Accounting for Lust

by Ylette Pearson

  “What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’re still worried about the stupid threat of yesterday.”

  Joshua shook his head, pulled a piece of paper from the pile on the table. “Look at this and tell me again I’m paranoid.”

  Cassie stared at the contents and paled. A photo of her, in her office, busy working late at night when no one was supposed to be near. She swallowed the fear clogging her throat.

  She shoved it back at Joshua. “We’ve been through this before.”

  He sidestepped her. “Look at the words.”

  Cassie didn’t need to look again. She saw it all the first time. “You’re Going to Die … Bitch”, bled in bold letters over the black and white image.

  Inhaling deeply she met Joshua’s eyes. “If I ran for cover every time someone felt I was too hard on them, I would never stop.” She stepped around him and lifted her head. “This is not the first time and it probably wouldn’t be the last someone tried to scare me from the investigation. It just proves we’re getting close to finding the missing funds.”

  “It also means someone is getting desperate.” Joshua placed a restraining hand on her arm. “Please Cassie, let me hire someone to watch over you. I promise they’ll be discreet. If you had a man at home . . .”

  Even before he finished speaking, Cassie shook her head, shrugged his hand off her arm and walked towards the door. She didn’t need a man and needed someone peering over her shoulder twenty-four hours a day about as much as a hole in the head. Inwardly she winced at the analogy.

  “No.”

  “Then I quit. I will not be a part of this any longer. I know I said I would help you find out why the company that should be flourishing with all the new contracts, struggled to make ends meet, but I will not stand by and watch you get hurt in the process.”

  Cassie froze. Hiring a new forensic accountant was difficult enough, but finding one she could trust was impossible. She caught her lower lip between her teeth. After more than ten years of friendship, he wouldn’t just up and leave her. She whirled around. The stern expression on his face belied her thoughts.

  If Joshua quit she might as well give up on her search for the person who robbed her father’s company to the brink of bankruptcy. She would never be able to clear his name and keep the company from forced liquidation.

  “You can’t quit.” She hated the thinness of her voice, the insecurity that shone through.

  “I can and I will, if you don’t want to take precautions.”

  He stepped closer to her. “Hell, Cassie. I don’t sleep at night for worry about you. You can’t expect to investigate billion – Rand arms deals, announce publicly that you’re doing it and not get someone seriously pissed off.”

  “My father would never…”

  He pressed a finger under her nose. “Your father, rest his soul, is dead. After the way he treated you and your brother, I still can’t understand why you grieve for him. But you’re alive and I would like to keep it that way, despite your disregard for your own safety.” He grabbed her shoulders. “This is not a moderate accounting practice we are dealing with here, but a Fortune 500- company selling weapons to foreign governments with the blessing of our own government. Someone is getting nervous and wants you stopped. Don’t you get that yet?”

  Cassie only nodded, not trusting her voice. She had no choice. Without Joshua she would never find the truth. Frustration and anger welled up inside her, obliterating the fear. She would find those bastards who nearly ruined her father’s company. She would find them and make them pay.

  She cleared her throat. “All right. You can find someone tomorrow. Arrange with Megan for an appointment early in the morning.”

  Relief flooded Joshua’s face. Cassie stroked his cheek. “Thanks for being such a good friend.”

  His arms tightened for a moment before he released her, turned her around and shoved her out the door. “Yeah, yeah. Now get to work.”

  *****

  “Cassandra Adams, you need to go home.”

  Darkness had long ago fallen when the firm voice of her secretary sliced through the quiet evening air. Cassie jumped behind her desk and pulled a blue line through the figures she was busy checking.

  “Dammit Megan, I thought you had gone home hours ago. What are you still doing here?” Cassie rubbed her eyes, leaned back in her chair and stared at the matronly woman standing in front of her desk with her fists firmly planted in her sides. Tendrils of grey hair had escaped the tight bun and fatigue cast dark shadows under the sharp blue eyes. She pulled her normally friendly mouth into a tight line. Cassie sighed inwardly.

