrete yet. It was why we hadn’t stepped forward with this information yet,” Ashley said.

Theories? We had theories?

What the fuck was this woman hiding from me now?

“And when were you going to tell us about this?” Mr. Matthews asked.

“When we knew who L.R. was and had them in custody,” she said. “Because this does not affect investor’s accounts, it is none of your concern.”

“I beg to differ,” Mr. Matthews said.

“Then someone else should. Most of your checks have bounced before they cleared, so if any investor should be upset, it’s certainly not you.”

“Then I’ll ask,” another investor said. “What happens financially at this company is for us to look into.”

“So long as it affects the money you give and the profits you reap. Everything else is out of your jurisdiction,” Ashley said.

“Then how about this for jurisdiction? This company has until the end of the week to get to the bottom of whatever this is in these balance sheets. If you don’t, we walk.”

“All of us,” Mr. Matthews said.

“I can assure you, we will get to the bottom of it,” I said.

Ross escorted them out of the room, and I shot a look over to Ashley. If she couldn't reign in these pregnancy hormones of hers, then she was going to lose her damn job. She couldn’t come at the investors with that kind of attitude, especially when we had no grounds to stand on in terms of who the fuck L.R. was.

And now, we had until the end of the week because of her big ass mouth.

“My company’s done if they walk,” I said.

“You can find more investors,” Ashley said.

“It’s not that simple,” Ross said.

“Then you better do whatever you’re going to do to figure out who L.R. is,” she said.

“Something tells me you have a theory,” I said.

“Would you believe me if I told you?” she asked.

“I don’t know what’s going on with the two of you, but it stops now. You can resume the couple quarrel once we stop this ship from sinking,” Ross said.

“Fine,” I said. “But we start investigating now. Ross, there’s a number to the private detective agency I enjoyed the most on my desk. Call them, and tell them I’ll double their initial offer if they can get here within the hour and get to work.”

“Got it,” Ross said.

“And Ashley?”

“What?” she asked.

“Take some deep breaths. We’ll get through this. I’m not leaving you alone in this. I trust you, whether you think I do or not.”

I watched her body relax, and it all but confirmed my suspicions. She was pregnant. Why she was making me dig it out of her, I had no idea. But I wasn't leaving her during this time. She was obviously scared, and the stress from this entire situation was getting to her, but no matter what, she wasn’t doing this alone.

She had me whether she wanted me or not.