Hornet's Nest (19 page)

“Well, you did take us to an expensive restaurant, but if you knew anything about my father, he would’ve been just fine with a burger and fries.” I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

He reached his hand over jerking my chin toward him, and said, “I expect your undivided attention tonight, Katherine.”

I had never been one to cower from anyone, but I nodded as my heart thumped inside my chest. I turned my head and stared out of the window as I calmed my breathing. I really wasn’t looking forward to the events that would probably occur. I wished that I could just cuss him out and slap the shit out of him, but I couldn’t jeopardize Lance’s job.

We pulled up to the entrance, and a valet took his car away. A familiar Jeep parked across the street caught my eye. I relaxed slightly until Josh yanked me inside. I unwillingly followed him to the bar. As I was being pulled in one direction, a hand brushed my shoulder. I turned toward the man who had saved my life time and time again. The man with the sexy green eyes put a finger over his lips, telling me to keep it quiet, and then he lost himself in the crowd. Just knowing that Lance was here made all of the difference in the world. When we arrived at the bar, Josh ordered two shots of whiskey and two beers. I shot the whiskey back as I motioned to the bartender for another. I shot that one back as well.

“Ready for a little fun, sweetheart?”

I glared and cringed as he pulled me toward the dance floor. I managed to get through a few songs before he said, “I’m going to get you some more alcohol, because you need to whore it up. This stiff act you have going on isn’t going to work tonight.”

He left me on the dance floor. I shuddered. I tried to hide myself in the crowd as I watched him at the bar. Familiar warmth wrapped around me.

“Hey, beautiful.”

I turned around, gripping him for dear life. “Lance, I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

He pulled me into his body as we sunk further into the throngs of people. He brushed the hair out of my face and said, “You’re done with him for the night. Trust me.”

He cocked his head in Josh’s direction. I turned around to see a tall curvy brunette escort him to some undisclosed location in the back. I shot my head back to Lance as he said, “You can do a lot with two hundred dollars these days.”

I smiled and wrapped my arms around him as a new song began to play. I started to sway my hips like I meant it this time. I stared into Lance’s eyes, watching them grow heavy with lust. He pressed his body closer to mine and wedged his leg between mine. We started to sway and grind with the music. The beat of this song would make just about anyone rip off their clothes. And with a man like Lance, I wanted to do just that. I leaned up near his ear and said, “You need to take me home now before we get arrested for indecent exposure.”

His head fell back in laughter as he pulled me toward the front door. We stood, waiting for the valet attendant to retrieve his Jeep. His arms wrapped around me from behind. I let my head come to rest against his chest as he gently kissed my head and whispered, “It’s over.”

IT HAD BEEN several weeks since the dinner debacle with my parents. Josh had been constantly badgering me about my father. My father never did give him the opportunity for an interview, and he hadn’t planned on it either. Josh continued to threaten me with the pictures he had of Lance and me. Lance had become thriving mad over that. He said that in any other situation, he would have left the job, but he wasn’t going to leave me working anywhere near Josh without him being around.

We continued to spend our afternoons in the file room, but we were nearing the finish. Oddly enough, Lance had been searching feverishly through the boxes instead of trying to grope me at every opportunity. This had been going on for the past few days.

Near the end of the day, I finished the box I had been sorting through, and I plopped down in the chair with exhaustion. I examined my boyfriend meticulously going over the contents of another box. I glanced at the label on it and noticed it was one I had gone through only days ago.

“Lance, I already went through that one.”

Continuing his endeavor, he replied, “I know.”

“Did I miss something?” I pushed myself out of the chair and walked over to him.

His eyes shifted between my face and the papers in his hands, and he said, “I’m looking for some other documents.”

Invoices were stacked to the left of the box he was searching. I fingered through and noticed they were bills from the same company for five hundred dollars. There were about two hundred in this stack. Just as I was about to question Lance about what he was looking for, he dropped the file folder he was searching through and his fingers began tapping away on the calculator. His eyes lit up.

“We got him!”

I cocked my eyebrow. “Lance, what’s going—”

He pulled me closer as his lips captured mine. I lost all sense of thought and surrendered to his conquest as he guided me toward the wall. I moaned when he pressed up against me. He hoisted my legs around his hips as he nestled himself in between. I broke away from his lips, but his kisses descended down my neck.

