A Dom Is Forever (5 page)

“Serena talked us into trying tofu. It did not go well.” Even in the low light, Liam could see the look of glee on Adam’s face.

“I’m allergic. I have to be.” Jake shuddered a little.

Yeah, Liam didn’t understand that. He wasn’t going to try something nasty because a woman asked him to. “Simon doesn’t have a criminal record?”

“None. But I wouldn’t necessarily hold a lot of faith in that,” Jake replied. “His father is titled. That still means something around here, and it certainly means something in the small town Simon grew up in. It would be easy to cover up youthful indiscretions.”

“But not major problems,” Alex said. “The tabloids around here love a good ‘royal screws up’ story. Seriously, we think we have intrusive reporters in the States? They have nothing on the Brits. I found three stories about the Weston family in recent tabloids. Two were concerning the marriage of his older brother, the heir to the title, and one about his mother’s new recipe book. The family seems clean.”

“Okay, so let’s ask some questions of our British friends, starting with Damon.” Liam glanced at Ian. “Will he have a problem putting some feelers out about this guy?”

“Damon was excited when I asked him to help us,” Ian said, settling back in his chair. “Apparently he’s finding club business isn’t as thrilling as getting his ass shot at. He’ll be fine asking around.”

“All right then, let’s move on to the reason for this meeting. Adam?” Liam waited as Adam clicked the remote, and Avery Charles’s face filled the screen. He studied her for a moment. It was a shot he’d taken himself while following her in St. James’s Park. She was smiling slightly, a mysterious look. A little Mona Lisa smile. Her dark hair hung to her shoulders in a cascading wave.
Fuck
. What was he thinking? Cascading wave? Her hair was brown, and she was mildly attractive in a bland sort of way. She was a little chunky. Her boobs were probably
C
cups, and they were natural because they sagged a little.

“Pretty girl.” Alex was staring at the screen, obviously contemplating Avery. Yeah, Liam didn’t like that.

“She’s also been through a lot,” Eve murmured, carefully avoiding looking at her ex-husband. She glanced down at her notes. “Avery Charles was born Avery Adamson and came from a fairly wealthy family. She was the only child. Her parents died in a plane crash. She was sent to live with her aunt who went through most of Avery’s trust fund.”

“Cinderella.” Adam sighed. “Sorry, I was telling Serena about her, and she said Avery reminded her of Cinderella.”

Ian reached over and slapped Adam upside the head. It was one of his patented moves. “Don’t talk about the case with your wife, asshole. Do you understand the word ‘confidential’?”

“
Ow
, one of these days, Ian.” Adam rubbed his head. “And I know, but all this information was public. It didn’t seem wrong to talk to her.”

And Liam had discovered that Serena could be very observant. “What did she think?”

Adam looked Liam’s way. “She guessed that any relative who would use her ward’s college money to buy designer clothes for her own daughter probably wasn’t very nice to Avery. Avery got married very young. Barely eighteen. She was trying to escape.”

“Her husband was a kid from her high school. Brandon Charles,” Eve continued.

“How was her trust set up?” Ian asked.

Eve passed Ian a copy of the file. “It came to Avery at the age of twenty-five or if she got married. Otherwise her aunt had full control and use of the fund to raise Avery.”

So she hadn’t married for love. She’d married to get her trust fund. Calculating. Liam would do well to remember that. “So she marries on her eighteenth birthday. I wonder if she made a deal with this Brandon kid.”

“If she did then it involved consummation of the marriage. She had Madison Rachelle Charles eight months after they’d eloped. At that point there was roughly one million dollars left in a trust fund that should have been in the fifteen million range.” Eve shook her head. “I would have tried to save it, too. I would have found the first guy willing to marry me and run with it. The trust wasn’t very well set up, but then Avery’s aunt was a lawyer. She knew how to work the system.”

“So the aunt sets up the trust fund in a way that she gets to use it free and clear?” That didn’t sound particularly fair. “Why would her parents do that?”

