WORTHY, Part 3 (The Worthy Series) (10 page)

“Well?” he said. “What did he say?”

I smiled when I realized that the lawyer’s investigative curiosity had gotten the better of him.

“I think we have him on the ropes,” I said. “I think it’s only a matter of time before we find out what’s going on at the Wharton Group.”

Milo gave a low whistle. “You think he’s hiding something.”

“Definitely,” I said. “He practically offered me a bribe to stop the investigation.”

Milo laughed. “Did you take it?”

“What do you think? There’s no amount of money I would accept to halt this case. We’re too close, especially since Jonathan himself came to try to dissuade us.”

I was still reeling from the shock of seeing him again, of realizing how much I’d missed him, of being horrified at the fact that I still loved him. I needed Milo. I needed him to turn my mind away from my past and look toward the future. Everything I was saying — well, most of it, anyways — was true right now. Jonathan wouldn’t have come if there wasn’t something he was trying to keep us from getting. It was only a matter of figuring out what it was.

“Is there anything you would accept to stop the investigation?” Milo said, raising one eyebrow suggestively. “Anything I could do to get you to leave off it for the night?”

He trailed his fingers down my arm, and I was aware that we were in plain sight of the office. I opened my mouth to tell Milo to keep his hands to himself and snapped it shut again. I didn’t care. We spent so much time together already — sometimes even arriving to the firm together after a night spent at my loft — that I was sure there wasn’t a person in the office who didn’t know about us.

“Give me something, April,” Milo wheedled. “Let me know what form of bribe you’ll take to take a break from this.”

He was still playing a role, pretending to be corrupt, pretending he’d offer his body and soul and various services to me to get me to give him my full attention tonight. But if I were really offered anything to stop the investigation, to leave Jonathan Wharton and his family’s company alone, I would’ve given it up in a heartbeat if I could’ve just had my life back — the life where I was happy and I had a daughter inside of me that I was waiting to meet and my husband loved and trusted me and I trusted him and my parents were still alive.

But there was no universe that featured that life. There had to be loss, and there was no such thing as a time machine. It was pathetic to wish for these kinds of things, pathetic and painful. I couldn’t cause myself any more pain with this. I had to turn away from it.

“I could think of a few things you could do for me to take my mind off of this grueling investigation,” I said, redirecting my attention to Milo. “You can start with drinks. And dinner.”

“Most people call it dinner and drinks,” Milo said, shaking his head at me. “Not drinks and dinner.”

“It is what it is,” I said, shrugging. “Drinks and dinner, and then I’ll tell you what I want next.”

“I like the way that sounds,” Milo said, grinning. “Drinks and dinner and more.”

That night, lying awake in my bed as Milo snored gently beside me, I thought about Jonathan again. He was the first thing in my mind every day and the last thing every night. I wondered what he was doing, if there was the possibility that he was lying in the bed we’d shared, also unable to sleep. More than likely, he was partying at a club or screwing Violet or somebody else. I still couldn’t believe he had his memories back. It was victory and defeat both rolled into one. He’d wanted them back for so long, but I’d always dreaded the moment. If he remembered everything, he might realize that he had no reason to love me, not when he had so many other options on hand.

What had he done to necessitate his visit to the firm today? What would we discover if we only just dug a little deeper?

I wanted to know so badly, to know just what kind of ammunition I was going to use to bring everything to a grinding halt over at the Wharton Group.

“Go to sleep, April,” Milo mumbled. “I can hear the gears grinding in your brain.”

I tried to settle down, tried to will myself into slumber, but I was like a predator who’d smelled a drop of blood. I knew I would find my prey soon.

-----

“Soon” came in the form of three weeks later — three sleepless weeks when I’d plunged every single person into overtime territory. Felix’s silent stares across the office were all I needed to know about the status of my parents’ company. It wasn’t looking good, but I was determined to press on until we had something.

“April, we’ve got them.”

Milo was waiting for me as I entered my office, and had the thickest folder I’d seen yet from the Wharton Group investigation. I stared at it as if it were some kind of mythical creature. When I’d started this journey of revenge, I’d never realized that it would come to any sort of fruition. The Wharton Group was an enormous company, and it had to have measures in place to prevent this very thing.

But looking at the folder that Milo brandished was something else entirely. It was the end of a very long journey. It was the beginning of something completely new. It was the culmination of months and months of backbreaking work, of running my parents’ firm into the ground, of alienating nearly everyone in my life, my own self included.

I was never really sure how I’d react when this day finally arrived. To be honest, I’d never really thought it actually would come.

I thought that there would be some sort of closure, a considerable amount of satisfaction, and maybe even a little bit of cheering and jumping around and crying.

There was nothing. I felt nothing.

I searched my heart, looking for the answers and the reasons behind my nonchalance about this moment. I’d been building and building to it for so long that I didn’t know what to do with myself anymore. It was over, and I regretted it. I regretted all of it. I regretted how I’d treated my employees and Felix and even Milo. I’d ridden them hard, used them for my own gains, and now I wasn’t even sure that this was a good thing.

Wharton Group was on its knees, but I wasn’t sure that I could deliver the final blow.

“April?” Milo was giving me that look again. I guessed he’d thought that I would be jumping up and down for joy just like I’d thought I would. He held the folder out to me, and I took it, surprised at how much it weighed. I hefted it in my two hands. I could hold in my very own hands, the means to ruin Jonathan’s life, and I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to do it anymore.

What was the point of all of this? Why had I come this far and turned my back on so much? Was this it? Was this all it came down to? A fat stack of papers stuffed into a folder?

