I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found (Contemporary Romance)

by Melanie Marchande

  "Anything." I waited until he’d gotten off the phone with the Greek place up the street, then gestured for him to come sit down. He did, glancing at me sidelong.

  "Look," I said. "There’s this thing about the judge. I know you didn’t want to pursue it, but…"

  He sighed. "All right, all right. What?"

  "He went to Dartwood. Did you know that?"

  Daniel rested his elbows on the island, turning to look at me with an expression of measured patience. "Lots of people go to Dartwood, Maddy."

  "Yeah, well, not that many. He’s active in the alumni association. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility that he might have met those guys who tried to sue you, about the prototype."

  We hadn’t discussed this yet, in so many words. It had come up at the police station, and his face now looked the same as it had then, and on our honeymoon when Brewer had brought it up. Something closed off in his eyes. He wasn’t going to discuss it. The matter simply wasn’t on the table.

  "I’m just saying," I went on. "We don’t have to talk about that situation at all if you don’t want to, but I think we probably shouldn’t just…dismiss this whole thing. The way he acted with you…I just don’t think it was a coincidence, is all."

  He was playing with an empty wrapper from something. I had no idea where he’d gotten it from. "Why don’t you consult with your detective?" he asked. "You never needed my permission before."

  I looked at him carefully, but I couldn’t quite detect the bitterness that I expected.

  "Maybe I will."

  We sat there for a moment, in silence. He hadn’t yet asked me how I managed to pay Kelly. Maybe he didn’t care. Or maybe he already knew.

  ***

  Just a few hours after I’d put her on the case, Kelly called me back about the judge.

  "The bad news is, I couldn’t find anything personally. Yet." I heard the unmistakable sound of liquid being poured into a glass. "The good news is, there is an avenue that you can pursue. But Daniel would probably have to approach it himself. Maybe with law enforcement involved - or maybe not. Depends on what he thinks. I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s what I’m trying to say - if any of the plaintiffs had any communication with the judge through their Dartwood email accounts, the college should still have it on file somewhere. Everything is always archived at those schools. You never know when there’s going to be some kind of academic dispute and they need to pull up emails from ten years ago. The trick will be convincing them to look it up for you. That’s where I think Daniel’s alumni connection might help out."

  "He doesn’t really…I mean, I don’t think she’s set foot on campus or even talked to anyone there since he graduated."

  "Well, considering what happened there, I can’t really blame him," said Kelly, sensibly. "But that might not matter. Especially if he walks in with his checkbook open."

  I hesitated for a moment. "Thanks for not thinking I’m crazy," I said, at last.

  "Hey, no problem," Kelly replied. "You’re keeping me in good scotch. I’d go to the ends of the earth for you."

  I hung up laughing.

  As it turned out, Daniel wasn’t quite as resistant as I feared he might be. He even made the phone call to one of his contacts at Dartwood in front of me, rather than sequestering himself behind closed doors. Once he’d promised to sponsor a fundraising dinner, it was amazing how quickly they acquiesced. He was promised a call back with information within a few hours, and it came in thirty minutes.

  As he scribbled furiously on a piece of paper, I idly wondered if any Dartwood students actually read the agreements carefully enough to realize that they had absolutely no privacy in their email accounts whatsoever. I highly doubted it.

  "Well," said Daniel, once he’d hung up. The expression on his face spoke volumes.

  "What? What is it?" I jumped up and ran over to look at what he’d written.

  "Nothing too damning," he said. "But enough to prove they had contact. The judge and…one of them." He was chewing on the edge of his fingernail.

  "You don’t know which one?" I frowned over his shoulder at the notes, but I couldn’t really make any sense of them.

  "Well, of course. But the name wouldn’t mean anything to you." His face was getting that expression again - I was running up against another wall. I decided not to push it.

  "Well, great," I said. "I hope you’re going to take that right down to the court when you file a request for a new judge."

  "Of course," he said, with a faint smile. "What else would I do?"

