WORTHY, Part 3 (The Worthy Series)

by Lexie Ray

  There was nothing. I felt nothing.

  I searched my heart, looking for the answers and the reasons behind my nonchalance about this moment. I’d been building and building to it for so long that I didn’t know what to do with myself anymore. It was over, and I regretted it. I regretted all of it. I regretted how I’d treated my employees and Felix and even Milo. I’d ridden them hard, used them for my own gains, and now I wasn’t even sure that this was a good thing.

  Wharton Group was on its knees, but I wasn’t sure that I could deliver the final blow.

  “April?” Milo was giving me that look again. I guessed he’d thought that I would be jumping up and down for joy just like I’d thought I would. He held the folder out to me, and I took it, surprised at how much it weighed. I hefted it in my two hands. I could hold in my very own hands, the means to ruin Jonathan’s life, and I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to do it anymore.

  What was the point of all of this? Why had I come this far and turned my back on so much? Was this it? Was this all it came down to? A fat stack of papers stuffed into a folder?

  “Well, say something, at least,” Milo urged. I could tell that I was concerning him greatly, and was toeing the line of scaring him. Just another regret to add to the pile I’d amassed.

  “I can’t believe this is really happening,” I said, clutching the folder to my chest. “Everything I wanted is here.”

  “I don’t know how you knew,” Milo said. “Hell, I don’t want to know. But it’s all there, April. Embezzlement. Fraud. And all from the CEO, Jonathan Wharton. That sack of shit who came in here with guns blazing is a crook.”

  That was the hardest thing to believe of all. I cracked open the folder and started to skim down a paper, but it was all numbers and legalese. I had to trust Milo that it was all there. However many lists of figures or paragraphs of explanation would never make me believe that Jonathan had been the key to taking down his family’s company. I was aware that his misdeeds made this even sweeter, made it even more righteous to use him to destroy the company. But it was so hard to believe.

  When I’d known him, all he had cared about was the Wharton Group. He’d left our wedding reception, for God’s sake, to try to save his reputation and his job. He’d striven to prove to everyone that he was worthy of helming the company.

  Why embezzle, then? There was no reason for it. He had all the money in the world. Why did he have to steal from the company he was helping to lead?

  This would kill Collier, who had so much faith in his son to do the right thing, to be the strong and capable leader of the Wharton Group. It was funny that Collier was the first person who really rained on my parade.

  Of course, I’d been raining on this parade from the moment Milo told me it was over. It would never be over. I would never be over Jonathan Wharton, not until one of us was dead. I didn’t even think it would help to flee to a deserted island, to leave all of this behind. I would always find some way to obsess over Jonathan.

  “When do you want to go live with this?” Milo asked. “We could press charges this afternoon. We could leak this to the press immediately. We could have the Wharton Group officially crippled by tomorrow. All you have to say is that you want it.”

  Now that this was all really happening, I wanted to put the brakes on. I had to make sure of some things — mainly, that I really did want to destroy Jonathan’s life.

  Did anyone really deserve to feel how horrible I felt after all of my tragedy? Even Jonathan, my husband? The man I still loved even after everything?

  “I’m going to have to review these documents,” I said, looking at Milo. I knew that I was just buying myself time. The documents would be like reading Chinese for me, but I couldn’t do this right now. I couldn’t just pull the trigger on ruining Jonathan’s life. Even if that’s all I’d been wanting to do for the past few months, I just couldn’t.

  “I can go over them with you, if you like,” Milo offered. “I know how important this case is to you, April. I’m just as eager as you are to see this thing finished and closed. I don’t know how you’re going to spend all your time anymore, but I’ll help you find a hobby. We can go to more art galleries, even. Fill every inch of your walls at your loft with paintings.”

  I wouldn’t describe my primary emotion about the folder I was holding as eagerness. It would actually be closer to dread.

  “I think I should call Jonathan Wharton,” I said.

  Milo’s mouth dropped open. “Why the hell would you do something like that?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t you think he has the right to know what we’ve found before we open up this can of worms for everyone in the world to see?”

  “No, I don’t,” Milo said, taking me by the shoulders and giving me a small shake. “And neither should you. He trespassed in here, threatened and insulted us both, and you think he deserves that kind of courtesy? You’re delusional.”

  “I’m not delusional,” I said, setting my shoulders. “I just think that we should slow down for a moment, savor it, and analyze what’s going to happen before we go plunging ahead. That’s all.”

  “You and I both know what’s going to happen,” Milo said incredulously. “Wharton Group is done. The company’s accountability, its morality, its reputation is shot. If its own CEO, a man who shares his name with the company itself, is found guilty of embezzling — and, let’s face it, April, the documentation and evidence is overwhelming here — it would sink that entire ship.”

  “I just think I want to hear him explain himself,” I said. “Is that too much to ask? For an explanation?”

  “Why do you care so much?” Milo asked. “I thought the only thing that was important to you was taking down this company. Now that we have, you all of a sudden have cold feet.”

  “You haven’t shown this to anyone else, have you?” I demanded.

  “You’re the first pair of eyes on it,” Milo said. “I thought you would be the happiest person to see that this was at an end, but I think I’m wrong.”

