Macy smacked the alarm clock off the nightstand. Trying to sleep last night was like trying to sleep on a bed of rocks. She couldn’t get comfortable with her mind racing from one thought to the next and her body aching for a man that wasn’t good for her. The baggage between them kept piling up.
With no job, she didn’t need to wake up early, but setting the alarm was part of her ritual. Right now, she needed the structure in her life.
Today, she wanted to know her horoscope before putting her feet on the floor. Any guidance that could get her through the day would help manage her emotions. How else could she spend time alone with Avery? She held her breath while punching the keys on her phone to find the post.
Today it is pivotal that you put on your game face. Things will happen that will throw you off balance. Be prepared for the unexpected, or you’ll be knocked off your feet.
With her hand over her mouth, she read the words a second time. Was this good news or bad? The last time she was balanced was before she ran into Celeste in the hall. First Celeste, then Roxy and finally being sent home from work. She drew a deep breath. “Come on, girl, pull yourself together,” she whispered.
By the time Avery rang her doorbell, she had dressed, her face was clean, and she had managed to put on a pair of shoes.
“You’re early.”
“I brought coffee and bagels.” He balanced a bag on top of two large paper cups. His computer bag hung from his shoulder. “Skinny caramel latte, no whip cream, right?”
How could he remember something so trivial? “Right. I scrambled some eggs. That’s the only thing we have here to eat.”
“Sounds like we’ve got all the essentials to a good breakfast.”
She closed the door behind him before following him into the small kitchen.
He glanced at the kitchen table. “Wow, you’ve been busy.”
“I started last night. I can’t let this go. The whole idea that almost $200,000 has gone missing under my watch is making me neurotic. I think about it all day and all night. And I can’t let go of the thought that Michelle might know something about what’s going on.”
“Well, that’s what we’re going to find out.” He cleared a corner of the table and set the cups down. He dropped his computer bag on the floor beside the chair. “Let’s eat first, discuss strategy, then we’ll get started.”
“Is there ever a time in your world when you are not in control?”
“That’s right. I forgot. You’re calling the shots. What do you want to do first?” His face opened into a big smile.
She waited several moments with her hands on her hips. There was a reason he was sitting at her kitchen table, smiling like an emoji. He was helping her. Without answering, she opened the bag, pulled out the bagels and popped them in the toaster. There was no way to get the work done if she continued to be hostile.
Focus.
Focus.
For a few minutes, they ate without talking.
Avery took the last bite of his bagel and wiped his hands on the napkin. He opened his bag, removed his computer and placed it on the table. “Where would you like to start?”
“I’ve gone over the invoices several times. I’ve segregated the accounts I know well, where the charges look reasonable.” She picked the tallest stack of paper. “These accounts are new to me. The team is big, so I don’t know every single account by name. I don’t recognize the names, but we’ve had this big drive to increase business, so I need to check them out. I haven’t found anything blaring about them. Without my office computer or access to English files and the accounting system, I’ve had no way of drilling any deeper to see which salesperson they belong to.”
“That’s what I’m here for. Give me the names, with the accounts numbers, and we’ll check each one.” He booted up his computer, processed all his security log-ons, and then looked up at her.
“There are over fifty of them.” She hoped the task wasn’t too daunting for him.
“We’ve got all day. What we don’t get done today, we can do tomorrow.”
She placed her chin in the palm of her hand. “Tomorrow. You’re willing to give me another day? What will Roxy have to say about you being out of the office?”
His face softened. “I’m not required to show up at English every day. Since you’re not there, it’s more fun to work out of my office.”
She cleared her throat. There was no use getting emotional just because Avery gave her a cute puppy dog kind of look. He was only offering her more time, not a kidney. Besides, players always had bags full of those kinds of responses to use anytime they needed one. All the bumbling around in the beginning was probably part of his routine. He probably even had an act that would make her want to take off her panties, again.
“Okay. Let’s get started.”
By one o’clock, they were halfway through the pile. She tried to rub moisture back into her dry eyes. The work was tedious. “We need to take a break. We’ve looked at over thirty accounts.” She pushed back from the table and stretched her back.
“I was going to suggest that an hour ago, but then I remembered you’re calling the shots.”
“Ha. Ha.” She pressed her hands over her head, to help loosen the tightness in her shoulders. She picked up five invoices that they hadn’t been able to find any activity on, in the company system. “What do you think this means?”
“Hard to tell. If you’ve got courier charges and no information, it could mean the account numbers on the invoices are wrong, the account has multiple names, the billing data was entered incorrectly, or who knows what else.”
She found her calculator under a stack of papers. “Let’s see what these invoices total.” She punched in the number. When she finished, she glared at the total. “Just these five total close to one-hundred-thousand dollars. I’m going to call Pepper, the temporary assistant who is filling in until they replace Michelle. Maybe she’ll do me a favor.” She reached for her cell phone.
“What are you going to ask her?”
“To check with the sales team to see who these accounts belong to.”
“Let me ask my assistant at English to run that check. We don’t want to get Pepper into any kind of trouble, since she’s not working for you while you’re out. Besides, she might have been told not to take any direction from you.”
She exhaled. “How quickly I’ve forgotten.”
Avery placed his elbow on the table. The whole time he talked, he stared. She turned the chair away from his Jedi mind tricks.
“What did she say?” She asked as soon as he hung up.
“She only checked two. They’re in the system, but the sales field is blank on both. She’s going to do some more research. According to her you can’t set up a customer in the system without identifying the salesperson, so she thinks there may be a system glitch. She promised to do more checking and get back to me. I trust her. She won’t tell anyone what I’m asking.” Avery stood. “I’m starved. Let’s get outta here, grab some lunch. We can talk about our next steps.”
