Chapter 25

Grant

I woke up that morning tangled in the sheets of my bed. I stretched, trying to relieve myself of the stiffness in my muscles just as my alarm began to go off. It was nine in the morning, and I didn’t hear a sound coming from the hotel, which meant Crissy was still fast asleep in her room.

I smiled at the ache I felt, remembering just how hard she had tried to gain the upper hand with her wild little ways. She was learning well. That much I could tell. The meeting from yesterday was still lurking in the back of my mind, though.

I picked up the phone and saw that Alex still hadn’t called me back. I called his phone again, and it sent me to voice mail. I left him another message, telling him that we’d have to have a very serious talk when I got back. I knew something was going on. It wasn’t like Alex not to pick up his phone, and I had half a mind to track down Mel’s number just to see where he fucking was. I left him the company and its wellbeing while I was in New Orleans, and I was wondering if I had made the right decision in doing that.

I dragged myself out to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. I wasn’t really sure if Crissy drank any, so I left her some just in case. I threw open the double doors and took my black coffee out onto the balcony and allowed myself to take in the city. I saw the Old French Opera sign resting along the French Quarter, and it threw me back to the look on Crissy’s face when we first got here. It was as if she was enjoying the music coming from the opera, and I honestly wouldn’t have taken her for an opera fan. She seemed more like she’d be into all that modern, remixed bullshit.

I started wondering if she would let me take her to the opera one evening.

“Morning, Grant.”

I turned around with my coffee cup to my lips and grinned as a sleepy Crissy dragged herself to the kitchen. She grabbed the coffee, and I watched her douse it in creamer before she came and stood beside me. Her robe dropped down her back, revealing the spot I’d bit into last night during our throes of passion. I fingered the small bruise, grinning wildly at how easily I could mark her, and I saw goosebumps march up her neck just before she took a sip of her coffee.

Just the lightest touch could send her into a frenzy, and the idea throbbed my cock to life.

“Are you ready for the meeting this morning?” she asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Did my father ever get back to you?” she asked.

“How did you know I called him?”

“I figured with the men mentioning it in the meeting, you’d try him at least once. And I can tell by your shadowed demeanor that he probably hasn’t returned your call.”

She was getting good at reading situations, and I was impressed. I wondered if she understood that the meeting yesterday had been a steaming pile of shit, but before I could get into much more, my phone alarm rang out again.

“Nine thirty,” I said.

“Meeting’s in an hour,” she said. “I should go get ready.”

We finished our coffee before we got ready and headed to the meeting. The moment I walked into the conference room, I knew I was going to be infuriated, but I told Crissy to sit in the corner and take notes anyway. I set my briefcase down on the table and pulled out three separate pieces of paper, each housing a different agreement.

“Actually, Mr. Jacobs,” one of them said, “we brought our own agreement for you to look over.”

I looked at Crissy, and her eyes were glued to the man who was sliding me the contract. I picked it up off the table and ran my eyes over it, and I didn’t even get past the first page before I started laughing. This was a joke, right?

Their proposal was slapdash at best. There was no legal agreement and no signed statement saying a lawyer of theirs had looked it over. The pieces of paper had no start date for the agreement or even an agreed upon amount for J&M to give them. It was just two pieces of paper stating that they wanted us to invest so they could keep the employees intact, and they didn’t even outline what they would do with this amount of money.

It was a fucking joke.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Our proposal,” the man said.

“It doesn’t have anything in it,” I said. “There’s no pledged amount of money you seek, no course of action plotted out once I give you this money. Hell, there’s not even a lawyer’s sheet saying someone has looked this over for your sake.”

“Well, it’s what we came up with on such short notice,” the man said.

“Such short notice? You’ve been working with Alex Marks for almost two weeks. You’ve been floundering for almost three months. How is this short notice?”

The men looked around the table at each other, and I knew there was something someone wasn’t telling me. I wanted to keep them at the table until I figured it out, because as of right now, they were my only proof that something was wrong. Up until this point, Alex had me convinced that they were ready to discuss different proposals and choose one.

Clearly, however, they were not.

“Gentlemen, I want to thank you for this proposal. I will take it with me and have my lawyers look it over, and we will counter when we’re ready.”

“And by ‘we,’ you mean yourself and Alex?” someone asked.

I locked my eyes hard with the man who had just opened his mouth before I flicked my gaze over to Crissy. The look in her eyes showed just as much confusion as I felt, and I nodded before I drew a sharp breath through my nose.

“Yes. Alex and I will sit down, look it over, and get back with you,” I said. “Just understand, gentlemen. I have the last say in this. I took over J&M years ago. He started it, but I own it.”