“Baby, what are you doing? What’s going on?”

A repetitive click echoed in the room that I couldn’t easily register at first. It became more rapid as I realized it was the snap of pictures being taken from a phone. I turned my head toward the door and gasped.

“I think I have enough to end the both of you.” Josh smirked as he slithered away back into the hall.

I slid down Lance’s body and leaned against the wall. My heart thumped against my chest. I stared at Lance and my eyes filled with tears. He coddled my face in between his hands and said, “Don’t worry about him. He can’t hurt us anymore.”

Bile churned and rose from the pit of my stomach. I threw my hand over my mouth and barely made it to the waste basket. Lance rush over to me and held my hair out of my face as I continued to expel the contents of my lunch.

I leaned back to rest on my heels as Lance wiped my mouth with a tissue. I sagged into his chest as I mumbled, “We’re going to lose our jobs.”

He brushed his fingers through my hair and rested his chin on the top of my head. “Don’t worry about that, Katherine. Tell me if you’re okay?”

“How can I not wor—”

My stomach churned from nerves. I puked again. I sagged back into Lance’s arms. After a few minutes, he helped me up and helped me back to my office before leaving almost at once. I sat in my desk chair and waited for him to come back. He eventually did, his suit jacket hanging over his arm and a bottle of water in his hand. He offered it to me before helping to get my things together.

“You have to stay here,” I said, still fighting the nausea over Lance’s inevitable termination. “I can drive home.”

“Nope. My girlfriend is sick. I’m going to take care of her.”

I stood up and steadied myself. He grabbed my hand and held it as we walked through the accounting department and into a waiting elevator. Neither one of us cared if anyone noticed. I was tired of hiding. When we got to the parking lot, he helped me into his Jeep and said, “We’ll get your car tomorrow. I’m taking you back to my place. I’m not leaving you alone tonight.”

I nodded and rested my head back. I kept my eyes closed for the short ride to his loft. By the time we had parked, I had started to feel better. We stepped into the elevator going up to his floor. He had his arm wrapped around me as I leaned against him.

“Thank you, baby,” I mumbled.

He wiped my slightly damp hair out of my face and asked, “For what?”

“For taking care of me.”

I tilted my head back and smiled. He squeezed me tighter and kissed my cheek. The elevator opened to his floor as we strolled down to his apartment. Walking in, I headed over to his bed and plopped down onto it. He came over to me and started to unzip my boots.

“I’m going to run you a bubble bath, and then get you settled back in bed.”

“I feel better now, just exhausted,” I mumbled with half of my face planted into the pillow. He left to run me a bath as I slowly sat up to strip off my sweat filled blouse and my skirt.

After my lonely bubble bath, I dressed in one of Lance’s t-shirts and snuggled underneath the sheets. Lance walked over from the kitchen holding a bowl of soup on a tray. He placed it in front of me. I stared at the noodles as they swam around in the chicken broth. The chicken looked overly processed like from a can of condensed soup. The smell made my stomach turn. I covered my mouth and pushed the tray away just as he picked it back up. I made a mad dash back to the bathroom. All that came out was water. I never got this sick. The last time I was this sick was…

“Oh, fuck.”

Lance came rushing into the bathroom and I glanced up at him. My eyes widened as it all became surreal. He knelt down beside me and said, “I know that man makes you sick, but baby, this isn’t normal.”

It was normal … in this sort of condition.

• • •

We arrived to work the next morning and strolled into the office hand in hand. We made a beeline to the human resources department where we were going to disclose our relationship. Lance told me that we would need to meet with Mr. Palmer afterwards regarding another situation. He wouldn’t elaborate.

As we approached the human resource director’s office, Josh was already occupying the seat, laughing away with the director Mr. Nash. Josh noticed our presence as he stood to leave. He smugly looked at Lance, shoved past him as he whispered, “Time to pack your shit and go back home, redneck.”

Once Josh was gone, we looked at Mr. Nash. His face hardened as we stepped inside. “There seems to be a problem Mr. Walton and Ms. Klein. We need to rectify this situation as soon as possible.”

