Building Billions - Part 2 Read online

  “So many reasons,” I said.

  “I don’t know what the hell’s going on in your mind or what happened at work today, but if you know who that person is, you have to tell Jimmy. Not Jimmy, your boyfriend. But Jimmy, your boss.”

  “What if he doesn’t believe me?”

  “Then that’s on him. When have you ever given him the notion you couldn’t be trusted.”

  I sighed as I closed my eyes.

  “Ashley, what did you do?” she asked.

  “I may have called in sick a time or two when I wasn’t sick to work out who L.R. was and then told Jimmy I wasn’t actually sick.”

  “Seriously, Ashley.”

  “I thought I was doing him a favor! Helping him, Cass. And now he doesn’t trust me. I don’t think, anyway.”

  “Why don’t you think?” she asked.

  “He’s been acting strangely. I had to go to the doctor yesterday because of a bad migraine.”

  “And he thinks you weren’t actually sick.”

  “I sent him a picture of the prescriptions I received. Hell, I could go get a doctor’s note.”

  “But that kind of shit doesn’t translate into ‘I think I know who’s stealing from you, but you won’t trust me because I took a personal day once.’ ”

  “I lied about the reason I took that personal day,” I said.

  “Apples to oranges. I’m telling you, Ashley. You have to tell him. How he reacts is on him. But you have to tell him what you know, even if you’re flat-out wrong, because the alternative is you’re right and his company goes under for it.”

  “I know,” I said. “I know.”

  “Will you come get Chipper tonight? Or is he staying with me?”

  “I’ll come get him in a couple of hours,” I said.

  “We’ll be waiting. Tell him, Ashley. Write him a note if you can’t do it in person. But for fuck’s sake, tell the man.”

  “I hear you, damn it. Okay? Sheesh.”

  “See you soon.”

  “Yep.”

  I hung up the phone and sat in my office for two hours waiting for Jimmy to call. I left my office and went to pick up Chipper and waited for him to call. I curled up with Chipper in my bed and listened to his soft snores as I watched the clock tick over to one in the morning.

  I waited for a call that never came.

  And it broke my heart.

  Chapter 21

  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.

  Chapter 22

  Ashley

  I pulled up to Cass’s apartment and started for her door. I needed to talk to my best friend. I didn’t need a lecture, and I didn’t need her telling me what to do. I needed a decent, extremely biased conversation. I needed her to be in my corner to try and sympathize with me. I clutched the two coffees I held in my hands as I reached my foot out, knocking my toe against her door.

  She whipped it open and cooed at Chipper before she took a coffee from my hand.

  “Did we have a date I forgot about?”

  “No,” I said. “But I do need something from you.”

  “What’s up?” Cass asked.

  “I need my best friend.”

  “You’ve got me,” she said.

  “No. I need my biased best friend, the one that’s always in my corner, the one who’s ready to bash heads in the second I start crying because she thinks someone’s hurt me.”

  “Has someone hurt you?”

  “Can you give that to me? Can you give me that person today?”

  “Of course, I can. What's going on, Ashley?”

  “Things with Jimmy are falling apart.”

  “Did you tell him what you knew?” she asked.

  “No, I haven’t yet.”

  “Why the hell not? You have to.”

  “No, I can’t. You don’t get it. He’s already upset with me over fuck-knows-what. He’s been acting weird and pushing me away, and I’m not sure what to do about it.”

  “The first thing you need to do is tell him about—”

  “I’m not here to talk about work!”

  Cass jumped back as tears rose to my eyes. Why couldn’t she do this for me? My life was falling apart, and I still had to go see my mother, and I was trying to raise my spirits. I wanted someone to tell me Jimmy was being an asshole, that none of this was my fault, he was being a dick, and that I had nothing to worry about. I didn’t want to talk about work or L.R. or who I thought it was. I didn’t want to talk about Markus or our conversation or even fathom how Jimmy would react once I told him my theory.

  “Okay. I’m sorry. Um, what’s going on with you and Jimmy?” Cass asked.