  “Aren’t you the least bit curious as to why he did it?” I asked. “He had so much already. Why did he need to steal money from his own company? Jonathan Wharton had all the money he needed.”

  “Who knows why anybody does anything?” Milo asked, shrugging. “Maybe he was in debt to the mafia. Maybe he had a drug problem. Hell, I don’t know, April, maybe he’s just a bad person.”

  “None of those is true,” I scoffed. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

  “You’ve gone as far as any of us can go,” Milo said. “It’s now up to the justice system to get to the bottom of this, and even then, we may never know the reasoning behind it.”

  “Leave me,” I said suddenly.

  “April.” Milo frowned at me. “Seriously. Don’t call Jonathan Wharton. Don’t give that asshole a chance to try to get this cleaned up. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve a second more of your time.”

  “I want answers, and I’m going to get them,” I said.

  “Has this been you playing at some detective fantasy this whole time?” Milo exploded, shocking me with his sudden anger. “Are you really obsessed with this guy? I mean, I know you all have a history, but I thought it was ancient. I thought you’d left it all behind, and that once you had the evidence you needed to take his company down, that it’d be over.”

  “What do you mean you know he and I have a history?” I asked, feeling my face go hot. “Who’s been telling you that?”

  “Nobody has to tell me, April,” Milo said. “I told you that I pick up on things. I can read body language like a book. I saw how you reacted to seeing him burst into your office that time. I see how you perk up whenever anyone says his name around you. And all it takes is one background check to find out that you’re still married to him — estranged, maybe, but still married in the eyes of the state of Illinois.”

  I glowered at him. “You ran a background check on me?”

  “Just to be sure,” Milo
said. “Just to make sure that all of my suspicions were correct.”

  “And what suspicions were those?” I asked.

  “That you had something to hide,” he said, his face sick. “That you were running from something. That as much as you professed to hate the Wharton Group and its CEO, you still loved him.”

  God, that was hard to hear. It was hard to hear because it was coming from Milo, because it was shocking that he’d seen through me so easily, because it was true.

  I did still love Jonathan, as messed up as that was. I loved him so much that I’d devoted these past few months to him completely — even as I professed that I hated him, that I was taking his happiness away, that I was ruining his life just as he’d ruined mine.

  “You were married to Jonathan Wharton, and you never saw fit to tell me,” Milo said. “Was that the big secret, April? Were you afraid to tell us that you were just ruining your husband’s life?”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I hissed at him. “You know what? Get the fuck out. Get the fuck out of my office, the fuck out of this firm, the fuck out of my life. We’re done here, Milo.”

  “We were done from the start,” he said sadly, not rising to meet my anger. “There was never any legitimate chance between you and me, April.”

  Milo got up to leave, and something inside of me broke. I didn’t want to be left like this. I didn’t want to know that I had no one, that I was alone.

  “I’m sorry, Milo,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry. It’s just the stress of this whole thing, the realization that the investigation could really be over …”

  “It is over, April,” Milo said. “You’re holding everything right in your hands.”

  I dropped the file on my desk as if it had burned me.

  “What you’re reading in to Jonathan and me isn’t true,” I lied. “That ship has sailed. Besides, we have evidence of his wrongdoing, proof that there have been misdeeds all along.”

  I could see Milo’s question in his green eyes — had I somehow known about these misdeeds? Or had I just gotten lucky that there had been something to find, that I hadn’t nearly ruined this firm for nothing?

  “We deserve to celebrate tonight,” I said finally. “We’ve all worked hard. Let’s do something special.”

  Milo’s face softened a little bit. “Where do you want to go?”

  “You decide,” I said. “Let me just clean up a little bit in here — Jesus, all this paper must’ve been a small forest — and I’ll met you at the car. Does that sound good?”

  “Of course.” Milo stepped closer to me and kissed my forehead. I was aware that I’d dodged a bullet, that I’d convinced him for just a little while longer that everything was all right between us. I wondered just how wise that was.

  The moment that Milo left my office, closing the door behind him, I swept all of the papers on my desk into the trash and positioned the file from the Wharton Group case in the middle of the cleared surface. It was time.

  I dialed a number I had to Google to find and waited as the phone rang a couple of times before launching into elevator music. After a couple of seconds of soft jazz and muted trumpets, a voice cut in.

  “You’ve reached Wharton Group. How may I direct your call?”

  “Hi, may I please speak with Jonathan Wharton, please?”

  “He’s busy at the moment,” the receptionist said briskly. “Who can I say is calling?”

  “April Smith,” I said. “CEO of —”

  “Oh, yes, Ms. Smith,” the receptionist said quickly. “We all know who you are.”

  That gave me more than a little pause. Who was “we?” And did they know who I really was?

  “It seems you have me at a disadvantage, then,” I said, fighting to keep my voice as professional as possible. “If you know who I am, then you’ll want to put me through to Jonathan Wharton right away.”

  “Ms. Smith, he’s in a meeting right now,” the receptionist said. “I can have him call you right back.”

  That wasn’t good enough. I had Milo waiting for me and no time to spare.