I lowered my head, waiting the oncoming execution.

Lance said, “There is a problem here, sir, and I would like Mr. Palmer to be present at this meeting.”

Mr. Nash leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest while he studied us.

“Very well,” he said. He dialed Mr. Palmer’s secretary, requesting him to join us immediately.

I turned toward Lance. He smiled. Smiled? At a time like this? We were fixing to get fired and he was grinning?

Mr. Palmer entered a few minutes later, immediately addressing Mr. Nash. “John, what is this about?”

“Apparently your employees have been having a relationship without disclosing that information. I have received proof of this occurring on the firm’s property,” Mr. Nash announced.

Mr. Palmer turned to us as his face hung. He was about to speak when Lance interrupted him.

“Be that as it may, there is a bigger issue that needs to be dealt with.”

“I highly doubt there is anything more severe than the matter at hand.” Mr. Nash leaned forward on his desk. Lance pulled out a large file from his messenger bag and placed it on Mr. Nash’s desk.

“What is this, Mr. Walton?”

“Well,” Lance started. “If you look at all of those invoices, they are all for the same company that were paid by Joshua Black. He then, in turn, sought and received reimbursement from the firm.”

“I am aware of company reimbursement, Mr. Walton. That’s quite common,” Mr. Nash said.

“I also am well aware of company reimbursement, but what I am not aware of is company reimbursement to an attorney seeking services from a fictional company, one that happens to belong to Joshua Black.” Lance rested back in his chair.

My jaw dropped. Lance smirked and winked at me. He just nailed Joshua Black.

“These would have never been found had Josh’s client not requested copies of the trust checks that were withdrawn on their behalf. They must have finally did some number crunching on their end and noticed they were off by one hundred thousand dollars.”

Mr. Palmer’s face tightened. “One hundred thousand?”

“But here’s the fun part,” Lance continued, his eyes lighting up in excitement. “Not only was the client already paying for services rendered for this fictional company, Josh was also reimbursed from the firm. Therefore Josh Black is two hundred thousand dollars richer just from printing out fake invoices.”

I smiled in awe at the man I loved. I couldn’t believe he found this out.

“I refuse to work for a firm who blatantly attacks a couple in a relationship for not disclosing it previously, but has no qualms about cheating attorneys.” Lance stood up as he pulled out an envelope and threw it on top of the pile of fake invoices.

“Lance, what the hell are you doing?”

A knock rapped at the door. I turned to see my father standing in the open doorway. Mr. Nash shot up from his chair with a blank stare on his face as did Mr. Palmer. Lance looked happy and pleased. I was sure I looked as baffled by all of this as I felt.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” my father said as he entered the room. The atmosphere quickly changed. My father’s presence alone meant nothing good for the firm.

“Mr. Klein,” Mr. Nash said. “What can we do for you, sir?”

“Well, it has come to my attention that  Joshua Black has been harassing and blackmailing my daughter in order for him to gain the sought after position of my personal counsel. After numerous researches, not only is he not winning that position, but our bank will also be pulling all of their accounts from your firm.”

A girl watching her father in action was nothing less than a proud moment. I never wanted to distance myself from my family and their name. I just wanted to see if I could build a life on my own. I’d already proved to myself that I could. I didn’t have to prove it anymore.

“I will not allow our legal matters to be handled by a firm that has no account of their attorney extorting funds from their own clients. Who knows how much money he has stolen from Bank of America?”

Dad looked in my direction and winked. He and Lance must’ve concocted this plan. These men! I loved both of them with all of my soul.

“Lance,” my father continued. “I understand you are looking for work. Would you like to join me for a business brunch so we may discuss your options with Bank of America?”

Lance grinned and said, “Well, sir, that is very thoughtful of you, but could I invite my girlfriend along with us. I think she’s quite fond of you.”

I chuckled as I rolled my eyes. Standing up, I stared at my father, silently asking him for permission. He replied with a slight nod. I turned around and shook Mr. Palmer’s hand, and said, “I appreciate your support and guidance over the past three years, but considering the imminent demise of this firm, I will be resigning immediately.”