Underneath It All Read online

  “So even if it does go to court, we still stand a chance at getting this resolved before the deadline.”

  The group looked at each other across the table, each of their faces displaying a mix of hope and reservation.

  “What have you been saying to the media, by the way?” Jenna asked.

  “We all agreed not to comment until we spoke with you,” Eve said.

  “Keep it that way for now. Let’s see what we get and then go from there. We might use the newspapers to our advantage, so let’s make sure no one says anything we might have to contradict later on.”

  They all nodded and gave their assurances.

  “And what about the general public. Any problems there?”

  Zach chuckled, “You mean all the people calling the station claiming to be long lost cousins? You wouldn’t believe how big our families have gotten in the last few weeks.”

  “Anyone you’re worried about?” Jenna asked, the tone in her voice expressing concern.

  Eve shook her head. “No. Liza’s the only one we’re worried about right now and you’re already handling her.”

  “Well, let me know if you or the others have any other trouble where that’s concerned. In the meantime, you go back to concentrating on your show. I’ll draft a response to Liza’s demand and let you know what we get from it.” Then her tone turned back to that warm, reassuring manner that left Nicole feeling at ease. “Don’t worry. We’ll get this worked out and you’ll all be the millionaires you deserve to be.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Cole said before they expressed their thanks and ended the call.

  The mood in the room immediately turned more positive, each of them apparently feeling the same sense of comfort Jenna had provided Nicole. And now knowing they had help with this lawsuit, Nicole could move her focus to other things.

  Like wondering if Devon Bradshaw would be calling for another date.

  Leaving the conference room and stepping down the hall toward her office, she recalled her conversation with Eve and Jane before the men walked in. She certainly hoped he’d call. Saturday night had proved how badly she needed to break away from things for a while. She hadn’t been on a date since her mother became ill, which was long before she’d moved to Atlanta. She hadn’t intended to put her sex life on hold, it just sort of ended up that way.

  When she arrived in town she’d been greeted by a job long neglected. The segments were backlogged, shows being thrown together sometimes hours before air time. It had taken Nicole months to play catch-up and get the shows back on schedule, and what free time she had outside of work, she’d been spending researching adoption and the rights adopted children had in getting their records unsealed.

  She’d discovered there weren’t many. Unless the adoptive parents had made the records available at some point during her life—which hers hadn’t—she was legally bound to respect their anonymity. Granted, there were services available to help in tracking them down, but investigators could be costly and success wasn’t guaranteed. For a long while, she’d struggled over what to do, until the lottery win. Tracking down her birth family seemed the right thing to do since she’d been handed the resources she needed to continue her search, and when their winnings had been confirmed, that’s exactly what she’d done.

  And then Liza ripped it all away, leaving her wondering what Fate was trying to tell her now.

  The date with Devon had been refreshing, like taking all the uncertainty in her life and shoving it aside. He’d made her feel like a woman again instead of a lost child and overworked professional. He’d given her passion and lust, laughter and excitement.

  And she wanted some more.

  The one thing she’d learned in the last year was that answers weren’t going to come to her overnight. Stepping off the plane in Atlanta hadn’t given her a sense that she was home, and winning the lottery hadn’t handed her the key to her past. It would all be more complicated than that, and Saturday night had proved that the best way to deal with a complicated situation was to step away from it on occasion and clear the mind.

  And there was no better emotional white-out than Devon Bradshaw. The only question now was whether she should call him or wait for him to make a move.

  The sight in her office answered the question. Sitting on her desk was a giant bouquet of long-stemmed red roses.

  An excited Penny sat at the desk next to hers. “Are they from Devon?”

  Nicole shrugged and searched for a card. She’d never seen roses so plump and fresh with a hue so vividly red, they looked like velvet.

  “Wow,” she said. “They take up my whole desk.”

  “The card’s on the other side,” Penny gushed. “Hurry and open it. I’m dying to see what it says.”

  Nicole moved around to the other side of her desk, pulled the card from the folder then burst into laughter when she saw what was inside the envelope.

  Along with a card was an orange Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card from the Monopoly game, no doubt a joke about their encounter with the park ranger. The card itself read,

  For our next drive in the Caddy.

  When can I see you again?

  Devon

  “So, what does it say?” Penny urged.

  “When can I see you again?”

  She took her purse from the bottom drawer of her desk and tucked the Monopoly card in her wallet, smiling over the joke. She imagined handing that to the stone-faced park ranger and doubted it would have gone over well. The man didn’t strike her as someone with a sense of humor, but she loved Devon’s joke and the fact that it made her smile. She hadn’t been doing enough of that lately.

  “That is soooo romantic! He’s serious about you.”

  “They’re flowers.”

  “Those aren’t any flowers. Do you know where they’re from? Di Vonge Florist, it’s the priciest place in town.” Penny pointed to the giant bouquet. “Those are imported, you know.” Then she shook her head with certainty. “A guy who’s just having fun doesn’t send a woman flowers from Di Vonge.”

