Acquired Asset

by ZN Willett

  Evan double checked the numbers, gave me the figures, and called Brian. As I looked over the calculations, it was hard to contain the joy of being able to use it to destroy Millicent.

  How did Christopher do it?

  Or was it going on under our noses all this time?

  The withdrawals were too small to catch anyone’s attention. There was no way he could have doctored this in only a few days. The amounts spread out over the years, small withdrawals at a time. For him to know about it and not do anything . . . he would never . . . the man could play dirty, but this . . .

  Evan briefed Brian on what they had found as Reagan sat silent. I wasn’t sure questioning how the discovery was going to affect her allowance would do any good. However, like Millicent, she may be concerned with her family being viewed as piranhas. Or blood suckers would fit.

  “How soon can you contact the Board? They are going to have to be notified.” Evan asked Brian.

  “They already were!” Millicent shouted from the entrance of the door. “You did this! I know you did!” she said, storming toward me.

  “Mother! We just figured this out. Quinn was looking in another area. Evan and I were going over the foundation financials. How could you?” Reagan looked hurt and disappointed. “That money was supposed to help children like mine!”

  Okay. Wait.

  I knew what I heard, but wondered if I was incorrect until I saw the look on Evan’s face. He had heard it too.

  “Reagan. I did not take that money! It’s all her.” She pointed at me. “You bitch!”

  “You’re calling me a bitch? You have been embezzling money from the foundation that helps sick kids, and I’m the bitch? You deserve to be in jail for this!”

  “Something is wrong,” Evan spoke up. “We just discovered this. How did you know?”

  “It hit the networks! The hacker leaked the information out. I’ll be ruined!”

  “They released our figures? How could they have figured it out so quickly?” Reagan asked.

  “You’re standing next to the person who did it!”

  “I was with you when they broke into the system, remember?” I laughed. “Karma is a bitch. And, it looks like you’ll be thinking about that for eight to ten years.”

  She came at me, and I ducked. Laughing as I thought she had better start learning some self-defense moves. Then, I thought I had better never get on Christopher’s bad side. I was sure that any jail time would be reduced to community service hours, but still. . . .

  Reagan stood in-between us, with an expression of pure rage. “I set that foundation up to help my baby! And others like her!”

  “You can’t believe I would take money away from them.”

  “It’s all here mother! There are years of evidence against you. Can you explain that?”

  “I don’t know how it happened.” She looked toward me.

  “And don’t say it was Quinn, Mother! It started long before she came into the picture.”

  She clutched onto Reagan’s hands. “My darling, I’ve been framed. It has to be a conspiracy. They have all wanted me out. I wouldn’t put it past your father to have done this.”

  “Dad would never do anything to intentionally hurt you!”

  Brian came in along with Thomas, who had the same facial expression as his daughter. Although what surprised me the most was that Christopher was missing. If this had been leaked, it could be devastating for our company. The others probably assumed he was on damage control, but internally, I wondered if he meant to push the self-destruct button. I also wanted to know what he had planned next. Knowing him, this was just the beginning.

  “I thought you were going to be in your office?”

  “Yet, you found me.” Christopher said, from the dark corner of my office. I saw his silhouette sitting comfortably on my leather sofa, as I walked over to my desk and sat on the edge. “Did you enjoy the fireworks?” he asked.

  “They were something.” I heard the ice cubes clinking against the glass, then a large gulp from his mouth. “However, it would have been nice to not have spent the entire night looking for it.”

  “You know why.”

  “Still.” If I knew what to look for, yes, it might have been faster to discover, but I would have bided my time.

  “You would have given yourself away. It needed to be someone else other than you.”

  I wasn’t going to mention that he was right. I stood up, poured myself a drink, and sat next to him. “Reagan was a part of the plan then?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  We both took a long sip, staring at the other. “You know you hurt her with this plan, Colby. Care to tell me why?”

  “She needed to see who her mother really is. She was heading down the same path as her.”

  “That’s why you shipped her to California?”

  He huffed. “It helped didn’t it?”

  She was doing exceptionally, which was a surprise at first. Speaking of surprises. “She has a child?”

  “Had. She was beautiful. Grace was perfect, except she was born with our blood.”

  I turned and faced him. “What does that mean?”

  “I think it’s what killed her,” he said more to himself in a mumble. “Grace was innocent . . . pure . . . but a Colby.”

  This was a different side of Christopher. “She was born a Colby, and that’s not her fault.”

  “Exactly! She was too good for us.”

  “I’m sure Reagan wouldn’t agree.”