“Her father was the last of an old-money line. He preferred his charity work over everything else. By the time the money came to him, the industry that had created the money was gone. He wasn’t a particularly good caretaker. He spent millions on various charity projects,” Alex explained. “And when it came to lawyers, he likely figured his sister-in-law was family and wouldn’t harm him. As far as I can tell, this whole group is very naïve.”

“Tell me about the accident. The car accident,” Ian corrected. “Is there any way the aunt was involved? She had to be mad she’d lost the money.”

They were getting off topic. Liam needed to steer it back to the case at hand. “They were driving home late one night and got into a high-speed collision with a sixteen-year-old. Brandon died instantly. The baby died a few days later. They were both on the passenger side. Avery was driving. Her spine was damaged in the accident. She was in a coma for several months. The sixteen-year-old was put on trial, but the case got tossed out over some tainted evidence.”

She’d woken up one day and her world was gone. Liam knew how that felt. Did she wonder where they were? Did she wonder sometimes if it had all been a terrible mistake and they were out there somewhere in the world wondering why she didn’t look for them? Liam knew what it meant to not have an inch of closure in the death of a loved one.

“Rough.” Ian leaned forward, looking at the file Adam had prepared. “So this was ten years ago? How long before she walked again?”

Eve frowned. “She was in and out of hospitals for years. She would spend time with Brandon’s mother in the beginning, but something happened and the Charles family seems to have cut off all communications with her by the time she was twenty. I haven’t figured out why yet. She still sends flowers on her mother-in-law’s birthday, but they get sent back.”

Avery had no one in the whole world. How had that isolation affected her? Had it turned her bitter under that seemingly sweet exterior?

“She met Thomas Molina’s brother in her last rehab hospital,” Eve continued. “She underwent an experimental surgery two years ago after being accepted into a medical research study the year before. She was lucky. She was walking again within eight months of the surgery. She met Brian Molina last year. He was rehabbing a knee replacement at the same facility she was at. They formed a friendship.”

“Sleeping together?” Ian asked.

Liam took over. He knew that file as well as Eve. “Doubt it. She was fragile at the time. It doesn’t look like they had anything beyond a friendship. When Thomas Molina decided to get out of his house and into the world, Brian recommended Avery for the job of assistant and companion. Despite her lack of skills, she was hired to be the assistant to one of the world’s leading philanthropists. Brian died shortly after she was hired. Drug overdose.”

Avery wasn’t fragile now. She was strong enough to take a lover, yet it seemed she hadn’t. There was nothing in her manner with Molina that led him to believe they were truly intimate. Molina was likely interested, but Avery seemed oblivious.

He would have to make sure she wasn’t clueless when it came to him. Not at all. She would be very, very aware of him.

“The troubling part is the missing money,” Adam said.

“Missing money?” Liam hadn’t heard about missing money.

Adam turned his computer around to show the screen to Liam. “I ran her financials last night. She should have still had that million from her trust fund. Insurance and then a research fund paid for her medical care and expenses. So where’s the money? Over the course of several years she depleted the trust. Every withdrawal was in cash and was exactly nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine dollars.”

The amount stayed below the bank’s reporting regulations. Anything over ten thousand would have been reported to the government. Someone was being sneaky. Someone didn’t want records of where she was putting her money.

“Give me the full report.” It looked like Avery Charles wasn’t quite as innocent as she looked. She was like everyone else. She had her secrets.

Liam intended to discover every single one.

* * * *

“Do you know a Lachlan Bates?” Avery polished off the last of her sandwich as her boss walked in the office.

She was sure he’d been trying to get to his desk for a good twenty minutes. When he refused to use his chair, he inevitably stopped to talk to everyone on the way from the lift to his office. Lift. She’d just thought lift instead of elevator. She was becoming so European.

She wished she had someone to send postcards to.

“Did I lose you, dear?” Thomas stood at her desk, leaning heavily on his cane, an amused look on his face. He had his cane in his right hand and a tablet in his left. He used the tablet the way most people used a laptop. Though his legs were frail, his fingers and hands weren’t. She’d watched them fly across the virtual keyboard before. She couldn’t text without feeling graceless.

She sighed and refocused. “Sorry. I was thinking about something.”