  Since she assumed the CEO position after her father’s death ten months ago, she had to prove she was capable of running the company founded by her father. The already nervous investors balked at her taking over one of the largest weapons manufacturers in South Africa. She was an accountant, not a businesswoman and didn’t know a popsicle from a pistol when she walked through the door. In hindsight, she didn’t blame them. Negotiating multi-million Rand deals with foreign governments was as far removed from her accounting practice as the sun was from the earth.

  “I’m waiting for you to go home and get a decent night’s sleep,” Megan’s voice shook her out of her reverie.

  Cassie rose from behind the desk and flexed her shoulders, took Megan by the arm and started towards the door. “Go home, please. I’m nearly done and I can look after myself. Besides, isn’t Thursdays your bridge night with the ladies?” At the elevators, Megan shrugged Cassie’s hand off her arm.

  “You’re not getting rid of me that easy and bridge can wait. What are you still doing here? Is there anything I can help with?”

  Cassie shook her head. “No, I’m just checking some figures. Now go home.”

  Megan frowned. “Joshua told me about the threats… Someone doesn’t like you poking into the old accounts and they made no secret about it.”

  Cassie squared her shoulders. “All the more reason to find out why they are nervous.” She tapped her foot and waited for Megan to scan her finger into biometrics. If she could, she would’ve done it for her, but the system wouldn’t let Megan out of the elevator if her prints weren’t scanned before she got in.

  “Makes me wonder about your father…”

  “What about my father?”

  Megan stared at Cassie for long time before she shrugged and retrieved a tissue from her handbag. “You’re just like him, you know. Before his death, he also worked later and later and looked more worried and harassed. I’d say you need a decent man and a string of babies to keep you out of the office at night. ”

  “Megan …”

  “Don’t you Megan me. I worked with your father for close to fifteen years and I saw how he slaved away at the office. I swear, he spent more time here than with his latest mistress.” She held up her hand when Cassie drew a sharp breath. “I saw him grow old before his time doing exactly as you are doing now. I don’t think I could stand losing another Adams.” She pressed her thumb on the biometric scanner for the elevator and waited for the scan to complete and the green light to brighten.

  “I know you think he didn’t care for his children, but he did. He loved you and Dorian so much he saw no other way to make sure you’d never have to suffer the way he did as a child. If he was overprotective, it was because he cared.”

  Cassie sniggered and shook her head. “I’m sure he cared, Megan, but not about us. Everything revolved around Adams Armoury Incorporated. ” She waved her hand in a circle. “This company was all that mattered to him. We were the trophies he took out to show off, but quickly returned to their place behind the sterile display glass.”

  “If that’s what you believe, why are you doing this? Why risk your life and work your butt off if you still hate him?”

  Cassie shook her head. “Because I have to.”

  Megan stepped into the elevator and pressed the button. “Yes, I guess you have to, being an Adams.” She sighed. “Anyway, call me if you need
anything.”

  Cassie nodded. “I will. Good night.”

  Megan’s mumbled greeting was lost in the closing doors of the elevator. Cassie glanced over her shoulder at the empty corridor and stifled the unease settling in her stomach. The menacing silence brought back Joshua’s earlier warning. Banning the thought, she started towards her office when a crash from Megan’s office stopped her in her tracks. Blood roared in her ears. Everyone should have gone home by now. She jumped when a cleaner and his cart exited Megan’s office, his body swaying to the beat of the music audible only to him through the earphones plugged into his ears. She forced her breathing to calm and lowered the hand she had placed over her heart.

  Joshua’s paranoia nearly rubbed off on her. No one could get into the building without a biometric fingerprint scan. She was not going to live in fear just because her assistant thought someone didn’t like her digging into the accounts of the company. Nobody knew what she had already found. She peeked into Megan’s office and satisfied that nothing was amiss, walked into her own. She closed the door behind her and listened to the lock engage. Sliding behind her desk, she quickly became engrossed in the figures before her. Figures that should make sense, but didn’t.