  Nicole scoffed, remembering that Penny was a hopeless romantic. It was one date, they’d had some fun, and the man was just being kind. They were ages from making anything more out of it, and for Nicole that time might be never. She wasn’t about to get seriously involved with anyone until she figured out who she was and where she belonged in this world. Everyone knew the age-old saying about not loving someone else until you love yourself. In her case, she didn’t even know herself.

  “Mrs. Nicole Bradshaw. Doesn’t that sound perfect?”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Nicole said. “I have no intention of becoming Nicole Bradshaw.” And she meant it.

  Her identity had just been wiped clean by her parents, she wasn’t about to fill the empty space with the label of wife and mother. In fact, that was all the more reason why she had to keep her intentions in check. Her sense of self was in a vulnerable state right now. Her foundation had been shattered. Without a sense of belonging, it would be easy for a woman to want to find that place with a man, to build a family she knew was hers, to solidify her circumstances by placing a stake in the ground with someone else.

  But she knew it would be wrong. Without being at peace with who she was, she’d never be able to fully give herself to someone else, which meant ideas of love and marriage were entirely out of the question.

  No. Devon Bradshaw was a fun distraction and that’s all, and despite Penny’s romantic ideals, Nicole was certain he’d agree there was nothing more to it than that.

  5

  “I FOUND THE WOMAN I’m going to marry.”

  Devon smiled at the startled expressions of his dad and brother, Bryce. Surely, they were torn between the idea that he must be joking and the fact that he rarely kidded about things like this. When it came to stepping through life, Devon leaned more toward the conservative side, usually stopping to think about making a move before jumping right in. If anything, he dragged his feet more than he should, turning o
ver every angle before forming a conclusion.

  But when it came to Nicole, there wasn’t much thinking to do. Though he’d never had an exact image of the woman he was looking for, he’d always felt he’d know her when he saw her, and running into Nicole Saturday night validated that long-held notion.

  He saw her. He talked to her. They’d had dinner and he’d held her in his arms. He’d tasted her and had nearly taken her fully, and by the time the night was through, he was certain she was the one.

  That was it. Heart taken. End of subject.

  His father was the first to speak. “Well,” he said, adjusting in his seat at the end of the conference table that made up half of Devon’s downtown Atlanta office. “When I asked you how your weekend went, that wasn’t the answer I’d expected.”

  William Bradshaw was a tall, slender man and Devon had grown into his exact replica. Both he and his sister, Grace, took after their father, inheriting his searing blue eyes and thick dark hair, while Bryce and Todd had ended up shorter and stockier, like their mother’s side of the family.

  From as far back as Devon could remember, he’d wanted to be like his dad, maybe not in the sense of his career, but in the way he led his life. The man had a wit about him. He’d always known who he was and what he wanted, and rarely did he make a frivolous move or a decision in haste. With the exception of once, as his story goes, and that was the day he’d met their mother.

  Dad always said it took the blink of an eye to know Carol Anne Mayberry was the woman of his dreams, and every time Devon heard the story and witnessed the resulting blush on his mother’s face, he knew in his heart that’s how love would greet him someday.

  And Saturday night, it had, in the form of one tall, sun-kissed blonde who’d shot an arrow through his heart with nothing more than a sexy glance.

  “How long have you known her?” his father asked.

  Bryce snorted. “What time is it?”

  “I met her Saturday.”

  William raised a brow. “And you already know she’s the one?”

  Devon turned to his father and winked. “In the blink of an eye.”

  “Yeah, so what does Devon do?” Bryce chimed in. “He takes her up to The Point and gets busted by a park ranger with his hand up her skirt.” He threw his head back and laughed. “How’s that for class?”

  It never ceased to amaze Devon that for a man pushing thirty, Bryce had never stopped acting as though he were twelve years old. Worse was the man’s annoying habit of pulling Devon back to adolescence, as noted by his gut desire to point out the fact that unlike his brother, he’d at least kissed a girl in the last twelve months.

  If Devon were paying attention—and he wasn’t—he might have noticed that since Bryce’s college girlfriend broke up with him, he hadn’t dated a woman since. And if Bryce were the type to accept any brotherly advice—which he wasn’t—Devon might tell him that when a man was as innately picky about women as Bryce was, he should probably try to keep the few that came along.

  Instead, he rose above it and casually turned to their father. “I have only honorable intentions when it comes to Nicole.”

  William raised a hand. “You’re grown men now. How you handle your love lives is up to you.”

  “I realize that,” Devon said. “But this one’s different. It’s important to me that she knows I want more than one thing from her.” He turned to his brother and conceded, “I’ll give you that The Point probably wasn’t the best idea. But I have every intention of taking my time with this one and making it clear that she’s much more to me than just a romp in the hay.”

  “Well, she does sound special.” William turned and crossed his legs. “Why don’t you two come over for dinner so we can meet this woman?” He looked to Bryce. “We’ll make it a family affair. Your mother’s been complaining that she hasn’t had all the kids together since Christmas.” Glancing back at Devon, he added. “We’re flying down to Florida this weekend, but how about the weekend after?”

  Bryce turned to Devon. “Don’t you have that date with Abbey you need to fit in?”

