Page 6 of Vicious Kingdom

I pushed past her, bumping into her shoulder when she wouldn’t move and stalking down the path. The contact haunted me, even when I removed my suit jacket and hung it on a post at the dock.

The jarring ring of my cell was the only thing powerful enough to banish the turbulence swirling inside me.

“Kenneth,” I answered.

“The forensic accountant left,” my assistant informed me.

I worked my jaw back and forth. I should be at the office, and I would have been if wooing the company shares from the widow wasn’t extremely important for my next takeover.

“Well?” I demanded.

“He didn’t see anything in the files we gave him access to that would warrant the letter,” Kenneth explained.

I rubbed my forehead. That made little sense. Why would the IRS send me a letter, informing me that there was a discrepancy, if there wasn’t something wrong?

Not that there should have been in the first place. My brother and I kept the books perfectly. There was no digital trail linking our ill-gotten gains to the legitimate businesses. I hired the best corporate accountants to manage our legal businesses. And Sandro kept his accounts by hand in an old-fashioned ledger that was safely hidden away.

“He said not to worry; it was probably a mistake,” Kenneth added unhelpfully.

But my gut said otherwise. The IRS, while corrupt in its own right, as most government agencies were, didn’t waste theirbreath to make idle threats. If they had suspicions about my finances, there had to be a reason why.

“I’m on my way into the office,” I told my assistant.

I could almost hear Kenneth hold back his sigh. It was Friday night, and like every other good employee, the man deserved a break.

But I didn’t pay him to work bank hours.

“Should I order us some dinner, Mr. Baldwin?”

“Order for yourself.” My stomach pinched in protest. A little hunger would be good for me, give me the edge I needed. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

Grabbing my suit jacket, I retreated. However, instead of taking the main path, I cut through the heavily shaded lawn.

I was not chancing another run-in with my past.

Why did she have to look so beautiful?

Not that I noticed.

Chapter 3 – Annaliese

He hates me.

A long sigh made my body shake. Did I expect anything different? No…but if I was being honest, I hoped he would at least be civil. Instead, the one man I couldn’t get out of my system was cruel and scathing.

I trudged up the stone staircase, each step a massive exertion. The sounds of happiness grated on my ears. The country club was busy tonight, since there were no big society events to steal the patrons away. I paused at the edge of the patio. Since I’d come with my parents, it wasn’t going to be easy to slip away. While a rideshare was easy enough to summon, it was my mother who stood in my way.

Debating if I should just text her and save the argument for when I got home as to why I wasn’t mingling after my years abroad, her voice summoned me. Plastering a fake smile on my face, I sauntered to where she sat around a glass firepit with a group of society ladies. Her eyes widened seeing my heels in my hand.

I dangled them from my fingertip. “Strap broke.”

“Ah! I have those same shoes,” Maureen gushed. “Picked them up over the winter in Milan.”

No, you don’t,I almost blurted out. These were a bargain from a tiny outlet mall just down the road from Soldier Field.

“Sit, sit!” Monica insisted. “Tell us all about your college experience in Germany.”

I stifled a humorless chuckle in my throat. Did she really want to know that I took enough classes to graduate, but barely aced the exams? Saying that aloud would give my mother the heart attack genetics pre-disposed her to have. I wasn’t a scholar. Never planned to be. My interests lay in one specific field, and that wasn’t condoned by my parents or their friends.