Lunch with Avery under other circumstances wouldn’t have required major thought. But everything was different now. She couldn’t slip up and fall back into his bed.
“Yeah, let’s do that. My treat,” she said. There was a total of five hundred dollars and change in her checking account and this time next week she could be jobless. But she wanted nothing from him.
Avery ignored the odd look she gave him. One thing he’d realized about Macy was that she could be as infuriating as she could be loving. She had to come to things on her own. No amount of pushing or persuasion could convince her until she was ready. Their first dinner together was a corporate expense on each of their company credit cards. She wouldn’t allow him to pick up the tab, even though he wanted to treat her. She claimed it was because they were on company business, but now he understood the reason ran deeper than that.
Traffic in the city was thick. He turned onto Chestnut Street. Maybe he’d never met a woman like Macy before, but he knew how to get his way. And at least once today, he was going to have his way.
“Where are we going?”
“To lunch,” he said without looking at her.
“Where.”
“My favorite Asian restaurant. I figured since you were paying I might as well pick a good place. It’s not often a woman treats me to lunch.”
“I was going to buy us some sandwiches and a couple of drinks.”
“Well I’m driving, and you can’t jump out, so I guess I win.” He pulled into a parking lot. “We’re just late enough to miss the lunch crowd and well ahead of the dinner crowd, so not having a reservation shouldn’t be an issue.”
If her lips could stick out any further, she would probably trip over them. Manipulating her wasn’t any fun, but nobody called all the shots with him.
By the time the server handed them the menu, Macy looked as if her seat was on fire.
He stared across the table at her. With her head down, he couldn’t make out her expression, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to tease her. “Are you ever going to forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive, is there? You did your job.” There was a thread of ice mixed with her words.
He nodded. For now, they’d do things her way. No way was she going to pay for lunch and order him around. He wasn’t pussy-whipped. At least not yet.
“Are you ready to order?” the server asked.
“For starters, I’ll have the chicken and ginger dumpling and an order of king crab summer rolls. For my entrée, I’ll have wasabi tuna tataki. Macy, what would you like?” By the time he added dessert the bill would be over a hundred dollars. Well over what she wanted to pay, for sure.
She glared at him across the table. “I’ll just have an entrée. Garlic shrimp stir-fry.” She handed her menu to the server, then hunched across the table. “Are you trying to break me, Avery? Is that why you picked one of the most expensive Asian restaurants in the city and ordered like you’ve got ditches to dig this afternoon?”
Now he had her. There was fire in her eyes. At least now she was paying attention instead of trying to be nonchalant. He sat back in his chair. “Yes. I’m trying to get your attention.”
“You’ve had my attention all day. Haven’t we been working together?”
“You’ve been tolerating me. Treating me like your man-servant. That’s not the kind of attention I’m talking about. Don’t pretend to be obtuse.”
The sag in her shoulders indicated that for a moment she’d let down her guard, exposing her vulnerability.
“We’re going to figure this whole mess out. You’ll keep your job. We’ve already made progress today.” He reached for her hand across the table. She pulled away.
“You think this is all about my job?” She crossed her arms. “I thought, however incorrectly, that we were heading in one direction. I now know that I was wrong. I’ve been wrong before, so I know how to get over these types of things. You orbit in an atmosphere that I can’t even imagine, now that I’m grounded in reality, I realize what a big mistake we were.”
If she meant to pierce him with those words, then she’d done an excellent job. Here he thought they had stumbled upon something different. Different from all the other average relationships out there. A mistake. She had pegged everything between them as a mistake. This woman knew how to strike a blow. Monica had used him for money, slept around on him, but never once had she punched a hole in his heart. “What mistake?”
She waved her hand. “Doesn’t matter now.”
“The other day you said I was no better than my father. What did you mean by that? You don’t really know my father.”
Maybe his tone alerted her to the seriousness of his question because she looked across the table, locking eyes with him. Her face hardened. A storm brewed behind her features. Maybe he didn’t want to hear the answer to his question.
“I know enough about your father. The incident in the club, I’m sure he wasn’t giving me his blessing. And your father represented my father when he divorced my mother. Thanks to your father’s excellent legal skills, my father managed to hang on to all his money except the small child support payment he had to pay each month. We were so poor. Sometimes our mother didn’t eat just to make sure there was enough food for Brian and me. Something was always broken in our house that my mother had no money to get fixed.” Her eyes were glassy. She was on the verge of tears. “I blame your father and my father. Maybe I blame all men. What kind of man leaves a woman and two children so defenseless? My father was scum, but I didn’t think lawyers helped their clients cheat.”
“Are you referring to your father or mine?” He wanted to reach across the table and put his arms around her or stroke her back until the pain in her eyes went away. He couldn’t erase that time in her life, no matter how much he wanted to.
Her mouth tightened. “Both.”
“My father prides himself on winning. Winning no matter what. Sometimes I think he would have mowed down his own mother to get to where he wanted to be. But let me make this clear. Very clear.” He had to push down the anger boiling in his stomach. “I am not my father. I didn’t sell you out. I was only doing my job. You might not like the way I handled things, but I would do everything the same way again if I had to. You need to understand what’s required of me. I’m a principled man, and I’m always going to do the right thing. You can count on that.”
The server placed the appetizers on the table, ending that conversation.
“We came here to discuss strategy. I think we need to stop by the courier’s office after lunch to see if they have any information they can provide on those new customers. The invoices are in my purse. Let’s get back to our purpose. Our only purpose. And since you ordered all of this food, you can pick up the check.”
“I intended to.”
“So, this was all a set-up.”
“This was about me caring about you. Wanting to do something nice for you.”
She almost smiled. He could tell because her lips weren’t as tight.