  He took another swig, emptying his glass and began. “Reagan was the one that reminded us of that fact. She was a different person back then. Grace was a lot like her mother. Reagan was a kid when she became pregnant. I wanted to kill the asshole—still sometimes do—but his daddy had him shipped off to a military academy. My mother sent Reagan off to Europe where no one would be the wiser about her situation. That’s what she used to say. Address it as Reagan’s ‘situation.’ My mother forced Reagan to give Grace up after she was born. She had already set-up a trust fund for her and her new parents. It was all planned without Reagan knowing. My mother forced all of this on her minutes after Gracie’s birth. Later that year, the adoptive parents reached out to Reagan, in spite of my mother, and told her that Gracie was ill. Reagan blamed it all on our mother for forcing her away from her daughter. When we found out Grace was sick, there were times I thought Reagan wouldn’t get through it. Constance helped her. But when . . . it was sudden. The doctors kept telling us she was getting better. They were wrong. When Grace died, Reagan . . . well, she fell into a dark place. My mother thought the endowment would be something that would benefit terminally ill children and their families. It was a way for her to patch up the damage she had done.”

  “Poor Reagan. Why didn’t she stop them from taking her child?”

  “Quinn?” he said, as if I was clueless of the power that evil witch held. “No one goes against my mother. Not even her children.”

  I took in everything that he said as I polished off my drink. Then grabbed the entire decanter of liquor and brought it over refilling both Christopher’s glass and mine. “Discovering the embezzlement is only going to hurt Reagan more,” I said, sitting back down.

  “She needed to be reminded of the person her mother truly is. As time went on, you could tell that she hadn’t forgotten, only tried to forget. That’s when all the booze and drugs came into play. Another reason that Constance left was that she couldn’t watch Reagan destroy herself. She had tried to fight against the evil, but not even she was strong enough to fight the great and powerful Millicent Colby.”

  “There had to be another way—”

  “Quinn, you know this is perfect. Now, you can go in and clean up the Colbys mess. In front of the Board, you will be viewed as the savior.”

  “I’m not sure you realize how much damage you have caused. This act could be the blow that takes down all the pieces.”

  “You are always so skeptical. That hacker has to provide proof for a
n indictment to occur. There will be an investigation, and enough evidence will be presented to arrest my mother. Although that evidence will miraculously vanish. This in turn will look as if my dear mother tried to cover up the entire thing. The Board will expect her to resign. The clause in her contract will have been broken, allowing her shares to be transferred. She will no longer have a stake in the company, and will no longer be trusted. Finally, she will be exposed for who she is. Even her friends will want nothing more to do with her.” He laughed. “Yet again, most of them have done worse. She’ll probably be welcomed back into her criminal circuit.”

  “I’m sure she will eventually rise up to take us down, Christopher.”

  “Oh, that’s the best part. She won’t have the proof; only a nagging thought in the back of her mind. Did my child do this? Or was it that Ms. Cordell? Whatever the outcome, it’s still a win-win for us.”

  “You do know that the authorities will want me to pull the backlogs.” We kept everything from up to a certain year in an archived database until recently when the company went green. It would only be a matter of time before they figure out that the hard files don’t match up to the computer files.

  “She won’t think of that until it’s too late.”

  “Evan might.”

  He shook his head and reached over to pour another glass. “He’ll be too busy trying to get back at her because of Reagan.”

  “There is something there?”

  “Who do you think the boy was who went off to Military school?”

  “Wait! What?” I sat my glass down and turned closer to him.

  “Evan didn’t know anything about the baby. An arrangement was made between the parents. Reagan thought that he didn’t love her and left. When she found out that he had been sent to military school unaware of the baby, it was too late. Reagan was already broken hearted and wanted nothing to do with him. It was years later when he became engaged to another woman that she came to the realization that she wanted him back.” He cocked a brow at me. “Reagan did everything she could to break them up, and in Colby fashion, she succeeded. Evan was sore, but they dated on and off for a few years. My fault, I felt sorry for the two of them and hired Evan. When he wanted to leave for LA, Reagan begged to go, and I saw my chance to get them back together again. I knew eventually he would come to his senses.”

  “Christopher Colby’s a romantic?” He said nothing. “How long have you been planning this?”

  “The moment you stepped into that boardroom. I told you, I wasn’t going to lose you.”

  “How do you know you haven’t?”

  “Because you love me, and that’s not something that comes easy for either of us.”

  “When did you know?”

  “The moment I saw you step off the plane when I asked you to come to New York. It felt as if I could breathe again, and I knew then that we had to be together. Even though it took you longer to see it.”

  I felt the electric current between us pulling at my heat. “You know why.”

  “And you trusted me enough to tell me.”

  “I’m still not sure if that was a good idea.”

  “You’ll have plenty of time to mull that over.” He smirked.

  I narrowed my eyes. “You’re such a cocky bastard.”

  “Isn’t that why you fell in love with me?” he said, looking down at my lips as he moistened his. We stared, at the other, lingering until he stood stretching out his hand to me. “Come, we both need some sleep.”

  We headed out of the office, and into the dawn. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.

  “I hope he wasn’t much trouble last night.”

  Constance was relaxing on the lounger reading a book, when I walked into the kitchen. “Joseph could never be a bother.”