“Understood, Mr. Jacobs,” they all said.

“Good. Thank you for your time.”

I didn’t want to stay in New Orleans any longer. I’d planned to take the entire weekend to negotiate this shit with them, but I had bigger things to attend to back at the company. Crissy must’ve read my fucking mind, because she was typing away on her laptop as I packed up my things. By the time we got to the hotel, the porter had packed up all our stuff next to our rental car and had already checked us out.

All we did was jump into the car and get back on the road, headed to Baton Rouge.

“Crissy, can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything, Grant.”

“How do you feel about the two meetings you just witnessed this week?”

“I think they were a load of shit,” she said. “I think something’s going on, and they know it. I’m not sure what it has to do with my father, but something tells me it’s those junior executives.”

I was surprised that her thoughts lined up with mine, and honestly, I was impressed. I got another glimpse at the smart head she had on her shoulders, and she was really coming along as an assistant. The mere fact that she knew to get us checked out and back on the road was incredible, but the realization that she was also pinpointing this on her father meant she was devouring every situation I was placing her in.

Crissy Marks was definitely becoming worth my time.

I watched her as she looked out the window, watching the world roll by. She sat there in her pencil skirt and her yellow blouse, her hair tied up into a bun and her hands clasped in her lap. Right now, she didn’t look like the ferociously independent woman I’d taken with all my might last night. She didn’t look like the little minx who teased me with that garter belt and fucked me in that restaurant.

Right now, she looked like a poised young woman, ready to conquer the world in front of her by leaps and bounds.

Before I could catch what I was doing, I reached over and grabbed her hand. Her gaze whipped over to mine, her eyes smiling at me before she lifted my hand and placed it against her ruby red lips. I felt an electric sensation ricochet up my arm, and in that moment, I realized what was happening. My feelings for Crissy went deeper than just the little fling we were engaging in. My emotions ran deeper for her because I wasn’t just teaching her, I was guiding her. I was watching her blossom. She was taking instruction and building a new world for herself, and I was intoxicated by the entire thing.

“What?” she asked, giggling.

“Nothing. You just look radiant is all.”

She smiled at me before she turned her head back out the window, and my thumb started drawing circles on top of her skin. I couldn’t keep her. She couldn’t actually be mine. Eventually, she would move on. Eventually, she would grow up. Eventually, she would take another job where she would excel, and she would carve out the life for herself that she’d always wanted. I was holding the hand of a free-spirited, independent woman who would never be tied down to a man like me.

And I knew all this going in. This thing that started as a release of stress had morphed into a game between the two of us. But even games came to an end, and it would be no different with Crissy. I had to keep pressing forward after I lost my parents, I had to keep pressing forward after I lost my wife, and I’d have to keep pressing forward after I lost her.

Crissy.

I was suddenly nervous about when it would end. I had no issues ending affairs with women. With them, it was all fancy dates and sexy dresses and appendages getting tangled in bed before I cooked them breakfast and shoved them out the door. If their pussies were tight enough, a second round might happen over the next week, but tossing women out the door after I’d had my fill had never been an issue. Not since I lost my wife. I had no real reason or passion to connect with a woman in that respect.

But Crissy seemed to have found a way underneath my skin.

The ride back to the office was silent. I tried to send Crissy home, but she was intent on finishing out the workday before the weekend hit. I admired her tenacity and perseverance for the job, so I ushered her to her seat just as my office phone rang. There were only two departments that had my direct office number—accounting and human resources—and neither of those calls could be good given the circumstances I was facing.

“Crissy, formally type up the minutes for the meetings and file them accordingly. Electronically and paper-wise.”

“Will do, Mr. Jacobs. Anything else?”

“Stick close by. This phone call might be important.”

I dropped my bag in my office before I picked up the phone. Accounting was on the other end, and the manager was asking for a private meeting. I told Crissy to hold all my calls until I could get this over with, and ten minutes later, the flabbergasted woman was waltzing into my office and slamming the door behind her

“Mrs. Rubenstein, how can I help you?”

“Mr. Grant. I’ve been keeping an eye on things for you while you left everything in Alex’s hands, and it prompted me to look into some things.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Mr. Marks was just acting differently,” she said. “Usually when you leave things to him, it’s bright and sunny. You know, getting a taste of what he loved before he handed it over to you type thing.”

“He wasn’t like that this time?” I asked.

“No. He was distant and silent, so I used that as an excuse to look into things.”

“Mrs. Rubenstein, you’re the accounting manager. You don’t need excuses.”

