Thinking of her there, in his home, with Diamond Rose, he wanted to puke up the sushi he’d just consumed.
He wanted her gone.
“I wish that was true!” Her words came out on a wail. “I wish to God my interest was nothing more than a way to ease my father’s worry. Instead, I fell in love with you. When he told me he wasn’t going to press charges, it was as though this huge flood of relief opened up inside me and I’ve been a mess ever since.”
She fell in love with him.
Right. She expected him to believe that?
“I’m guessing you didn’t find anything to convict me?” he asked almost dryly, although he was starting to sweat in earnest.
If he’d made a mistake along the way, and they were going to make it look like he’d purposely cheated the firm...
Who’d believe him?
“Obviously, I’m not a criminal investigator, but I couldn’t find anything on anyone,” she said. “But circumstantially, you’re the most suspect.”
Criminal investigator.
Sweat turned to steel. No way was he going to jail!
He would not lose Diamond.
His mind took over. “Circumstances meaning my past? My background?”
“Your offshore accounts.”
The night he’d been talking to her about the Wall Street movie. He’d been falling in love. She’d been taking notes to betray him.
He’d think about that another time. If an occasion arose that required it.
“I know of four other brokers in the firm who have them. What else?”
“Your spending habits changed.”
“I had a rich girlfriend I was trying to impress, and money I’d saved for a day when I had someone to spend it on.”
She didn’t deserve any explanations, but he was not going to jail.
“You were opening your own firm behind my father’s back.”
“I intended to do just as he’d done when he opened his firm. Once I knew the legalities were in place and it was actually going to happen, I intended to go to him with my plan. I was about a week away from that when I got word that my mother was dead. I’d planned to give Howard the opportunity to send a letter to all my clients, naming a broker in my stead, and move on. If any of them found me elsewhere and chose to follow me of their own accord, then I’d continue to service them. Instead, I heard from Jane in Accounting, that someone found out—I don’t know who or how—and I heard that Bill went to your father with a version of the truth that made me out to be unethical.”
And clearly Howard had believed that version.
She hadn’t stepped back any farther. He was ready for her to do so. To keep stepping back until she was gone from his home. From his life.
He wanted to forget ever knowing her.
Forget that he’d ever thought her beautiful...
Her eyes flooded again. Like a sucker, he’d fallen for that compassionate look in her eye. And the fear she’d exposed to him.
But no more.
“Jane is the one who started the rumor. She found out what you were doing from a friend of hers who works at the office of the Commissioner of Business Oversight. She knew you worked at Owens, where Jane works. Jane’s the one who told Bill. Why Bill spun the news when he told my father, I have no idea. A charity account was used to run the money through.” She spoke as though she was giving testimony.
Jane had betrayed him! He’d thought the grandmother of four liked him.