The Rebel Tycoon's Outrageous Proposal. Abby Gaines

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      Even more reassuring than the absence of fire trucks was her distinct memory of following her “old Holly” routine before she left the office late last night. She had turned the printer, the copier and everything else electrical off at the wall, and then stood on her chair and pressed the test button on the smoke alarm. These precautions made her business partner laugh, on the occasions Dave stayed late enough to witness them, but no way would Holly allow her office to burn down through inattention.

      By the time she’d discounted the fire theory, she’d reached the sidewalk, and the crowd parted to let her through, their muted “good mornings” almost a sigh.

      Holly had barely put one black pump over the threshold when a burly man with thinning, sandy hair materialized from the dimness of the office and barred her way. “You can’t come in here, ma’am.”

      “This is my office,” she said. “Let me through.” Okay, that did sound just the tiniest bit controlling. “Please.” She tacked on a smile of apology as she peered past the man to count at least five more of his ilk swarming the cream-and-gray interior.

      “Are you Holly Stephens?”

      “That’s right.”

      “Special Agent Crook, FBI.”

      For a second Holly thought this was a prank—an FBI agent named Crook? Indeed, a snicker escaped her before she realized the badge he held in her face and his expression were both extremely serious.

      This couldn’t be about her being late for work. And as far as she knew, being the world’s biggest control freak wasn’t illegal. “Have we been robbed? I know I set the alarm yesterday, I always—”

      “Ms. Stephens—” The interruption was barely civil and his tone snapped her attention back to him “—we’re here to investigate a fraud. We have a warrant to search these premises.”

      Once again, the unfamiliar pieces of the morning’s picture rearranged themselves, kaleidoscope-like. Holly struggled to make sense of them. She’d gone from balloons to fire to robbery to…fraud? Swiftly, she ran an inventory of the firm’s clients. Which one had been stupid enough to try something illegal? And why hadn’t she spotted it?

      She drew a blank. “I’m sorry,” she said to the FBI agent, “you’re going to have to fill me in. Who exactly are you investigating?”

      Special Agent Crook exhaled heavily. “You, Ms. Stephens. We’re investigating you.”

      “MISSING?” AnnaMae Trimble leaned back in her chair and rubbed her chin. “The trust account that normally holds millions of dollars of your clients’ money has been cleaned out, and you say Dave Fletcher is missing?”

      Holly closed her eyes and pressed her slim frame farther into her friend’s corduroy couch. “Of course he’s missing. What would you have me think?” she demanded. “That he’s run off with the money?”

      “That sounds about right.” AnnaMae must have noticed the rising pitch of Holly’s voice because she softened her next words. “It’s the most likely possibility. I don’t want to believe it any more than you do.”

      “Liar.” Holly opened her eyes. “You’ve never liked Dave.”

      AnnaMae dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “All the more reason why I don’t want you going to prison for him.”

      “Dave’s on vacation in Mexico,” Holly said with exaggerated patience. “He flew out Friday night—the airline confirmed that to the FBI. Just because he’s not at the hotel he said he’d be staying in, it doesn’t mean he’s a thief. He’s due home in four weeks. He’ll be back, you’ll see.”

      AnnaMae met her gaze steadily, but said nothing.

      “The investigation will prove I’m innocent.” Holly twisted her fingers in her lap. “No one’s going to lock me away.”

      “No jury will convict you, I grant you—not with that impossibly honest face.” AnnaMae’s lips twitched as she scanned the sedate navy business suit Holly wore with a peach silk top. “One look at Miss Goody Two-shoes and the FBI will be laughed out of the courtroom.”

      “It won’t go to court,” Holly insisted. “It’s a mistake, that’s all. The main problem right now is the inconvenience I have to suffer while they figure it out.”

      Inconvenience. That was putting it mildly. Holly had spent the whole day answering pointed questions from Agent Crook and his cronies. She could have howled when they told her she wouldn’t be allowed back into her condo, not even to collect some clothes. They claimed to have been tipped off that she was hiding evidence at home. So the condo had been secured and would be searched whenever they got around to it.

      She sat in AnnaMae’s cozy cottage in the suburbs with a hundred dollars in her purse and her bank accounts frozen. AnnaMae was the only person who’d been sympathetic about last week’s magazine article. She’d even called the journalist a lying creep, when both of them knew the truth. Now she had offered Holly a bed for as long as she needed it. But even if Holly could ignore the clutter her friend lived in—and she was trying very hard to do that—there was more to life than sleeping. She couldn’t contact any of her clients while the investigation was underway, and no one would employ her in her present circumstances. No home, no clothes, no business, no money…

      “I’m late for work just one lousy day,” she said through gritted teeth, “and this is what happens.”

      AnnaMae’s hoot of laughter drew a reluctant smile from Holly. Which was wiped off in an instant as a fresh thought assailed her. “The twins’ college fees are due at the end of the month. The money’s sitting in my bank account—there’s no way I’ll have access to it in time. What am I going to do?”

      “How about you let your siblings pay their own way?” AnnaMae said, eyes wide, as if she hadn’t suggested it a hundred times before.

      Holly didn’t intend to have that tired old argument with her friend again. They both knew she would dance naked down Columbia Street in rush hour before she would let the twins slide back into the mire of poverty in which they’d been raised. “Maybe I can get some work reviewing audits,” she said. “Something backroom. Surely someone will accept me as innocent until proven guilty?”

      “It’s possible,” AnnaMae said doubtfully. They sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Every so often, AnnaMae tutted.

      The solution hit Holly with knock-out force. “Jared Harding!”

      “Are you kidding? The man’s a hood.”

      “You don’t know he’s done anything illegal,” Holly said, though just last week she’d have said exactly the same. But she was no longer the kind of person who tried to force others into her own mold.

      Besides, she was desperate.

      “I know Harding sails close to the wind,” she said. “And maybe he does stretch the law to its limits.”

      “He delights in bending the rules and making a mockery of people who play by the book. People like you,” AnnaMae said.

      “Some people would say that’s just СКАЧАТЬ