by Madelon Smid
He bit back a groan, turning away to hide his instant response. Semi-hard seemed to be his default position these days. Either he reacted to Siree directly, thought about her or dreamed about her, steamy erotica that left him restless and tired through the day. If she noticed, he hoped she put it down to his worry for the company.
“Ah, that feels better.” Her long exhalation sent him rushing to open the fridge door. He pulled out the makings for Spanish omelets, one of his go-to late night snacks and set them by the range. Within minutes he had onions, peppers and chorizo sautéing in a pan and eggs beat into a creamy mix with chopped cilantro and a sprinkle of hot sauce added. By focusing on his cooking, he’d managed to get his body under control, but now realized he hadn’t asked Siree her preference.
“That smells delicious. I love spicy food.” She took a sip of the fruity merlot he’d set before her. “And a good red.” She smiled at him. About to pour the eggs into the pan, he fumbled and slopped some on the counter. “Can I help?” She swept her hand to the side. “Set the places perhaps?” Her laugh came close to a giggle.
It seemed wine went a long way to relaxing her. Jake accepted her teasing with a deprecating smile at his own clumsiness. He pulled placemats, napkins and cutlery from several drawers and dropped them onto the counter in front of her. “Be my guest.”
He popped pieces of dark rye bread covered with slices of Swiss raclette cheese under the broiler. Pulling the plates from the warming drawer of the oven, he divided the omelet onto them. He tucked the bread and a small dish of salsa on the side. “Soup’s on.”
Jake set the plates on the counter and walked around it, aiming for the stool at her side. Siree’s hair stopped him in his tracks. It fell golden and heavy in luxuriant waves and curls ten inches past her bottom. He wanted to touch it so badly his hand shook and he fisted his fingers. Something like that came damn close to sexual harassment. It frustrated him to have to deal with her as an employee when they’d forged a more personal link on the top of that mountain. The magnetic pull hovered like a specter in the air between them, seen, but not touchable. She rejected the magnetic pull because of his notoriety. He had to push against it in order to give her the respect an employee deserved. And if those reasons didn’t dial back the heat, he still had a stalker whose latest letters showed she was watching his every move, yet Gribbs and his team hadn’t once got a fix on her. She wasn’t just crazy. She was cunning.
He sat down at the high counter and dug into his supper. They ate in silence for a few minutes. She seemed in a partial trance, so he left her alone, hoping she’d get some food into her. She’d definitely lost weight since arriving in Vancouver and he didn’t like seeing her so fragile. After a few mouthfuls, she perked up and started eating in earnest. Again, he experienced a warm sense of satisfaction associated with taking care of her.
When they’d cleared their plates, she swiveled to look back down the hallway. “I will take you up on your offer to tidy up.” She scooped the handful of hairpins off the counter and slid off the stool, jerking to a halt with a soft imprecation.
Jake saw that strands of her hair twined around the arm of the stool, holding her fast. He moved to unwind it. Silken, alive, it curled around his fingers like it sought his touch. He imagined making love with her, her hair trailing across his body. “There, you’re free,” he growled, moving away before he gathered up handfuls and buried his face in her scent.
She disappeared down the hall and Jake turned to clear away the dishes. When he made it into the living room ten minutes later, he found her curled up in the corner of his sofa, fast asleep. She’d braided her hair in the thick, loose braid he’d first seen her wear. He ran his hand down the golden length, stealing the silken feel. He didn’t have the heart to wake her, but pulled a cashmere shawl from a chair and draped it over her. He punched in Gribbs’ number. “Stand down,” he said in a low voice. “Looks like we won’t be going anywhere for a few hours. The alarms are set. Everything is tight here. I’ll send Siree down to the garage at 0600 hours and Ben can get her home ahead of the newshounds.”