  A scraping noise from the office next door had Cassie reaching for the phone despite her resolve not to give in to the panic lurking at the brink of her mind. She keyed in the number for the security in the lobby and listened to the silence on the line. Silence. No dial tone. No ringing of the phone in the lobby.

  Her heart thudded in her chest and a film of perspiration erupted on her forehead. She grabbed her cellular phone and punched in the number for the lobby. The guard answered just as an explosion rocked the outer office.

  Glass shattered behind her and Cassie dove under the table. The sprinklers popped out and water drenched the documents on her desk. She grabbed as many files as she could and tucked it under her jacket. Someone yelled her name from afar and Cassie peeked over the desk. No one was there. The yelling continued and Cassie opened her hands. The cellular phone dropped to the ground with the guard in the lobby’s voice booming from the speaker.

  Straining to keep her voice calm, Cassie instructed the guard to alert the authorities and assured him she was fine. Ending the call, she leaned against the panel of the solid wood desk and closed her eyes. When her heart rate calmed enough for her to breathe normally again, she ducked her head some more and pressed her palms against the insides of the desk drawers to lift her off the floor and out of the wet slush. The muscles in her arms protested as she kept herself suspended in the air without hitting her head on the underside of the desk.

  She moved her hands to get a better grip and a soft pop sounded. A panel of the desk gave way revealing a cavity just above the floor behind the bottom drawer. Cassie stared open-mouthed at the cavity that held three flash drives. Now why would her father hide the drives there? She could hear the emergency personnel in the passage making their way through the debris, which had to line the corridor. The information on the discs had to be important if her father felt the need to hide them instead of placing them in his personal safe. If she left them there, someone else might find them and if she took them with, they might land in the wrong hands. Cassie grabbed the drives and pushed them inside her bra, making sure they she tucked them firmly against her body.

  With the emergency sprinklers on, the door unlocked automatically and it now creaked open, screeching with debris being cleared out of the way.

  “Miss Adams?” A gruff voice enquired from the door.

  “I’m all right.” She crawled from under the desk and grabbed her briefcase from the floor. The fireman popped a hardhat onto her head and draped a yellow waterproof cloak over her shoulders.

  “We must go, ma’am.”

  Cassie managed a nod. Dropping the files from under her jacket in the briefcase, she rolled the combination closed and retrieved her handbag from one of the drawers. The office was all but decimated.

  “We have to get you out of here. This floor might be unsafe due to structural damage. Will you be able to walk, Ma’am?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. With his hand under her elbow, he guided her through the debris. Panic threatened to overwhelm her as they descended the dark stairs. She had to get out of the building before she suffocated.

  Cassie inhaled deeply as she stepped onto the pavement and fresh air washed over her. Her knees threatened to give way and the fireman steered her towards an ambulance. Flashing blue and red lights of the emergency vehicles lit up the night, casting gigantic shadows of people running against the walls. After the emergency personnel were satisfied that she sustained no major injuries, they let her out of the ambulance with a stern warning to wait until the police finished questioning her.

  She walked towards the building again, her legs shaking under her. Close to the entrance, Cassie sank onto the low wall of a water feature. She dropped her head between her knees, grateful for the sirens drowning out the sobs raking her body.

  Maybe Joshua was right. She might need someone to watch over her until this was over. Her mind rejected the notion. After the constant monitoring by her parents as a child, she vowed that she wouldn’t allow anyone to dictate her movements again. To do so willingly now, re-established all the fears and insecurities of her childhood.

  As if her mind conjured him from the air, Joshua lifted her chin with his index finger before grabbing her shoulders, lifting her to her feet and hugging her tight. They dealt with the questions from the police before Joshua herded her towards his car.

