Page 111 of All Bets Are Off

“Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Stone.” Olivia pulled up short when she saw me stand on shaky legs. “Oh, I didn’t realize you were here.” She blinked several times in rapid succession.

“We were talking,” I said blandly. It was a stupid thing to say, but I felt as if the floor was falling out from under me. The same thing kept going through my head over and over again.She can’t be here. He’ll hurt her. Get her out, and you can handle him without her present. Don’t let her be hurt.

“Okay.” Olivia swallowed hard. She looked as if she was feeling the same emotions I was, which gave me pause.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as I scrambled for an emotional anchor.

“I’m here to talk to your father.” She looked distinctly uncomfortable. “It might be best if you’re not here for this conversation.”

“On the contrary,” Dad boomed. “We were just having a discussion about you. I think it’s best if we all sit down to work this out together.”

“No!” The word blared out, and I shook my head, throwing a warning look toward Dad in the process.

“You were talking about me?” Olivia clutched her pile of papers to her chest. “How come?”

“I was just telling Dad how well things were going,” I replied.She cannot be here. He will ruin this for you, and you’re in no headspace to keep her safe.“He was telling me about how things were at the start with my mother. It’s not important.” I focused on the pile of paper and grasped at the one thing that was starting to push through the haze in my mind. “Wait … did you figure it out?”

I couldn’t be certain, but it almost looked as if Olivia hesitated for a moment. She caught herself, though, and nodded. “Ididfigure it out.” Slowly, she tracked her eyes to Dad. “That’s why I’m here. I thought we could have a conversation.”

This was much better than the conversation my father wanted to have with her. If I wasn’t careful, he would lay out his plan to end our marriage and bring in some casino heiress to take her place, but not before offering Olivia a chance to hang around as my mistress, like some dirty little secret.

I needed to make it very clear to my father that I wouldn’t be going along with his plan. On top of that, the only thing I knew with any certainty, was that Olivia was here for the long haul. This woman, she’d become my life. I’d be keeping her. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

“Tell us what you have,” I suggested, motioning toward the chair next to mine.

She gave me a tentative smile. “Are you sure? I can talk to your father alone if you want.”

Absolutely not. I would die before I let that happened. “No way.” I shook my head. “I want to know what you found. I can’t believe you finally cracked it.”

“Yes, well, I’m as surprised as you.” Olivia sat in the chair, still cradling the papers. She looked like a deer caught in headlights. Was she that afraid of my father?

“And what project have you been working on?” Dad asked. He looked utterly bored with the conversation, even going so far as to check his ridiculously expensive watch. “Do you have a charity you want us to fund? If so, Zach can handle that. He knows what to do.”

“This isn’t about a charity,” Olivia replied. “This is about the missing money.”

Perplexed lines showed up on my father’s face. “I’m not sure I’m following. What missing money?”

“The money from the audit I was doing,” I volunteered, rubbing my forehead. “I couldn’t let it go. The numbers not adding up correctly didn’t sit well with me. Since Olivia is an accountant—and she’s good at what she does—I asked her to go through what I had. She’s been working on it for weeks.”

My father no longer looked as if he was king of the castle. No, he looked as if he was the one who was about to be sick. “I didn’t ask you to do that!” he practically roared.

“You didn’t have to ask me to do it,” I replied. “It’s part of my job description.”

“I said I was going to handle it.” Spittle formed at the corners of Dad’s mouth he was so worked up. “Why would you do this?”

“What are you so mad about?” I demanded. “If Olivia has found the source of the problem, why wouldn’t you be happy about it?”

Olivia was the one who answered, not him. “Because he’s the source,” she replied in a low voice. “He’s the one who embezzled the money.”

I had to have misheard her. “Of course he’s not. That makes no sense. He has plenty of money.”

“I’m not sure why he’s been taking the money, but it’s definitely him,” Olivia replied. Her gaze was soft when it was on me. Then it turned hard when she turned to my father. “Do you want to tell him, or should I?”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Dad replied. “She’s making it up.”

I wasn’t a master at reading my father, but I did know when he was lying. Well, at least fifty percent of the time. It was obvious he was lying now. “What did you find?” I demanded of Olivia, my anger with him shifting like waves rolling into shore. There seemed to be no end to my fury.

“Are you sure?” Olivia asked plaintively.

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