  “I think he’s upset that I even found the error in the first place.”

  “I thought we weren’t talking about work,” she said.

  “As long as you don’t tell me to tell him shit, we’ll be okay,” I said.

  “Okay. As long as you know that’s where my opinion lies.”

  “He’s been pushing me away. A bunch of us went out to a late lunch yesterday after a financial meeting, and he didn’t even sit next to me.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I thought it was because he didn’t trust me or something. You know, because of the sick days that weren't sick days. But then we had a meeting that went horribly wrong, and he looked at me and told me to take a few deep breaths. He said we would find a way out of this and that he trusted me. Looked me right in my eyes and said it.”

  “So what’s the issue?”

  “Why has he been avoiding me if he trusts me?” I asked.

  “Is he still avoiding you?”

  “Yeah. I called Jimmy this morning to see if he wanted to do dinner tonight. You know, to talk about that thing.”

  “Good. What did he say?”

  “He turned me down. Said he was going golfing with Markus and to dinner with him after and that we could meet up tomorrow,” I said.

  “So you meet him tomorrow.”

  “You don’t get it. When Markus first got to town, Jimmy couldn’t get me out with him enough. Every time they got together, he wanted me there. The night before last, they went out for drinks. Markus’s girlfriend went, but Jimmy didn’t invite me. I even offered to keep him company, and he said no.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, Cass. I really don’t. I told him to call me if he could whenever he got home and was safe, but his call never came. I stayed up until one thirty waiting for it.”

  “Fuck him, then. If this isn’t a trust issue, then he’s got no reason to treat you this way. And even if he did have trust issues, he needs to be a damn adult and talk to you about it instead of acting like a fucking toddler.”

  “Thanks, Cass.”

  “No, I’m fucking serious. Ashley, if he’s doing things like this to you and pushing you away, then I’d be concerned that this Markus asshole is saying something about you in his ear.”

  “But Markus likes me,” I said. “He wouldn’t do that. Right?”

  “This Markus guy a businessman?”

  “Yeah. He’s Jimmy’s mentor.”

  “Then his opinion means a lot to Jimmy. He’s talking about you. Jimmy’s got something up his ass
, and instead of talking to you about it, he’s dancing around you.”

  “How do I get him to talk to me?” I asked.

  “Corner him. Ask him point blank what’s wrong.”

  “I did that already. The meeting interrupted us yesterday.”

  “Then do it again and again until he finally comes clean. You said the two of you were getting together tomorrow, right?”

  “If he doesn’t cancel, yeah.”

  “Then do it tomorrow. Corner his ass and man up. Then grow some balls, woman up, and tell him what you need to tell him,” she said.

  “I knew you were gonna slip that in there somewhere.”

  “I held out as long as I could. You’ll be okay, Ashley. I know you like this guy but dating in the workplace is hard. And if this all goes south, you’ll have me.”

  “Thanks, Cass.”

  “Got any plans for your day?”

  “I’m going to see my mom. They’ve approved Chipper coming if I meet Mom outside, so I’m gonna introduce her to the newest addition to my family,” I said.

  “I think she’ll like that. If anything, she’ll like the fact that your dad hated dogs.”

  “That’s what I’m banking on.”

  I hugged Cass’s neck and set off for the nursing home. I tried to shove Jimmy to the back of my mind as I parked my car. This was time spent with my mother. This wasn't time for him to be ruining. I had to let go of whatever was going on between us and be there for my mother. She was rocking on the porch with a nurse at her side, and she looked like she was having a good day.

  I drew in a deep breath before I picked up Chipper and got out of my car.

  “That my Ashley I see?” my mother asked.

  “And Chipper,” I said.

  “You brought a rat to see me?” she asked.

  “It’s a beagle puppy,” I said. “His name’s Chipper.”

  “Your father hated dogs.”

  “Which was why I got one.”

  “I like the way you think,” she said with a grin.

  “How are you feeling today?”

  “I’m doing all right. Slept until nine this morning.”

  “That’s late for you. Stay up late partying?” I asked.