  “I arranged for a police officer to guard your apartment tonight. The security team will meet us tomorrow. In light of tonight’s events, I don’t want you to spend another moment without protection.”

  Cassie sighed. She didn’t have to like the fact that he was right. If something happened to her now, all their hard work of the past months would be worthless. Joshua tried to keep up a steady banter of conversation, but Cassie’s mind drifted. Although she prided herself on not being needy, a warm, hard body to snuggle up to tonight would be welcome.

  Her mind conjured up the man from the club in Mauritius. Yeah, she could use his silent strength now. Heat pooled between her legs and she shifted in the seat. What was wrong with her? Someone attacked her and all she could think about was sex.

  “I was so worried about you when the alarm company notified me.” Joshua’s voice penetrated her consciousness. “Maybe now you’ll listen to me?”

  Cassie nodded. “If this was meant to scare me, it’s working.”

  Joshua frowned. “The blast could have killed you. I doubt it was meant as a warning.”

  She shook her head. “It was a warning. If the person who detonated the device wanted me dead, he or she would have placed it in my office.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “It was meant to prove I’m easy to reach. Not to kill me.”

  “Cassie …” He swallowed his reply as they pulled into the parking of the apartment. Once Joshua and the uniformed policeman confirmed nothing was amiss in the apartment, Joshua left and the guard perched on a chair outside her door.

  Reaction set in as she closed the door behind Joshua. Cassie slid to the floor. Hugging her knees, sobs racked her body. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for the corporate world. Maybe she should negate the running of the company to an impartial director like her brother, Dorian, had suggested when he abdicated the responsibility of running their father’s company to concentrate on his own career in interior design. She was after all just a boring accountant, content to go about her business without the shadow of her father’s wealth and prestige hanging over her.

  Oh, why did he have to die and leave her with this mess? She couldn’t even sort out her own problems, how the hell did she think she was going to cope in the corporate world?

  Hours later and all cried out, Cassie stumbled to the bedroom and fell face down on the huge bed. A huge empty bed. If only she could have that night of wild abandon again.
She shook her head in the darkness. That type of connection happened only once in a lifetime and she had her chance. Her body reacted to the memory of her night in Mauritius and she puffed the pillow again. No use wanting what you couldn’t have. Or deserve for that matter. She had more pressing things to concentrate on . . . like staying alive.

  Her body refused to obey and the ache between her legs intensified. If only the few men she had met since that night could have inspired one ounce of the same electricity, she wouldn’t be frustrated now. She pressed the button on the stereo and waited for the sounds of Shakira to flow over her before the opened the drawer of the bedside table and took out a vibrator.

  Chapter Three

  Jake Pierce read the request he received from Joshua Reed with growing frustration. Seems like lately all his company did was protect the rich and famous, mostly from their own ego’s. Although it more than paid the bills, nothing made up for the boredom his agents suffered being in the company of those spoilt brats. Agents who already had more than enough testosterone to spare without another bimbo adding fuel to the fire.

  He closed the e-mail and forwarded it to his secretary with instructions to politely decline the request for protection. His partner would have a fit, but no amount of money was worth taking another one of these cases.

  His rubbed his twitching shoulder and popped his feet on the desk, hating the weakness it represented. Two years ago, he had been trapping all over South America, rooting out drug dealers before a bullet ended his career. He forced his mind to the present.

  Beyond the panoramic windows, the lights of the city lit the night sky while the tail lights of cars seven floors below trained across the highways. Some distance across town, fire-engines screamed beside a tall building, sloshing water through a window. A small plume of smoke still wafted through several windows, drifting in silent protest into the artificially illuminated sky.

  His thoughts turned inwards. Since that fatal night two years ago, he had lost not only his job as an ATF agent, but also his fiancé. Him being at home curtailed her activities, which included having affairs with numerous men at the same time. Jake winced. It probably didn’t help that he was morose, moody and a royal bastard to live with after the shooting.