He disconnected and stood over her, soaking in her sleep blushed face, the supple curves of her body and the delicate perfume of her skin. Her breathing, heavy with exhaustion, hung in the air. That more than anything kept him from picking her up and carrying her down the hall. She needed sleep. He turned off the overhead lights and, picking up his laptop, settled himself in the curve of the sofa where he saw her every time he looked up. Somehow it felt right.
She woke from a rejuvenating sleep when she felt a gentle tweak of her braid. A steaming cup of café au lait lowered into view.
“Easy,” he said, his voice tinged with an early morning rasp. “I’d prefer you drink this. Not wear it again.”
The smell of coffee brought her fully awake, but underneath its inviting aroma was the more enticing scent of freshly-showered male. His hair slightly damp, his face clean-shaven and his clothes immaculate, Jake exuded a magnetic intensity. She responded to it at her most feminine level. It made her aware her eyes were gritty, her clothes creased and her hair a messy tangle.
She downed her café au lait, along with the thought the man was impossible, remembering every detail, of her likes and dislikes. How can I stay clear of someone who so clearly takes an interest in what matters to me?
She drove out of the garage ten minutes later with Ben in the car, wearing the hat and dark glasses he supplied. They’d looked just like a young couple heading for work. By the time she’d changed at her mother’s and been driven to the office, Janice had arrived to take over as watch dog.
****
Siree parked her Prius in the guest space at her mother’s condo. The underground garage provided a blessed coolness. She walked to the elevator, Janice on her heels. The elevator swished its way upward and Siree’s thoughts turned from algorithms to the evening ahead. Both caused a bubbling anticipation. The numbers led her in the right direction now. Often, she tracked pathways that wound back on themselves and stopped at dead ends. But she had a mental map of the maze she’d entered and just hours ago mastered, emerging with all the answers. The evening meant seeing Ty, always a pleasure. But in fairness, she gave the thought of Jake coming credit for the streams of anticipation flowing through her. She hurried out of the elevator and fit her key in her mother’s door. She had less than an hour to make herself presentable for dinner. About twelve guests were expected and she knew her mom had had minimal time to pull it together once she’d found out this was the only night Jake could make it.
Forty minutes later, Siree descended the stairs and joined the group already gathered in the salon. She’d heard the doorbell ringing at intervals while she’d bathed and dressed, and wondered which peal heralded Jake’s arrival.
She heard the boom of Ty’s laughter before she entered the room. He saw her and, without missing a word of his story, opened his arms. She walked in and got the bear hug she’d counted on since she was a tiny tot. “Siree, you look like you need food as badly as I do,” he joked, while his knowing eyes took in her slighter frame. He fixed an intent look on Sharon.
“Yes, Ty, I know it’s three hours later in Toronto, I just wanted to wait for my daughter.” Deftly, Sharon signaled to the caterer and moved to a central position in the room to invite her guests to go in to dinner.
Siree took her designated seat and discovered she had Jake on her right, and Habib Djalili on her left. “Hab, what a wonderful surprise,” she greeted, making no effort to hide her pleasure at seeing her old college friend. From the corner of her eye she saw Jake lean forward to see around her. She pressed herself back into the chair so the two men could see each other. “Have you met, yet?”
“No, I arrived just minutes before you came down, another reason Tyrus had to wait for his dinner.”
“Jake Ingles, this is Habib Djalili. We were at the Sorbonne together. His parents are dear friends of my mother. They were all in the diplomatic service in France.”
The men nodded at each other. “You live in Vancouver now?” Jake asked.
“No, just visiting my sister.” Hab pointed out a striking brunette on the other side of the table. “I became a surgeon and went back to Iran to practice. My wife and two sons are there.”
“Two sons, Hab? I’m one son behind. How old is he? What did you name him?” In seconds she and Hab had their heads together over photos he’d dragged from his wallet.
Jake turned to the woman on his other side. He introduced himself and took up the polite social chatter underlying the superb food and atmosphere, but his focus remained on Siree.
“Isn’t Mother wonderful?” She nudged him once, whispering.
