Her Man Friday(63)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

"Kimball’s board of directors," he told her. There was no reason to keep that knowledge from her.

She nodded, as if the news didn’t much surprise her. "I always told Schuyler they were smarter than he thought they were. That he shouldn’t underestimate them. That a little knowledge was a dangerous thing where those guys are concerned."

Her words puzzled Leo, but they weren’t important. What was important was that he’d finally figured out what the hell was going on. What was important was that he’d been so sideswiped by a beautiful face and a pair of great legs, that he hadn’t performed his job as well as he could have—should have—performed it. What was important was that he’d been bested by Lily Rigby. A liar. A thief. A woman he’d grown to love.

"You’re going down, Lily," he told her, gesturing toward the diskettes again. "It’s over. Face it."

She went stark white at his assurance, and he could see that she knew he was serious. And he was serious, too, dammit. He really would encourage the board of directors to have her arrested and charged with embezzlement and fraud and breaking a man’s heart. She was a thief, he reminded himself. She deserved whatever charges were brought against her, whatever the highest court in the land handed down.

He had to admit that he admired her coolness, though. Except for that one moment of fear that passed over her face, she showed no sign that she was worried. But then, she was a liar and a fraud, he reminded himself. Pretending and being a fake was what she did best.

In a very soft voice, she said, "Leo, I’m going to ask you to do me a favor."

He expelled a rough, heartless chuckle at that. "A favor," he repeated, unable to quite mask his amusement. "And what kind of favor would that be?" he wondered further aloud. "Although, I think I can probably imagine one or two things you might offer to do for me. Too bad for you, I’ve already had ’em done. By you, as a matter of fact. So don’t be thinking you can bargain your way out of this by offering me sexual favors."

Her responding smile was gritty and held not a trace of good humor. He didn’t like this side of her, this hard-edged, sarcastic, bitter one. Then again, he supposed he was the one responsible for bringing it out of her. No, that wasn’t true, he quickly told himself. If she was feeling bitter and sarcastic, it was only because of the bad choices she’d made in life.

"You weren’t listening," she said. "I’m going to ask you for a favor, not offer one up for your dubious enjoyment."

"Well, thanks for providing me with the opportunity," he said dryly, "but I don’t do thieves and cheaters and liars."

She ignored his remark and instead said, "I’d like for you to give me a couple of days before you take what you’ve found to the board of directors."

This time Leo laughed outright. "Yeah, I bet you would. God knows you can’t pack all this stuff up and clear out your accounts in a few hours, can you? It’d be hell trying to line up a moving van for that much money by tonight, wouldn’t it?"

"Actually," she told him, her voice surprisingly level in spite of the fact that he was doing his best to infuriate her, "very little of what’s in this room—or in those bank accounts, for that matter—actually belongs to me, so packing and fleeing to a foreign country wouldn’t be too much trouble for me. Especially if I cold-cocked you on the side of the head with a blunt object, which, quite frankly, holds a surprising amount of appeal right now."

He only grunted in response to that.

"But if you could hold off for a couple of days, you might learn something else of significance to add to your report," she said. "In fact, if you want to sit right down at the computer and keep going, I’ll just turn right around and leave, and pretend I never caught you doing something so sneaky and underhanded in the first place. Because should you stay and investigate further, you might just be surprised by what you find."

He almost took her up on her offer. He was itching to see what else she had in her files, especially the ones he hadn’t had a chance to back up on disk, and was certain that, given only a few more hours, he’d have a wealth of information to incriminate her more fully.

Then he remembered there was a two-way lock on her bedroom door—which, now that he thought about it, he probably should have used to keep her out—and that in leaving, she would no doubt lock the door behind herself, something that would give her a nice head start on leaving the country. Then again, he reminded himself, there was nothing that would keep her from leaving the country once he drove away from Ashling…

He still didn’t relish being locked in her room, should she decide to do something like that. Although Leo could probably go out the window—it was only three stories, after all.

"Gee, thanks for thinking of me," he told Lily. He reached behind himself to scoop his stack of previously blank diskettes from the desk, palming them possessively. "But I think I’ll just go with what I have here. As I said, it’s more than enough to bring you to your knees."

God, he wished he hadn’t said that. Because suddenly, he wanted very badly to bring Lily to her knees for an entirely different reason. Come to think of it, she’d been on her knees that morning when she’d—

Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it, he admonished himself.

"Now if you’ll just step aside, Miss Rigby," he added pointedly.

"Leo, please," she said softly, beseechingly. "Just give me a chance to explain."

He wanted so badly to give in, to sit right down and pull her into his lap and have her weave an intricate tale that would reassure him of her goodness and decency and love for him. But he knew better than to do that. What he’d seen in her files, what he’d discovered among all the numbers and activities and accounts was, quite simply, irrefutable evidence.

Lily Rigby had stolen money—a lot of money—from her employer. She’d put it into private accounts, then moved it out again, doubtless to buy herself some nice possessions she’d need in the not-too-distant future. She was a thief, Leo reminded himself. She was going to jail. And even though Leo had made a lot of allowances for women over the years, incarceration was a bit more than he was willing to overlook.

"Step aside, Lily," he said again, more forcefully this time. "I have a lot of work to do at home tonight. You’ll forgive me if I don’t invite you over."

She said nothing after that, only moved aside to let him pass. Leo strode forward on legs that felt as if they would crumble beneath him any moment, amazed that he was able to carry himself at all. Moving mechanically and hastily, he returned to Kimball’s office to retrieve his jacket and briefcase, then found his way to Ashling’s front door. And as he stepped outside, into the dark and windy autumn night, it hit him that he’d never be coming back here as Leonard Freiberger again.