Page 44 of Begin Again
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
One Year Ago
April 2028
YOU’VE GOT TO BE fucking kidding me. Did this asshole not leave anything untouched? I try to rub out the pounding in my temples, taking one of the longest deep breaths of my life. Then another. It’s fine. Everything is fine. We caught this before it became an even bigger problem. That’s what matters.
Three nights ago, I got a call from my DV Designs CFO, who was concerned about how far over budget our Dallas office is, considering it’s only the beginning of April. How much over? Approximately thirty-thousand dollars. The discrepancy was discovered while she was putting together numbers for the quarterly meeting coming up next week. I told her to send me what she had, and we’d look at it this week. But I never expected this…
We sat on the phone all night until we discovered the problem: one of the project managers was misallocating funds. The discrepancies stretched back to last October when they were first hired. It started with small things, a purchase here or there until it turned into larger things like paying someone an extra thousand dollars here, two there. The whole thing is a shitshow.
I need to finish combing through these transactions tonight because I should be focused on the Villa Inc. networking event tomorrow afternoon before I take the rest of the week off.
Nick comes home from Haven tomorrow. He spent the last week at his little brother’s bachelor party—a phone-free event. Alex’s friend planned the whole thing, but Alex’s one request was no phones. Elizabeth thought it was sweet, but I thought it was annoying. You try telling a two-and-a-half-year-old she can’t call her dad for that long. Truthfully, I didn’t put up much of a fight. I assumed Nick would find a way to call anyway, but he hasn’t called once. The last time we talked was last Wednesday night when he got to Haven. If they are taking the whole “no phone” thing this seriously, my only hope is he comes home a lot more levelheaded than the way he left…
“Knock, knock,” a voice calls from my office door. Luke Benson. The fresh-out-of-college, know-it-all business major I’ve been mentoring for the past two months. His presence is not going to help my headache.
“Can I help you, Luke?” I ask, continuing to look through the papers in front of me.
“You haven’t returned my calls.” Luke crosses the threshold of my office, his left hand toying with the tie around his neck before he sits in the chair across from me.
He’s right. I haven’t returned his calls. I know it’s wrong, but this man is why I’m on thin ice with my husband, or one of them anyway. I can’t give him all the credit. I got myself into this predicament without anyone’s help. Luke was simply the cherry on top. And instead of confronting him, I chose to push him off on one of the managers here at the corporate office, who he should’ve been under from the start. I’d only been mentoring him as a favor for one of Daddy’s old acquaintances.
“I’m sorry, I’ve—”
Luke cuts me off. “Got a lot going on, I know, Nina.”
A heavy sigh falls past my lips.
“Don’t get me wrong, Andy has been great, but he’s not you.”
“Luke, I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to work together anymore.”
“Did I do something?” Luke seems genuinely confused.
“Luke.” I sigh. “We need to talk.”
“Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good.”
“Look, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression of what’s going on here. I’m only here to help you figure things out, help you get your feet on the ground before—”
“Nina, what are you talking about?”
Is he going to sit there and act like he doesn’t know? That’s a bold move. “The flowers,” I say.
Last week before Nick left for Haven, he stopped by my office while I was going through the documents I had requested from Luke after our discussion two nights before. I didn’t get too far into them before my door swung open to reveal my husband, leaning against the frame with a casual smirk.
“Hey there,” Nick said with a hint of flirtation. “You got a man?”
“You’re looking at him,” I said without looking away from my computer.
“Oh, c’mon, Dee, have a little fun.” Nick walked to the other side of my desk and sat on the edge.
“Mi dispiace.”I apologize, lifting my glasses on my head. I rubbed my eyes and leaned back in my chair to look at him. “I have a lot to get through.”
“You will always have more stuff to get through. It will always going to be there,” Nick says. I had been putting in extra hours since Kai decided to take another small leave from the company when Eileen gave birth last fall. “Let’s go grab lunch. The break will be good for you.”
I sigh. “Nick, I can’t. I—”