“Just take a look at these.” She handed me a sheet of paper with various transactions highlighted. Large sums of money were being siphoned off the top of department budgets, and a couple of withdrawals came from the company account itself.

“What the hell are these?” I asked.

“I’m still not quite sure. A couple are large sum withdrawals, and the ones highlighted in blue are differences in allocated department budgets versus what dropped into their respective accounts. The numbers don’t match up.”

“Why didn’t we see this sooner?” I asked.

“If you skim off the top of budgets, sometimes it can take months to track down,” she said. “The formal budget paperwork never actually gets put into the system, so there’s nothing to gauge it by. We and the departments agree on a budget, it’s written down and signed, and then I go in and queue up the transaction for the funds to be released from the company account and dumped into the department account.”

“What would someone have to do in order to skim funds off the top?” I asked.

“They’d have to go in after I’ve already queued up the funds drop and alter it, sir. I took the liberty of checking the ones that have been set up for this quarter, and, sure enough, they were altered. I changed them back, and I’ve got I.T. trying to trace the other logins and figure out who’s changing them.”

“Is there any way to at least pinpoint what area of the building it’s coming from?” I asked. “The changes, I mean?”

“Not for sure without I.T. tracing things,” she said.

“Something behind your eyes tells me you have a theory, however.”

“I mean, it’s just speculation,” she said.

“What have you found?”

She slid me another piece of paper, this time with the allocated budgets for every department. I looked at the numbers and didn’t see anything weird until I got to the middle part of the page.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“All of the departments have been skimmed off of, except the junior executive department,” she said.

I looked at the numbers, and, sure enough, the J.E. department’s budget had gone up by four thousand dollars. None of this shit made any sense, but all it did do was confirm a fear that was running around inside my head.

Alex knew something was going on, and he was avoiding talking to me.

I still had no idea if this had anything to do with the company acquisition shit going down in New Orleans, but since Alex seemed to be the link between all this bullshit, I had a feeling he at least knew something.

My stomach grew uneasy, and my head began to hurt. What the hell was going on? Why was everything suddenly going to shit? Why did I get the sense that the one man I trusted in this whole fucking company was sneaking behind my back? Why would he have any reason to?

“Thank you, Mrs. Rubenstein. Keep me posted. Check the logs regularly, bring me paper copies, don’t email me, and don’t let anyone know you’re looking up anything or keeping me in the loop.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Anything else?”

“Yes. Keep an eye out for me. You seem to be very good at that.”

“I’ve got five kids, sir,” she said, grinning. “It’s the only thing I’m an expert at.”

I sighed and sat back in my chair as she exited my office. Raking my hands across my face, I twirled my chair around to take in the view in front of me. My heart was pounding in my ears, and my blood was rushing through my veins. I felt myself simultaneously exploding and imploding. I was just glad I hadn’t taken any of this to the media yet. They’d be devouring me alive right now.

“Grant?”

I whipped around and saw Crissy sitting there. The door was closed, and she’d cut the lights off, giving my eyes a bit of a break as I sat forward on my forearms.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t get upset, but I was listening outside,” she said.

“With the door closed?” I asked.

“I may have cracked it open, and if you’d like my opinion, I’m willing to share it.”

“Go on,” I said.

“I know you’re thinking the worst. That maybe, somehow, my father’s trying to take this company away from you. Maybe he’s trying to buy out the other company himself by taking money from underneath your nose so he can be CEO and compete with you. But I know my father. I can’t honestly tell you I like him most of the time, but I know him. And I know how much he cherishes your friendship. My father is many things: weak to women, controlled by his current wife, a pussy who doesn’t know how to put his foot down so he exercises his control over me.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at her as she winked at me.

“But one thing my father would never do is try to fuck you over,” she said. “He adores this company. He built it alongside my mother with his bare fucking hands. I’m not sure why he and the junior executives would be skimming money, but it’s most certainly not to take this company from you or demean your reputation or somehow become your competition.”

“I’ll take your opinion into consideration, Miss Marks. You’re growing into a very intuitive business woman, and I value your insight.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “If I may, I have one other suggestion.”

“Go for it.”

“You have every right not to trust people right now, including me since I’m his daughter. If things need to stop between us—”

“No,” I said, interrupting her.

I knew what she was getting at, and in any other circumstance, she would be right. But those date stamps were dated weeks before she got here, and some of the most recent issues happened when she was by my side in New Orleans.

If anything, I needed her now more than ever.

I just wasn’t going to tell her that.

“There will be no need for that, Miss Marks. If there’s nothing else, you are dismissed.”

The smile on her face warmed my heart before she got up and headed back to her desk.