Building Billions - Part 3 Read online

  Ross was sitting at my desk as we combed through the files of other companies around us. Markus had deep roots in this area, and we were beginning to figure out why. One of the detectives from the agency we hired came back interested in exploring Ross’s theory further. So he tapped into his resources and got us some company files we were going over. I didn’t ask the man who he got them from, and I didn’t care. If Markus was stealing from these companies, they needed to know.

  And he needed to go down for it.

  “Those initials are scattered throughout Ace-Landic’s files,” Ross said.

  “I see them scattered through Harold & Lace. It’s not much, but it’s there. He’s in them too.”

  “Harold & Lace? The sex shop?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Apparently, Markus didn’t fucking care who he stole from,” I said.

  “How was he sinking his claws into these people? Was he chummy with everyone?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. All I’m doing is highlighting the initials and handing everything back over to the PI. He can be our go-to between the police and this investigation.”

  I had no doubt in my mind Ashley had been right. Even if there was the smallest shred of evidence that meant Markus could’ve been innocent, the flood of paperwork in front of me with those initials overruled it. That man had his hands in so many pies, it boggled my mind. That was how he was finding the separate funds to keep his company afloat.

  He was embezzling from everyone around him.

  “Why doesn’t he let his company sink? Cut the loss and try again? I don’t get it,” I said.

  “Pride,” Ross said. “It’s the downfall of every man.”

  “Don’t I fucking know it,” I said.

  “I think there’s still a chance you could get her back, you know.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” I said.

  “I think you won’t know until you try, and Ashley is worth more than a try or two.”

  “She won’t even take my calls. How the hell am I supposed to—?”

  My office phone rang, and I rolled my eyes. Life never stopped for one of the top businesses in the world. It was probably my PR department wanting to track me down for an official quote. I still wasn’t ready to give it, and I wouldn't until I knew what I wanted to say.

  “Jimmy?”

  My body froze in my seat when I heard her voice.

  “Ashley,” I said. “Good morning.”

  Ross’s eyes widened as he began to gather everything off my desk.

  “I wanted to let you know I’m coming by the office this morning. You know, to pick up things from my desk.”

  “Okay. That’s fine. Do you want me to unlock your office for you?” I asked.

  “I’ve got my keys. It’s not a big deal. I wanted to let you know in case ...”

  I closed my eyes and allowed her voice to take me over. Ross patted me on the shoulder before he left, taking all the paperwork with him. I reclined back in my chair, listening to her soft breathing come through the phone.

  “No one’s taking that office from you,” I said. “You come by whenever you want.”

  “Okay,” Ashley said.

  The call hung up, and I couldn’t focus. Every time a person passed by, I whipped my head up. I heard the elevator doors open, and hope flooded my veins. I listened to the familiar patter of footsteps as she came down the hallway.

  Ashley.

  My Ashley.

  She was a fucking sight for sore eyes.

  I watched her walk to her office, and I took her all in, the way her clothes draped around her body and the way she stood tall and proud. She knew her worth now. She walked with confidence, and it pulled a smile across my face. I felt hope seeing her, even though I was watching her pack up her things. I stood up from my desk and smoothed my suit jacket down, trying to calm my nerves.

  I had to stay calm.

  If I was going to get her to talk to me, I had to stay calm.

  “Ashley, could we talk for a second?”

  I watched her eyes flutter up to mine as she looked at me from beneath her lashes. She could still mesmerize me with her stare. Her body still called to me. I cried out for her to smile, to grace me with the comfort her twinkling eyes brought.

  Instead, I saw hesitance tinged with a bit of fear.

  “Please,” I said.

  “I mean, I guess. I don’t really have a lot of time, though,” Ashley said.

  “That’s fine. I’ll take whatever time you can give me,” I said.

  I pulled her into my office and shut the door behind her. She set her box down on the floor at her feet, her eyes looking around my office. She was avoiding me, avoiding my gaze. I had hurt this woman beyond all personal comprehension, and I had no idea where to begin.

  “I know you’re probably in here because you didn’t want to cause a scene,” I said.

  Ashley sighed and shook her head.

  “Please, don’t go,” I said. “Please, give this company another chance.”

  “You don’t want me to give you another chance?” she asked.

  “Would you give me another chance? Because if you’re willing to do it, then I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get you back,” I said.

  “And why should I do that?” she asked.

  “I believe you. About everything. Ashley, he’s done this to so many other companies. Ross and I were going through paperwork and—”

  “Should you be talking about this with someone who doesn’t work for you?” she asked.

  “Please. You were right. About everything. I believe you. Everything you said. All of it was right.”

  She scoffed as a tainted smile crossed her face.

  “You should’ve believed me before.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, Ashley. Please, tell me what I can do. This company needs you. I—”

  Her eyes panned over to me as the words caught in my throat. The pain, it was unbearable. The pain swirling behind her eyes made me sick. How could I have done this to her? How could I have said all those things? How could I have lost my temper and taken Markus’s side and left her out in the cold like I had?