He looked down the head of the table, where Sharon sat looking striking and youthful, Tyrus on her right and a retired senator holding her attention on her left. Tyrus made a growling noise and shot some words across the table at the gentleman, who shifted his attention in the form of a cold stare to Tyrus. Sharon looked from one gentleman to the next, surprise flitted across her face before she uttered something that had both men smiling and giving their attention back to the excellent salmon and herbed gnocchi on their plates.
“Yes,” Jake replied. “I see a lot of her in you; the same inner strength, the same warm response to people. She’s done a tremendous amount with her life, and from the causes she’s been pitching ever so diplomatically but persistently to me, has every intention of continuing to make it count. I admire her.”
Siree glowed at his praise of someone she held dearest of all. “Mom told me you just gave a generous amount to one of those causes.”
“Yes, APTS. A Place To Stay. They build respite homes for vagrants, where they can have temporary housing, access to counseling, addiction therapy, and job opportunities. Vancouver has a huge vagrant population because of its warmer weather, and an equally huge need for workers. I’m happy to get behind the idea of helping both sectors.”
They both leaned back as a waiter came to remove their dinner plates. “I wanted to talk to you about getting some balance back into your life while you’re here.” He paused again as the waiter returned with a molten chocolate cake with fresh raspberries artistically plated. He declined the dessert, waited till the waiter moved on then resumed the conversation. “I go to a climbing club downtown several times a month to get in some practice, and I thought it would be a good idea for you to join it. JDI paid for a membership for you and Janice. You aren’t getting nearly the amount of exercise you would normally.”
“And you would know this, how?” Her eyes narrowed.
He evaded the question. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure the hours you’re working in a day don’t add up to spare time for your runs, and I know you haven’t taken any recreational time to climb since you arrived.”
He twisted so he could look at her directly. “A couple of buddies and I are going out on Sunday to do some free climbing on Mt. Harvey. I wondered if you would like to join us. The guys are easy going and used to helping to keep the paparazzi off my back. We’re really good at covering our tracks so we get privacy to climb.”
“Throwing a woman into the mix, regardless if she’s just a friend, changes the dynamics and your friends might not like it,” she offered.
“We’ve had other people join us before, and they’ve brought in women they’ve been dating, the odd time. I wouldn’t suggest it if I thought you’d be made uncomfortable in any way.”
Siree caught her mother’s signal to rise and move into the salon for coffee. “I’ll let you know.” She let her desire to climb, her desire for Jake prevail. “And yes, I will get in some practice at the club you mentioned, probably go Thursday night. I’ll get Janice to come with me. She finds it a challenge to fit in her work-ups around my schedule.”
She took in the lift of his eyebrows, laid her napkin on the table and stood, leaning closer so Jake had to stay in his chair. “Yes, I like Janice. She can’t help that she’s my daytime bodyguard and your fulltime spy. I know she’s the one that reports my every move to you.” She threw a taunting look over her shoulder and glided away from him in a swirl of red chiffon.
He wondered if she knew she looked like a flame lighting a night sky, teasing the dark with the promise of warmth. God, he wanted her.
“She’s really something, that daughter of mine.” Sharon’s approach caught him by surprise. He actually felt heat over his cheekbones as he looked up into her knowing eyes.
“She just said the same about you. The two of you are much alike.”
“I see so much of her father in her. She has Miles’ love of adventure, that ability to throw himself into life, and the same unswerving loyalty to the people she cares about.” Sharon’s eyes took on a lost look. “It’s been almost ten years and I can still see him running out the door after he got her call. He loved her so, and he gave up his life protecting her.”
She caught his glance, fixed hers on it. “Desiree will always have that picture of heroism in her mind. Any man who wants her would have to live up to it.”
He figured she had just warned him off, when she spoke again.
“I can see that you are interested in Siree in a personal way. You have quite a conflict of interest in agreeing to protect her identity and keep her connection with you from the press.” She reached out and squeezed his forearm. “Your efforts are heroic in their own way.”