“Well, say something, at least,” Milo urged. I could tell that I was concerning him greatly, and was toeing the line of scaring him. Just another regret to add to the pile I’d amassed.

“I can’t believe this is really happening,” I said, clutching the folder to my chest. “Everything I wanted is here.”

“I don’t know how you knew,” Milo said. “Hell, I don’t want to know. But it’s all there, April. Embezzlement. Fraud. And all from the CEO, Jonathan Wharton. That sack of shit who came in here with guns blazing is a crook.”

That was the hardest thing to believe of all. I cracked open the folder and started to skim down a paper, but it was all numbers and legalese. I had to trust Milo that it was all there. However many lists of figures or paragraphs of explanation would never make me believe that Jonathan had been the key to taking down his family’s company. I was aware that his misdeeds made this even sweeter, made it even more righteous to use him to destroy the company. But it was so hard to believe.

When I’d known him, all he had cared about was the Wharton Group. He’d left our wedding reception, for God’s sake, to try to save his reputation and his job. He’d striven to prove to everyone that he was worthy of helming the company.

Why embezzle, then? There was no reason for it. He had all the money in the world. Why did he have to steal from the company he was helping to lead?

This would kill Collier, who had so much faith in his son to do the right thing, to be the strong and capable leader of the Wharton Group. It was funny that Collier was the first person who really rained on my parade.

Of course, I’d been raining on this parade from the moment Milo told me it was over. It would never be over. I would never be over Jonathan Wharton, not until one of us was dead. I didn’t even think it would help to flee to a deserted island, to leave all of this behind. I would always find some way to obsess over Jonathan.

“When do you want to go live with this?” Milo asked. “We could press charges this afternoon. We could leak this to the press immediately. We could have the Wharton Group officially crippled by tomorrow. All you have to say is that you want it.”

Now that this was all really happening, I wanted to put the brakes on. I had to make sure of some things — mainly, that I really did want to destroy Jonathan’s life.

Did anyone really deserve to feel how horrible I felt after all of my tragedy? Even Jonathan, my husband? The man I still loved even after everything?

“I’m going to have to review these documents,” I said, looking at Milo. I knew that I was just buying myself time. The documents would be like reading Chinese for me, but I couldn’t do this right now. I couldn’t just pull the trigger on ruining Jonathan’s life. Even if that’s all I’d been wanting to do for the past few months, I just couldn’t.

“I can go over them with you, if you like,” Milo offered. “I know how important this case is to you, April. I’m just as eager as you are to see this thing finished and closed. I don’t know how you’re going to spend all your time anymore, but I’ll help you find a hobby. We can go to more art galleries, even. Fill every inch of your walls at your loft with paintings.”

I wouldn’t describe my primary emotion about the folder I was holding as eagerness. It would actually be closer to dread.

“I think I should call Jonathan Wharton,” I said.

Milo’s mouth dropped open. “Why the hell would you do something like that?”

I shrugged. “Don’t you think he has the right to know what we’ve found before we open up this can of worms for everyone in the world to see?”

“No, I don’t,” Milo said, taking me by the shoulders and giving me a small shake. “And neither should you. He trespassed in here, threatened and insulted us both, and you think he deserves that kind of courtesy? You’re delusional.”

“I’m not delusional,” I said, setting my shoulders. “I just think that we should slow down for a moment, savor it, and analyze what’s going to happen before we go plunging ahead. That’s all.”

“You and I both know what’s going to happen,” Milo said incredulously. “Wharton Group is done. The company’s accountability, its morality, its reputation is shot. If its own CEO, a man who shares his name with the company itself, is found guilty of embezzling — and, let’s face it, April, the documentation and evidence is overwhelming here — it would sink that entire ship.”

“I just think I want to hear him explain himself,” I said. “Is that too much to ask? For an explanation?”

“Why do you care so much?” Milo asked. “I thought the only thing that was important to you was taking down this company. Now that we have, you all of a sudden have cold feet.”

“You haven’t shown this to anyone else, have you?” I demanded.

“You’re the first pair of eyes on it,” Milo said. “I thought you would be the happiest person to see that this was at an end, but I think I’m wrong.”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious as to why he did it?” I asked. “He had so much already. Why did he need to steal money from his own company? Jonathan Wharton had all the money he needed.”

“Who knows why anybody does anything?” Milo asked, shrugging. “Maybe he was in debt to the mafia. Maybe he had a drug problem. Hell, I don’t know, April, maybe he’s just a bad person.”

“None of those is true,” I scoffed. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

“You’ve gone as far as any of us can go,” Milo said. “It’s now up to the justice system to get to the bottom of this, and even then, we may never know the reasoning behind it.”

“Leave me,” I said suddenly.

“April.” Milo frowned at me. “Seriously. Don’t call Jonathan Wharton. Don’t give that asshole a chance to try to get this cleaned up. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve a second more of your time.”

“I want answers, and I’m going to get them,” I said.

“Has this been you playing at some detective fantasy this whole time?” Milo exploded, shocking me with his sudden anger. “Are you really obsessed with this guy? I mean, I know you all have a history, but I thought it was ancient. I thought you’d left it all behind, and that once you had the evidence you needed to take his company down, that it’d be over.”

“What do you mean you know he and I have a history?” I asked, feeling my face go hot. “Who’s been telling you that?”

“Nobody has to tell me, April,” Milo said. “I told you that I pick up on things. I can read body language like a book. I saw how you reacted to seeing him burst into your office that time. I see how you perk up whenever anyone says his name around you. And all it takes is one background check to find out that you’re still married to him — estranged, maybe, but still married in the eyes of the state of Illinois.”