Page 24 of My Girl to Take

I told myself that was the reason. It held up for about a day and a half.

.

I exhale slowly, my fingers pressing against the edge of the desk as I look down at the open files spread in front of me. The numbers blur slightly before I force my focus back into place, pushing everything else aside because this is what I agreed to do. This is why I stayed longer than I intended.

At first, it was simple. Help him. Stabilize things. Leave.

Then I started looking deeper. That’s where the problem began. Kiera put it in my hands on the second morning. The two portfolio companies she mentioned, a set of advisory fees she’d questioned before but was told it was nothing—legacy arrangements.

She was right to question them. That’s the first thing I establish, and I make a point of telling her so.

The second thing takes longer.

Something is wrong. It didn’t take long to see it either. Not with the kind of work I do. Not with the way the numbers start to shift the moment I stop taking them at face value. Small inconsistencies at first, easy to overlook if you’re not paying attention. Once I noticed them, I couldn’t unsee them.

Money is missing. Not a lot at once. Just enough. Careful. Calculated. Consistent. For years.

My fist curls as I scroll through the screen again, tracing the movement of funds through accounts that shouldn’t exist at this level. Service entities billing advisory and monitoring fees into companies we own, invoiced at the portfolio level where nobody at the fund reconciles them, routed through shell pathways designed to disappear before they can be properly followed. Whoever’s doing this knows exactly what they’re doing.

Which makes it worse.

Years. He’s been doing this for years.

I lean back, dragging a hand over my face as a dull ache builds behind my eyes. The kind that comes from staring too long, thinking too hard, chasing something that refuses to be caught.

“Who the hell are you?” I mutter.

No answer. Just silence and numbers that don’t make sense.

I push away from the desk, tension settling into my shoulders as I stand. I roll my neck before heading toward the small coffee station in the corner, needing a break before I start forcing connections that aren’t there yet.

The machine hums softly as I set it up, the familiar routine grounding me in a way I didn’t expect. And for a second, my mind finally shifts. Not to the company. Not to the missing money.

To her.

Kiera.

The thought of her comes easily now. Too easily.

I lean one hand against the counter, a quiet breath leaving me as I let it settle. Her face slides into place without effort. The green eyes. The way she looks at me, the way she reacts to me, the way she fits into my space like she’s always been there even though she hasn’t.

It’s been a week. A week of her. Of us together.

I huff out a breath, a faint smile pulling at my mouth before I can stop it. I don’t recognize myself in this. In the way I think about her without trying. The way I look for her without meaning to. The way everything feels a little sharper when she’s around.

It’s not supposed to be like this. I don’t do this. I don’t get attached.

And yet.

My chest goes tight, the realization hitting harder than I expect. Because this isn’t temporary anymore, not in the way I planned, not in the way I told myself it would be.

London is still there. Waiting.

My life is still there.

But the idea of leaving doesn’t sit right.

Interim. I’ve used that word about eleven times a day for two weeks—the chair, the room I’m sleeping in, the flight I haven’t booked. It’s been doing a lot of work. It’s starting to buckle.