She turned as her factotum came into the room and crossed to Siree, declaring in a voice easily heard by those sitting around her that she had an overseas call. She rose with a delighted laugh and excused herself.
“That’s your cue to get Ty and head out onto the balcony through the French doors. Take the third set of French doors on the right and it will bring you back in to my office. Siree will meet you there. It is my belief she has something of interest to tell you.” With a knowing look she turned back to her other guests.
Jake wasted no time in pulling Tyrus from a debate on the economic fallout, good or bad, of the Alberta oil sands, and led him onto the patio. Traffic moved far below through a kaleidoscope of lights, the swish of tires on damp streets somehow soothing.
They walked the patio together and moved into a paneled room that held much of Sharon’s warmth and many mementoes from her travels abroad. Siree was already in the room, the phone call an obvious excuse for her to leave the other guests for a time. She positioned her laptop on the wide desk. “If you want to pull up a couple more chairs, I should be able to show you what I’ve found so far.”
“I could tell you had broken the code on this one as soon as I saw you,” Ty said. “Good girl. Or is that too patronizing?” He glowered. “This damn politically correct stuff gets complicated when you’re addressing someone you see as your daughter.”
Jake lifted two small Queen Anne chairs that lined one wall and carried them behind the desk. He realized how little he knew her in comparison to the people closest to her. He’d sensed a higher pitch of excitement in her and had tagged it a sexual response to match his own. Now he noticed she gestured less, her hands stayed by her side, with only her fingers opening and closing. A higher degree of intensity tightened the fine skin around her eyes. He catalogued her tells and memorized them.
She waited for them to settle, Ty in the heavier office chair and them on either side. Without preamble, she directed their attention to a diagram that on first appearance looked like a drawing of a maze. “I found the pattern yesterday.” She looked over at Jake. “That’s what kept me working so late, and I’m sorry I fell asleep and then didn’t get to tell you. Still, I didn’t have anything solid to report. It took me all of today to scrape off the layers of subterfuge so we can see it clearly.”
She flicked her fingers over the keys and another spreadsheet came up. “Here are your regional offices, and here are the payments each personnel department pays into the pension at your head office. They’re coming in from thirty-two locations worldwide. Note how the numbers go in here, and how they’v
e changed by the time they arrive at IYM in Vancouver?” This time she stopped to explain to Ty. “That’s the investment company that handles all JDI’s portfolios. IYM’s statements to you balance out, but they don’t know they’re only getting a portion of the real funds. They deal with what JDI gives them. JDI keeps tabs of the IYM’s numbers that raise no red flags. An internal check on your pension numbers also tallies. There is no reason to compare the two.”
“They’d have to show up in our quarterly and annual statements,” Jake said.
“Not if those statements are showing the correct amount. Here.” She brought up another sheet showing quarterly and annual statements through the last two years. “All the numbers work, except here, where pension investments are listed you have a different number than here.” She flicked back to the second page so they could compare totals. “Your accounts department verifies all the bottom lines, but doesn’t catch the inconsistencies because they don’t show up in the same place.”
“Or because whoever is handling this in accounts is one of our perpetrators,” Jake concluded.
“My thoughts exactly. I put together a short list of possible employees who control money going into both these funds. But that’s only scraping the surface. It’s just a small amount of what you’re losing.”
She flipped to the next screen. “These are trading shares purchased by JDI. Again the numbers match with what IYM invested for you. But here are what the stocks are worth and here are what they are actually selling for. This shows up repeatedly. A block of stock here, a piece of a block there being sold off at bargain basement prices. You see the bottom line as reported by IYM, not as high as it should be, but taking them on faith, you just figure you’ve made a few poorer investments than usual.”
“I don’t just blindly hand over JDI’s money to purchase stocks without answerability,” Jake declared, his anger mounting. “I know what stocks are selling for and would see if one of our investments came in really low.”