  ***

  I found out the answer to that question the next morning.

  When I woke up, Daniel was already gone. That wasn’t terribly unusual, but it was pretty early for him to be meeting with someone. And after last night, I still felt vaguely unsettled. I wasn’t sure why, but I suddenly needed to know where he was.

  The first thing I did was call John.

  His phone rang and rang and rang, but then he finally picked up.

  "…Hello?"

  "John, it’s Maddy. Are you with Daniel?"

  He cleared his throat. "I’m…I drove him, yes, if that’s what you’re asking."

  "Drove him where?"

  He sucked in a breath through his teeth. "I’m not supposed to say."

  "Come on. Seriously?"

  "He was very adamant about it." There was something strained in his tone. Something beyond just his resistance to spill Daniel’s secrets.

  "John, I can tell you’re worried about something. Come on, just tell me. I’ll take care of it."

  "I just -" John sighed. "It’s hardly any of my business, Maddy. But I think what he’s doing is a bad idea, to say the least."

  My heart clenched in my chest. "Please. Please tell me where he is."

  "I’m waiting for him," said John. "Outside of the courthouse. He went to see the judge. He seemed very…agitated, very angry. Not in any kind of state to meet with someone that important. I thought at first he was going to just file a request for a reassignment, like you were all talking about on the way back from the hearing. But he finally told me. I think he just needed to tell someone." John swallowed audibly. "I shouldn’t have said anything, but…"

  "No, no, you absolutely should have." I was already hopping into my shoes. "I’m going to get there as fast as I can; let’s hope the judge has a full waiting room already."

  I managed to nab a taxi with a driver who knew how to beat the growing rush-hour traffic, getting me to the courthouse in record time. I rushed up the huge staircase, through the heavy wooden doors, and breathlessly approached the receptionist.

  "Judge Warren, please."

  She gave me a look.

  "Do you have an appointment?"

  "No," I said. "But it’s urgent."

  "You’re the second person to come in today without one," she said, irritated. "It’s highly unlikely that he’ll see either of you."

  "Fine, okay, thank you," I said. "Which way is his office?"

  She pointed wordlessly, and I could feel her eyes on me as I walked through the metal detector, fetched my purse from the end of the x-ray machine, and ran up yet another spiral staircase. When I finally rounded the corner where the signs told me his chambers would be, I spotted Daniel sitting on a bench in the hall.

  He looked up at me, startled.

  "Are you insane?" I asked him, trying and mostly-succeeding at keeping my voice down.

  "How did you find me?" he hissed.

  I sat down. "Take a wild guess. Don’t you dare get mad at him - he did the right thing. What are you planning to do, exactly? What could this possibly accomplish?"

  "Personal satisfaction," said Daniel. "After all this, I think I’m entitled to a little."

  "This isn’t going to accomplish anything, except warning him that you’re about to request another judge. That’s insane. If he has any evidence, he’ll destroy it. You’re not thinking straight."

  "He’s destroyed it already," said Daniel. "I
promise you that. If you -"

  The judge’s door swung open, heavily.

  "Mr. and Mrs. Thorne," he said, looking at us like we were evangelists on his porch. "Please do come in, I’m very interested in what you have to discuss with me."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I briefly considered turning and running away, but that certainly wasn’t going to accomplish anything at this point.

  "I’m sure you are," said Daniel, as we all crowded into the small, wood-paneled room. A clock ticked loudly in the corner.

  "Well?" said the judge. "I have a limited amount of time between cases."

  "I appreciate that," said Daniel. "You’re a busy man. So am I. I just thought you might be interested to know that I found out about you and the plaintiffs from my last case. The one about the prototype. You’ve heard about it, yes? The case that settled in court just about eight years ago?"

  "You seem to have made up your mind already," said the judge. "But as it happens, no, I’m not familiar with that particular case."