  “She’ll have to work around my schedule. Besides, I haven’t even heard from her. I was expecting a call right away, but maybe she’s having trouble scheduling all her auction wins.”

  “Let me check with your mother, but hold the date. And tell Todd next time you see him.”

  The two men shrugged and agreed.

  “So what’s this about the audit?” William asked.

  Bryce let out a long huff and opened the file he’d brought to the meeting. “We’ve got problems,” he said. “Internal problems.”

  “Has any of this been confirmed?” Devon asked, wanting to make sure Bryce wasn’t sounding alarm bells unnecessarily. Their father had all but retired from the company, still holding his place as Chief Executive Officer, but hoping his sons could handle business mostly without him. And why shouldn’t they? There were three of them doing the job their father had done himself for thirty years. In Devon’s opinion, that was at least one son too many. With Bryce handling the financial end of things and Todd cutting most of the deals, Devon didn’t have a lot to do.

  Unofficially, his job was to keep both brothers in line, oversee their affairs and make sure they knew what they were doing. And for their first few years on the job, it had kept him busy. But despite Bryce’s social immaturity and Todd’s flippant ways, the two men were running the show pretty well without any additional hand-holding.

  Which left Devon thoroughly bored.

  “Here’s what we know at this point,” Bryce said. He pulled out a short stack of papers that Devon assumed were the wire transfers they’d discussed. “The auditors have raised questions about these payments. They’re made out to a Reginald Clark as a refund for his investment in the Baywood Project. But we can’t find record of him ever investing in Baywood.”

  He pulled out more papers. “We’ve got a sudden increase in petty cash withdrawals, but we can’t locate any documents approving the funds.” Emptying the file of the last few pages, he added, “And there’s over seventy-five thousand dollars in vendor payments to a Carlos Mansano, but there’s no note of what services he provided, and no documentation that would give us a phone number or any other identifying information.”

  “And neither Debbie nor Renee in Accounting recall the transactions?”

  “Only that they’re positive they didn’t make them.”

  Their father sat for a moment, tapping a finger on one of the transfers while he held his other hand to his chin. His eyes moved from one page to the next as he contemplated the situation.

  “How much do you trust Debbie and Renee?” Devon finally asked.

  After another beat, William said, “How many other employees have access to the system?”

  “Too many,” Bryce huffed, his tone clearly frustrated.

  For two years now, he’d been complaining about the lack of controls in their accounting processes and the fact that their computer systems hadn’t been upgraded since the company expanded four years ago. For most of its history, Bradshaw Investment Group had been a profitable, yet small operation. They’d managed the business with less than ten employees, all family as far as their father was concerned.

  But with all the boys stepping into the business, they decided to expand the operation beyond the half-dozen investment partnerships they managed. Todd had been acquiring more partnerships, and Jeff Nelson, their father’s former senior executive, had expanded their investing to include venture capitalism, taking advantage of the new information technology trade moving into the area. They’d doubled their staff, but to Bryce’s dismay, they had yet to restructure their internal controls to account for their increased exposure to fraud.

  “If you’ve got the password to the accounting system, you’ve got the ledger and a dozen bank accounts at your disposal,” Bryce added. “There’s at least six of us with legitimate access, but it wouldn’t be difficult for anyone else at the firm to get in, an
d since we don’t even have unique sign-on IDs, we can’t even pinpoint whose access at the company might have been breached.”

  William pursed his lips and studied the pages again, his expression concerned but not as grave as Devon would have expected.

  “What are you thinking, Dad?” he asked.

  Their father gathered the papers together. “Let me look into a few things.” Then he looked at his sons. “Unless there’s more.”

  Bryce shook his head. “That’s all we’ve uncovered so far. Everything else with the audit seems to be in order.”

  William nodded then placed the pages in the folder and tucked it in his briefcase.

  “Bryce is right,” Devon said. “I think we should hire a consulting firm to review our processes and tighten things up.”

  “Go ahead.”

  When their father looked as though he were packing to leave, Devon asked. “So…exactly what things do you plan to look into?”

  “These men who received the payments, we need to chat with them.”

  “All we have are their names and bank information, and according to both banks, the accounts closed shortly after the deposits were made.”

  “I’ve got people who might be able to find them.”

  “What people?”

  William rose from the table. “People” was all he said. “I’ll let you know what they find.”

  He made his way to the door, tossing over his shoulder, “Don’t forget about next weekend,” before leaving Devon’s office.

  The two men stared at each other across the table.

  “Don’t forget next weekend,” Bryce repeated, his deadpan expression stating he was as annoyed as Devon that their father planned to handle this without them. Not only was Devon bored with this job, his father had a way of reminding him that the job wasn’t fully his and probably never would be. As long as the man was alive, he’d forever retain final authority, just as his own father had before him.

  It was another reminder why Devon needed to get out on his own, become his own man and talk to his own people when the need arose. He was capable of being more than an unnecessary middleman between his dad and his brothers, and as soon as this mystery was solved and any potential storm passed, he intended to do exactly that.