  “I’m sure you’re aware that my firm is doing an investigation on Wharton Group,” I continued, trying a slightly different tack.

  “Everyone knows it,” the receptionist replied, sounding more and more interested with every second.

  “Wouldn’t you want to know, if you were Jonathan Wharton, just what the status of that investigation is?” I plied. “And wouldn’t you want to know, if there was some sort of revelation or progress on the whole process, just who kept you from knowing about it?”

  “Let me transfer you right away,” the receptionist said after just half a beat’s pause, and I had to smile as the elevator music came back on over the receiver of my desk phone.

  “Goddamn it, Liz, I said no calls!” Jonathan’s voice exploded into my ear and made me jump clear out of my skin. I cleared my throat and forced myself back together again.

  “This isn’t Liz,” I said, lowering my voice so that Jonathan got the full, throaty effect. I was too scared that I would be more recognizable over the phone than in person. “This is April Smith, CEO of —”

  “I know who the fuck you are,” he interrupted. “What the fuck do you want?”

  I’d been hesitant earlier about the fate of Wharton Group, but with that attitude, I was feeling better and better about being able to do the right thing, being able to exact my revenge on the man who had taken everything from me.

  I didn’t feel even an ounce of guilt anymore. Milo could say whatever he wanted to say. Calling Jonathan was the best decision I’d ever made as CEO of the firm. This cemented everything. Jonathan was a different person from the one I’d been in love with, and it was like delivering a juicy bit of bad news to someone who completely deserved it.

  “I thought I’d do you the courtesy of a phone call before you saw it on the news,” I said. “Kiss Wharton Group goodbye, would you?”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line that I savored. I hoped his mouth had dropped open in shock. I hoped he had me on speakerphone and a dozen other important people had heard me deliver the verdict.

  “What you think you might have found proves nothing,” Jonathan said, his voice tight. “It’s innocent until proven guilty, Ms. Smith.”

  “It’s easy to say that when you’re not looking at what I’m looking at,” I said, brushing my hand lovingly over the folder Milo had prepared.

  “What are you looking at?” Jonathan couldn’t resist the bait.

  “A dossier full of tax returns,” I said cheerfully. There was no reason to hide the bounty we’d found. “Embezzlement, Mr. Wharton, and from you personally. Though I suppose my saying that is no shock to you. You knew what you were doing. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  The silence on the other end of the line went on and on, and I felt like dancing a jig.

  “Does your father know what you’ve done?” I asked softly. The Jonathan I’d known had been constantly trying to impress Collier with his work ethic, his performance as CEO. This would crush Collier.

  “Leave my father out of this.” My husband’s voice was tired, defeated, and it somehow wasn’t the reaction I wanted. I wanted him to rage and curse at me. I wanted him to completely lose his shit, be furious, try to deny everything.

  “When are you going to release the information?” he asked, his voice that same expressionless tone. I didn’t feel like I had won anything, and all of my glee evaporated.

  “Why, are you thinking about skipping town?” I asked, trying again for a rise out of him.

  “I’d maybe like to give a few people a head’s up that this is coming,” Jonathan said. “Is there any way I could do that? For you to hold off? For my family to not have to find out about this fuckery on CNN or MSNBC?”

  The request surprised me. Jonathan cared about his family, cared about what they thought about him. If he cared so much now, what had led him to embezzle in the first place?

 
“Why did you do it?” I asked softly.

  He heaved a long sigh that went on and on, and then the call ended. Just like that, it was over. Jonathan had thrown in the towel, and I knew that I had won, but there was no taste of victory in this. This tasted like ashes in my mouth.

  I rested my phone back on its cradle and tried to savor the moment, but there was no savoring this. I’d hit Jonathan where it hurt him the most, and it had ended up hurting me, too. When I’d started waging this war, when I’d taken my place at my parents’ firm for this sole purpose, I never would’ve imagined that I would regretted the outcome of getting exactly what I wanted.

  Jonathan was defeated, and I was victorious, but there was no real winner, here. In the end, we’d both lost everything, and I was just beginning to realize that I had lost even more throughout this campaign to bring my husband down to my level of despair. I’d lost my humanity — what little of it remained — in the process.

  I took the folder in my hands again, hefting its weight. Now, it didn’t seem nearly as heavy. Such a flimsy thing had done a surprising amount of damage to a surprising number of people. I felt like it should be locked up in a cage or something, not just sitting here on my desk, in my arms. No one should have to touch this.

  Not knowing what else to do, I shoved the folder in my purse and left the office. I couldn’t be there anymore. I couldn’t be anywhere anymore.

  I walked right by Milo out in the parking lot without even seeing him.

  “April,” he said, laughing. “You’re walking around in a daze. Do you even know what to do with yourself after something this big? Have you lost all purpose in life?”

  The lawyer came closer to hitting the mark than he knew. I didn’t have a purpose, and I now knew the one I’d chosen was a mistake. I’d used my parents’ company — nearly run it right into the ground, just like Felix had warned me against — in the pursuit of a personal vendetta. They had never wanted to use the firm for anything but good, and I had disgraced their memory. That was the worst realization of all, that I had forsaken everything for this deplorable act.