  "Bullshit." Daniel’s nostrils were flaring with every breath. "I spoke to my friends at Dartwood. I have the emails, back and forth between you and Jim Paulson."

  The judge blinked. "I seem to recall someone by that name," he said. "I believe he was a Dartwood student, yes. We met at an alumni dinner. He had some very interesting ideas for a handheld personal organizer."

  Daniel leaned forward on the desk, his hands spread out on the polished wood. He loomed over the judge, who didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest. "And you were one of the first investors, weren’t you? All cash, no trail. You were careful, even back then. When his idea fizzled and I ‘stole’ it, you must have felt very hurt indeed. I’m sure it was easier to blame me, than to blame Paulson for being the lazy piece of shit he is. I might not be able to prove how much of a hand you had in this whole thing. I’m sure when Paulson passed you the money for Florence to pay my broker off, he did it very, very carefully. And once you happened to be assigned to my case, I know you covered your tracks. You couldn’t pass up the chance to eviscerate me in front of the whole world. That’s how Florence ended up working directly with Paulson and his friends in the first place - and you paid off that scum journalist to lie about it."

  The judge was smiling.

  "I can’t prove any of this," said Daniel. "As I’m sure you know. But this is more than enough to get me a new judge assigned, and to put you under the microscope. I hope you enjoy the scrutiny."

  "What charming little theories you’ve cooked up," said the judge. "I suppose all of that is easier to swallow than the idea that someone might simply think you’re an undeserving, spoiled little brat?"

  "I’m not interested in your opinion of me," said Daniel, coldly. "I’m interested in how you arrived there."

  "I wish it were that sensational," said the judge. "You’re too young to understand this, but I’ve been working in the courts for forty years. All that time, I’ve seen people taking advantage of the system. Playing it to their own ends. I was never one of them, and my career suffered for it. But I got where I was, finally, by being upright and honest - the things everyone tells you to to be. I got there, after being stepped on by a hundred colleagues along the way. My reputation speaks for itself, and even if it didn’t, I retire in three months. Who’s going to bother to look, no matter how compelling the evidence is?" He looked up at us. "But tell me, Mr. Thorne, supposing everything you’ve said is true. Does that change anything? Will you sleep any better at night?"

  "I might," said Daniel. "That’s none of your concern."

  "Whether you can successfully blame me for this or not," the judge went on, "you still have to live with the realities of what you’ve done. Every decision you’ve made. Every time you chose to ignore someone instead of extending a helping hand. Every time you stepped on someone’s neck. Every time you did something that benefitted you, and you alone. Every time you left someone in your dust, or let them languish in your shadow." The judge paused, his expression suddenly dark. "I believe we’re done here, Mr. and Mrs. Thorne."

  We walked out in silence, except for the loud clicking of our shoes in the halls. I felt like everyone was staring at us. I might have been right.

  So this was what winning felt like.

  I didn’t expect it to taste so bitter.

  ***

  "Sadly, he’s not wrong." Ms. Greenlee sounded slightly harried. Daniel had called her and actually put her on speakerphone, which I had to appreciate. "When it comes to guys like him, who’ve been in the system as long as they have…not to mention the fact that he’s retiring in less time than it will take to get the investigation started. They’ll grant your petition, because they don’t want the hassle, but the investigation’s probably going to be nothing more than a formality."

  "I don’t understand," Daniel said. "Even if Paulson testifies against him? I’ve got my investigator looking for them right now. I’ll only be a matter of time."

  Ms. Greenlee sighed, and I noticed how tired and sad she sounded. I had almost forgotten that she and the judge had once been friends. Or friendly, at least. "I doubt the judge will let that happen. Anyway, according to what you’ve told me, Paulson approached the judge for help in taking you down, not the other way around. No matter how he tries to slice it, the whole thing was his head. There’s not much advantage to him trying to throw someone else under the bus. Especially someone with as much influence as that."