  Why the fuck did I let her walk away at that damn bar?

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “You can’t even say it.”

  “Let me take you out.”

  “What?” Ashley asked.

  “Let me take you out. To dinner, or drinks. Hell, I’ll take you to Italy for pastries. But let me take you out so we can talk longer. So we can talk about this.”

  “No,” she said plainly.

  “Rome.”

  “No.”

  “Paris.”

  “No.”

  “The Maldives. Bora Bora. Antarctica.”

  “Why would I want to go to Antarctica?” she asked.

  “The Northern Lights. I hear they’re beautiful year-round up there,” I said.

  “No,” she said breathlessly.

  She bent down to pick up her things, but I stopped her. The least I could do was help her carry everything out. I picked up her box and followed her out of my office, putting on my strongest demeanor. Ashley was ignoring me, not looking back to see if I was even following her. I kept my eyes ahead of me and nodded at people as we walked by. I put on the face of a man who was in control, but inside, I was dying.

  Decaying.

  Crumbling without Ashley.

  This company needed her. I needed her. Why the hell couldn’t I say that to her? We were going to drown without her. The books she looked after and the notes she kept, they were in a language none of us could understand. Calculations that had been bypassed and passwords that had been set. PDF documents that were half-done and projections even Ross couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten.

  We needed her.

  I walked all the way to her car, and she popped her trunk. I settled everything down, and she shut it with a slam, not waiting for me to get my fingers out of the way. I ripped my hands back barely in ti
me, watching as the car rocked on its chassis.

  “If you don’t want to stay, then at least explain the company books you kept to someone,” I said.

  “Jimmy.”

  “No one understands them. Ross hardly does,” I said.

  “I highly doubt that.”

  “You really don’t get how invaluable you are to us, or any company that will hire you. Your mind is incredible, Ashley. The wealth of knowledge and the way you compute information at lightning speed, it’s unprecedented,” I said.

  I saw a spark in her eye, and it ignited a fire in the pit of my stomach.

  “You don’t have to explain them to me, but explain them to someone. Go over them with Ross. Show him your calculations and equations. Walk him through it. We’ll be lost for months without you, trying to decipher your tallies and your PDFs.”

  “You’re giving me too much credit,” she said.

  “If anything, I haven’t given you enough. Ever.”

  Her eyes turned up to me, and I could’ve sworn I saw them twinkling with the shadow of a smile.

  “I’ll beef up your severance package,” I said. “I’ll give you more than HR will ever offer you. Just explain them to someone. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  “That’s all I’m asking.”

  She allowed me to open her door for her as she stepped into her car. I backed up as she cranked it up, knowing full good and well she’d run me over if she got the chance. I watched her back out of the parking space and meander through the parking garage, the car creating distance between us.

  But as I watched her face in the side mirror of her car, I saw her eyes glance back at me before she disappeared around the corner.

  And it filled me with a hope that almost hurt to contain.

  Chapter 4

  Ashley

  I sat on the porch of my apartment staring out over the city of Miami. I couldn’t get my interaction with Jimmy yesterday out of my head. All he wanted was to sit down and talk, take me somewhere and talk things out to see where we could go from there. I couldn’t help feeling I had been a bit cruel to him by refusing him something he so desperate to have. I replayed the moment over and over again in my head as the bustling city I had come to love came alive with the sun hanging in the sky.

  But I felt like giving him that conversation was validating that it was okay for him to do what he’d done to me. For him to constantly question what I was saying about my own body. I had to slap him with a bag full of pregnancy tests to prove I wasn’t pregnant. He was hell-bent on the fact that he was right about something happening to my body. And what was worse was that he felt I wouldn’t have come to him with something like that. He’d believed it was in my personality somewhere to keep something so intimate and so important from him

  Like I hadn’t come to care about him at all.

  He hurt me, and I was tired of it. Over and over during the past week, he had done nothing but hurt me. He’d pushed me away and acted like I didn’t exist rather than have an adult conversation when I wanted to have one with him. Now I was supposed to bend to his will? After him asking once after finding out I was, in fact, right about Markus? Why couldn't he have believed me in the first place? It wasn’t like I was concocting stories and trying to tie a knot with only one loose end. Everything I was talking about made sense.

  Why did it take talking to someone else to figure out what I was telling him was right?

  I couldn't understand it, and thinking about it made me angry all over again. Was I only some stupid woman who ran numbers and looked pretty at his side? Did my opinion not have any validation? First, it was my insistence on Nina becoming an issue. He didn’t listen, and she became an issue. Then, it was Markus and my insistence that he was behind all of this, and what was Jimmy’s reaction? Not to brush me off like some over-concerned kept woman of his, but to call me the one name that disgusted him more than his father’s.

  That was his response to my findings.

  I wiped at the tears threatening to fall down my face. I was a strong woman, an independent woman. I wasn’t going to allow a man like Jimmy to tear me down any longer. I hadn’t heard from him since I cleaned out my office yesterday, which meant he had given up on me.