  “I’ll ask you again after you get to know him better.” She smiled to herself with a peculiar look of . . . happiness. “Thank you again for staying here. I didn’t want to leave him alone.”

  “Joseph is a strong man, Quinn. He’s going to be fine. And you and I both know that Christopher is very persuasive. But apparently it didn’t work on you?”

  “He tried.” Christopher wanted me to stay with him after we left the office. We argued that fact until the car pulled up at his place. I told him to take me to Joseph’s, or I’d take a cab, I needed space. I might not have wanted the space, nevertheless I needed it. “I think some . . . distance will be good for us.”

  She sat up. “Quinn, it’s going to take time. But I’m positive that you two will work things out.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to. When I think I can let go of him, something stops me.”

  “Fear. Insecurities perhaps? Uncertainty about the future? Quinn, why do you think they refer to love as taking a leap of faith? Or falling in love? The moment you leap out into the unknown, your adrenaline starts rushing through your veins, and your heart rate speeds up. Your thoughts get jumbled, and that feeling of falling as you take the biggest leap of your life scares the hell out of you.” She paused. “But honey, I can tell you that after doing it several times. Even though that leap can hurt when you hit the ground, both the excitement and thrill from the fall are worth it every time.” She smiled. “Christopher loves you.”

  “That’s the scariest part.”

  She chuckled. “Always. However you two were made for each other.”

  “How do you know that? People say it all the time, yet love doesn’t always win out.”

  “True, though if I were a betting type of gal, I would place it all on you two. Two kindred spirits. So different, yet much alike. You know, you cannot tell Christopher I shared this with you.”

  I walked over and sat down next to her. She leaned in and grabbed my hand squeezing it.

  “He had never brought a woman to his home before.” I knew that by her previous comment. “But it was when I saw you two at the Colbys party that I knew you were the girl he had been mumbling about to himself. Frequently, I might add. He would come home angry or upset about complications with the acquisition. He kept mentioning your name, Quinn. Sometimes it was with a few choice words. Those times I hoped he would get the better hand. Although, he mentioned your doe eyes, or the fact that your photo was taken with a man; I knew then that it wasn’t all about the merger. And I watched as he tried to get you out of his mind with those bimbos.”

  I laughed. “That’s a nice word for them.”

  “I was thinking of others dear, however I am a lady. Mind you, these were supposed to be educated women. They would drape themselves over him at company events. I attended many of them, and was able to get a bird’s eye view. I know when Christopher is interested in his toys. The ones he enjoyed. He would take great care of them. The others he played with for a few minutes, not showing any interest, and threw them to the side. Oh, not saying that you’re one of his toys, dear. But you understand. That’s how I knew you were the one. That night, I hadn’t met you. You could have been anyone of them. I saw him watching every move you made. He watched every passing tray offering you a drink or nibble. He was standing there looking at you as if you were the only woman in the room. I could see the sparkles in his eyes when you would look up at him. It all came together when I asked someone who you were. When Christopher told me that he had someone special for me to meet, that was a clue in itself. But Quinn, it was all in his body language.”

  I remembered the first night I had met Constance. That was also the night I decided to jump all in. “A lot happened that night.”

  “You could tell. I love Christopher and Reagan as if they were my own children. I’ve seen both of them make some bad decisions throughout their lives. Although one thing they have in common, when it comes to finding love, they both seem to get that right; in spite of their parents.”

  I watched her, thinking how lucky they were to have her. At that moment, Constance made me miss my mother even more than I already did, which I didn’t think was possible.

  “I d
idn’t mean to upset you,” she said, wiping a tear that fell without me knowing it.

  “It’s . . . sometimes I miss my mom. I would tell her everything.”

  “Honey, you never stop missing your mother. I miss mine every day. But always remember she is with you, and watching over you. Even though I hadn’t had the pleasure to meet yours, I know she is proud of you. I would like to think she would have loved Christopher. Maybe not so much right now,” she chuckled. “From what Joseph has told me, she would have seen it too.”

  “My dad told you about my mother?”

  “Of course, he loved her. We tend to talk about the people we love in our lives.”

  “Isn’t it hard? I mean, I’m not sure what exactly is going on between you two, but obviously my dad has a bit of a crush on you.”

  “I think it was my chicken soup.” She chuckled. “We met that same night at the Colbys. I’m surprised your father didn’t tell you. I should have known when Christopher asked me if you knew we were going to lunch. We’ve met up a few times since than when he is here.”

  “He didn’t tell me, but I think it might have been because of my mother.”

  “It’s hard to go on after the death of your soul mate. I know. When you meet someone else . . . telling your children isn’t easy.”

  “My dad had always had difficulties discussing the affairs of the heart with me. I have a few stories that I can share that will have you laughing. He tried though.”

  “I think he did a pretty good job.” She smiled.

  “I guess one of my father’s awkward talks is coming up about you and him?”

  She smiled wider. “I hope so.”

  I squeezed her hand. “For the record, I’m very pleased with his choice. I know my mother would be as well.”