  Poor Kelly was working overtime on our behalf, simultaneously trying to track down Jim Paulson, Ryan Brewer, and Daniel’s broker. According to Gen’s anonymous source, he hadn’t shown up to work in over two weeks.

  The local police had actually been of more help with the Flo situation than I’d anticipated, once they took their sweet time verifying all of our information and going back and forth with the SEC. They agreed that she’d mostly likely made good on her declaration to flee the country. INTERPOL was now informed, and they assured us they’d let us know just as soon as they tracked her down.

  "It’s difficult to hide nowadays," the police chief had assured us. "Cell phone signals, security cameras everywhere - odds are, if she’s out there, we’ll be bringing her back in eventually."

  Lying in bed one night, waiting for that elusive sleep to come, I found myself asking the question that had been lodged in the back of my mind for ages. "Are you absolutely sure it was Paulson who did it?"

  Daniel didn’t answer for a moment. "Yes," he said. "Thinking back, yes, I’m certain. It was his design, mostly. The one he says I stole. He was the only one among them who had any real talent. And he was always the quietest of the bunch. The others would make fun of me to my face, but he never did. I don’t know if it’s because he respected me, or because he was afraid of me, but either way - he was the only one of them who took me seriously. The others would have most likely forgotten about me, if it weren’t for him."

  I didn’t know quite what to say to that.

  ***

  "Thank you," said Daniel, out of the blue.

  I paused, in the middle of pouring my coffee. "You’re…wait, what?"

  Coming to sit down, I searched his face. He looked a little bit soft and unfocused, like he’s just wandered back from being lost in thought.

  "You know," he said. "Hiring Kelly. Pursuing everything. All those things I didn’t want to do. You handled this much better than I did. I don’t mind saying it."

  He did mind, I think, which only made me appreciate it more. I smiled, laying my hand on top of his, which were folded on top of the kitchen island. He was still looking down, staring at the granite countertop like it held the secrets to life, the universe, and everything.

  "I don’t know why I sat on my hands," he said. "I kept telling myself, for some reason, that just being innocent is enough to avoid being convicted of a crime. But I know that’s not true."

  I shrugged. "I just figured I could do something about it, so I might as well. I was tired of just sitting around and
waiting."

  He blinked a few times, rapidly. He still looked slightly lost. "I don’t know what I would have done without you." He took his hand out from under mine and laid it on top.

  This wasn’t the sort of complement I’d ever felt comfortable responding to, especially not from him. Now, I was the one staring at the counter.

  "You don’t think I…overstepped, a little?" I said, finally, because dredging up something negative was easier than accepting something positive.

  He shrugged. "Maybe when you took the money," he said, smiling faintly. "But I suppose that’s my fault too, isn’t it?"

  My heart constricted. "I didn’t…I didn’t think you’d notice," I said finally, lamely. "Anyway, it’s my money too."

  He didn’t say anything for a long while. "Kelly would have done pro bono work for you," he said. "Most people like that will. They know you have no choice but to pay up when the bill comes, because they know too much."

  "Maybe," I said. "But I doubt Ryan Brewer works pro bono."

  His smile twitched.

  I stood up, sliding my hands out from under his and walking over to the fridge. The atmosphere in the room was suddenly, stiflingly uncomfortable - as if he he’d only stated the conversation as an excuse to scold me for what I’d done. But that was stupid. I was the one who’d brought negativity into this, not him. Still, I felt there was a lot he still wasn’t saying, and I didn’t like it.

  We didn’t talk again until the afternoon, when my phone started ringing. It was one of the numbers I’d come to recognize as Kelly’s.

  "You’re not going to believe this," she said, as soon as I picked up.

  "Is that good, or bad?"

  "The broker," she said, sounding incredibly pleased with herself. "He’s just been at home. Holed up in his own apartment. The stupid bastard."

  "Wow." My brain was racing to process this new development. "So what does that mean, exactly?"

  "It means I sent the cops there as soon as I realized it, and he folded like a cheap napkin as soon as they knocked on his door."