  And maybe it was for the best.

  Maybe we were simply toxic for one another.

  My next step was to find a job. Since I wasn’t going back to Big Steps, I needed to find another job to help me with bills. With my mother’s bills. With my mother’s nursing home fees. I had my savings set aside, but those would only cover my car insurance and my rent. I would need money within the next month to keep up with things like electricity and water and my mother’s nursing home account.

  Otherwise, I would have to start picking and choosing what I paid.

  I stood up from my chair and grabbed my purse. I looked over at my personal laptop and shoved it into the crook of my arm. If I was going to find a job, then I needed to start putting in my resume. I spent all of last night updating it to reflect my prior job history and all of the things I had done, and it was time to start putting it in at various places in Miami.

  I would even look outside of Miami if I had to.

  I left my apartment and started walking down the block. There was a coffeehouse I had come to enjoy, and I didn’t have to use up gas in my car to get there. I would have to pull myself up by my bootstraps and start pinching pennies again. That meant eating all the food I had here before going to the grocery store and giving myself over to noodles and sauce again. I sighed as I walked into the coffee shop and dug around for a few dollars. It made me sick to break a hundred-dollar bill for a cup of coffee, so I scrounged around for change to use.

  I took my empty cup and filled it with a strong brew. The scent was heavenly, and a hefty dose of sweet cream would make it perfect. I took my coffee, sat in a corner, and then used their internet to start my own job hunt.

  I clicked through accountant positions and applied to each one that had a salary over sixty thousand a year. I would have to downgrade back to my original living standards on something like that, but it would be doable. I could ride out my current lease on my savings, move without incurring penalties, and slip back into my old life.

  My old world before Jimmy happened.

  A sadness sank to the bottom of my gut. As I dumped my application into multiple job opening descriptions, my body felt like it was growing heavier. Life had seemed so easy and simple when I was working for Jimmy. Even before things had kicked off between us, I had enjoyed it. I smiled getting up for work, and I took care of my appearance because I wanted to. I felt like I was doing the world a bit of good by being the investor’s accountant.

  I was treated with respect and regarded as not only a corporate employee but as a friend. I was going to miss Ross and those investors. Even Mr. Matthews and his checks that never cleared.

  I hated to admit it, but a part of me was going to miss Jimmy. I was going to miss seeing his face and listening to his laughter and sitting in front of him while he smiled at me.

  Had I made a mistake in quitting?

  No, I hadn’t. Things could never go back to the way they were. I would always feel weird around Jimmy, and people would wonder if I was screwing around with corporate to get to where I was. I would look around my office and see Jimmy in all of it, and it would do nothing to help my broken heart. I would never be able to heal if I had stayed. I would’ve never been able to shake the care and compassion that had grown between Jimmy and me.

  It would kill me to look out into the hallway and see his office, knowing I couldn't go to him.

  I put my resume in for seventeen job openings before an email dropped into my inbox. I clicked over to it and read the title as the blood drained from my face. The nursing home was incurring another monthly fee hike of fifty more dollars.

  Had I still been working at Big Steps, that wouldn't have been an issue. Now that I was jobless, that w
as a massive issue. I flipped back over and applied to seven more jobs as my palms began to sweat.

  How was I going to afford fifty more dollars a month?

  I wanted my mother to be in the best care Miami had to offer, even if she didn’t understand that was what she had. She was comfortable with that place, and the staff knew her well. I wasn’t going to move her to try and help with my bills. I would cut back on my own spending and live out of my car if that was necessary.

  Wait, could I really do something like that?

  I shook the thought from my head as I sipped my coffee. I closed my laptop and sat there as my mother poured into my mind. That would be a good thing to go do today. I could go visit my mother and see how she was doing. Seeing her always made me feel better, even if it was only temporary. If she was lucid, she might have advice for me in the position I was in.

  But if she wasn’t ...

  I drew in a deep breath and gathered my things. I was going to go see my mother. I was a daughter on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and I needed to see my mother.

  So that was where I headed.

  I pulled into the nursing home and walked through the double doors. The women at the desk greeted me with a smile as I turned the corner. That was good. Grim looks usually meant my mother was having a rough day. I walked all the way down the hall, turned into her room, and I found her staring out the window, sitting upright with her eyes focused and her beautiful white hair done up with her bobby pins.

  She had taken the time to put herself together this morning.

  That meant she was doing really well.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Is that my daughter I hear?” she asked.

  She turned and smiled at me, and I ran into her arms.

  “Oh, dear. Sweetheart. Oh, what’s wrong?” my mother asked.

  “I’m so glad you’re having a good day,” I said.

  “I know you, Ashley. I know when something’s wrong. Talk to me about it. Like you used to?”

  “Do you remember meeting Jimmy?” I asked.

  “Who’s Jimmy?”

  “Tall man. Dark hair. Talked with you about our wedding.”