“You were thinking about Lydia and Frank Charles, weren’t you?” Thomas had always been brutally observant. Avery sometimes wondered if the man could read minds. “You get that wistful look on your face when you think of them. I wish you would allow me to reach out to them.”

She shook her head. “I’ll keep trying. Eventually perhaps they’ll forgive me.” Probably not, but she wasn’t going to ask her boss to intervene. He had enough to deal with on his own.

Thomas winked at her. He looked a little older than his thirty-nine years, as though pain had started to wear him down. He was an attractive man, but the tightness around his eyes always made her wonder how he managed the daily pain. His upper body was fit and strong, but his lower body seemed thin under his slacks. She’d never actually seen his legs. Even on the hottest days, he wore heavy slacks. He kept them completely hidden. She could understand that. She remembered how it felt to not be able to use her own legs. “If anyone can work that miracle, it’s you, Avery. You understand they have nothing to forgive you for. You’re trying to do good in the world. I admire you greatly for it.”

But her in-laws would never understand why she’d done what she did. “Thank you.” It was time to change the subject to something happier. “Apparently this Lachlan Bates person wants to do good in the world, too. To the tune of two million dollars.”

Thomas’s brown eyes widened. “Two million. That’s a nice round sum. Who is this guy? I’ve never heard of him.”

“No idea. Do you want me to work up a dossier on him?” Thomas liked to know where his money was coming from. He’d turned down a few large donations in the past because he didn’t like his fund to be used for political capital. She glanced down at the notes Simon had given her. “And it’s not exactly a round sum. The donation is for two million, one hundred and fifty thousand, five hundred and three. What an odd amount. Do you think it’s a percentage thing?”

Sometimes religious donors gave a percentage of their income.

Thomas stopped, put down his tablet and reached out for the folder. “That is odd, but not utterly out of the ordinary. It is likely a percentage for his religious beliefs or more likely for his taxes, depending on where he actually lives. I’ll take care of this, dear. Don’t worry about it. I need you completely focused on the Black and White Ball. It’s only a few weeks away.”

It was their biggest European fund-raiser of the year. It was precisely why they were in London. She was organizing a huge event. Her palms sweated a little just thinking about it. She wasn’t elegant. She wasn’t even very social. What was she doing planning a party for a thousand European socialites?

“Calm down.” Thomas touched her cheek. He was very affectionate with her. He was always encouraging and supporting her. He’d become something of a father figure. “You’re going to be fine. You’re just coordinating. The caterers and designers have impeccable tastes. Follow their lead, but don’t be afraid to let them know what you want. All right?”

“Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, I need to go down and talk to the florists. I want to make sure we corner the market in London for white tulips. The event planner tells me they’re all the rage right now. Of course the event planner isn’t trying to stay in budget.” The event planner was a lovely man named
Sascha
who spoke with a thick New York accent and favored neon tuxedo coats. She’d been worried at first, but his style was refined and elegant outside of his personal wardrobe choices.

She stood, grabbing her bag. It was a bright day outside, one of few. She really wanted to walk in the sunshine, not be cooped up in the office. “Are you sure you don’t need anything? I could put this off.”

He shook his head. “Not at all, dear. Go. Enjoy the afternoon. You are instructed to not come back to this office until at least Monday morning.” He picked up the tablet, nestling it against the Lachlan Bates file. He started to shuffle toward his office. “And we’re only here a few more weeks. If you don’t get through the British Museum, you won’t get to see the Tower or the National Gallery or tour Churchill’s war offices. We won’t be back in London for a while. I wouldn’t want you to miss a thing. And the Eye. Make sure you take a little trip. View’s spectacular. Go on now.”

She caught him, giving him an impulsive hug. He seemed surprised for a moment. His arm wound around her, hugging her tight. “You’re too good to me, Thomas.”

He pulled away. “No. The world has been unkind. I’m exactly what you deserve. Now go and have fun.”

She winked at him as she made her way into the glorious London afternoon.

* * * *

Thomas Molina stood by the window doing what he loved to do most in the world—watch Avery’s ass sway as she walked. There was a sweetly sexy gait to her walk that got his cock hard every time she walked in a room.