Alana and Jeremy got up and walked out. Nick followed them without looking back. Oliver sat there staring at the table before he met my eyes. His face softened, and I thought he was about to speak, but then his phone rang and he answered it, leaving the room. I put my head on the table, feeling the cool, polished surface against my skin.
What the fuck? Had Eric taken money?I could not get my head around it.
‘Abbey.’
He had never said my name like that, cold and professional. It was one of my favourite things about him, how silky and round my name sounded coming from his mouth. When I raised my head and looked at him, I knew sadness was written on my face. Tears were stinging my eyes, threatening to spill. I wanted to run to him and bury myself safe in his arms. My Nick though. Not this guy. Who was, what? My boss? Though, maybe I didn’t have a job anymore.
‘I need a minute,’ I said hoarsely. I did actually need a minute. There was no way I was going to approach him feeling needy.
‘Will you come to Eric’s office before you leave, please?’ It was phrased as a question, but issued as a command.
I acknowledged him with a nod, but refused to meet his gaze.
I sat there for a full five minutes, willing the anger to come and take over the sadness. But it didn’t. I was shattered, scared and sad. I wanted to climb into my bed and never emerge again.
I walked past my desk to Eric’s old office, where Nick was standing at the window. He had taken off his jacket and I could see through his shirt the outline of the arms that had held me, as the city’s blinding bright sunlight poured through the window. He turned around and walked to the front of the desk, leaning against it, legs crossed at the ankles, looking at me. I stood mute, waiting for him to speak.
‘Hi,’ he finally uttered. He blinked at me, once, slowly.
Hi? Hi? He just accused you of taking money and now hi?This finally ignited my anger.
‘Did you need something?’ I said, perfectly professional and polite, but with a distinctly heaped tablespoon of Alana-like acidity.
‘I need his password.’ He gestured towards the computer on the desk.
I walked to the desk and pulled out Eric’s notepad and a pencil and wrote it down.
‘I want you to put it in.’
‘You don’t trust me to write down the correct password?’ I huffed then and moved around the desk, roughly moving the leather chair out of the way, and waited for the computer to boot up. He moved behind me, not touching me, but I could feel the heat of him. My traitorous body reacted to the proximity of him and his gorgeous scent. Naturally, I ignored it.
I typed in Eric’s password:LynneandLibby1959
‘Thank you, Abbey.’
I spun on my heels to look at him. I could feel my emotions surging back. ‘Nick, please tell me you don’t believe I had anything to do with this. That you don’t think I’m that kind of person.’ The words were out of my mouth before I could think them through. I hated the pleading sound in my voice.
I saw something cross his face, but it wasn’t there long enough for my brain to compute or articulate it.
‘Nick,’ I whispered. I reached out a hand to the groove of his rib cage where it fit perfectly, contacting the solid familiar mass that was his warm, cotton-covered chest.
It was there for barely a second when he moved as if I had burned him, flinching visibly. He stepped away to the window, turning his back on me, facing the view.
‘Go home, Abbey.’
I think there was a tortured sob, which I could only hope was in my head and not in the room as I fled the office, grabbed my box and went to the elevator, which mercifully was waiting for me. I congratulated myself that I did not let a single tear drop until I was in the cab.
Nick
I’d run my mother’s company since I was twenty-four years old, and today’s meeting was the only day I ever hated my job. The only time I wished I was anywhere else, doing anything else.
I’d met Eric Linden about six months ago, in London, when Hartwell was first moving to buy the Australian hotel chain. Linden was a schmoozer, typical Australian blue blood, raised with a firm belief that he was better than anyone else. It wasn’t a personality type I was unfamiliar with; it was just interesting to see that Australian snobs were as unlikeable as English ones.
We had found the issues with the funds prior to purchase and managed to get a significant discount on the business, as a result of the PR scandal that was likely to ensue when the press found out a top hotel executive had stolen from the company he’d helped run for decades.
When I opened the email from Alana with the list of names of Delacqua employees to be investigated, an Abigail Parker had been at the very top. I’d had my assistant pull her HR file, certain there were hundreds of Abbey Parkers working as EAs in Sydney, not believing the coincidence.What were the chances?
But when I saw the HR record, I knew it was her. In my gut, I knew. By then I was back at the resort after dropping her off at the airport. I could still smell her, still feel the pressure of her lips on mine, feel how perfectly her body curled into me.
