Page 18 of Monochrome (ORCA #4)

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

ETHAN

“Good morning, Mr. Lin.” Rebecca’s cheerful greeting didn’t quite match the expression on her face, and my guard immediately went up.

Julius, who was at my side, must have seen me stiffen because he gently placed his hand on my lower back.

I couldn’t feel the heat of his touch through the layers of my suit, but I took comfort from the gesture anyway.

“Good morning, Rebecca. What’s going on?”

“Uh, Mr. Jacobsen wants you to call him as soon as you get in. He says it’s urgent.”

I held back the sigh that wanted to escape.

Carl Jacobsen was one of the board members who’d been screaming the loudest about my needing to be replaced.

He’d been on the board for years, and he’d never been my biggest fan, even when I’d been CFO and Tess had been in charge of running US operations.

“Thank you. I’ll call him as soon as I get settled.”

She nodded.

“Let me know if you need anything today.”

I gave her the warmest smile I could manage with the threat of talking to Carl hanging over my head.

“I will.”

“Not someone you want to talk to, I take it?” Julius whispered his question as we moved down the hall toward my makeshift office.

“Longtime board member and total pain in my ass. He’s been the one making noise about having me replaced.”

“So, this is likely not going to be a fun conversation for you.”

I let out a humorless laugh.

“No, not at all.”

“Any chance he’s the one who wants you dead?”

His question brought me up short, and my head swung his way.

“I hadn’t even considered him.” I thought for a moment, then shook my head.

“No. He likes to think he can micromanage me, and he’s on a tear about me being unfit to lead the company, but I don’t think he’s invested enough to have me killed. I think he’s more interested in having someone at the helm who will cater to his whims, instead of doing what’s best for Grove Core.”

“Are you sure?”

I wasn’t, but my gut told me it wasn’t Carl Jacobsen.

“I’m not sure of anything right now, but I do know that unless someone gave him direct access to the company’s servers, he doesn’t have the means to skim money from the company.”

“So, you think it’s someone internal then?”

“It has to be.”

“Hopefully Felix and Marcus will find something in the global accounts today.”

“Or Cal and Jack will find something at the body shop.”

“Fingers crossed.”

I fell into my chair behind my desk, and Julius settled in at the conference table, while I picked up my desk phone and made the call to Carl.

As suspected, it didn’t go well, and when I slammed the handset back into the cradle, Julius jumped.

“He’s calling an emergency board meeting for today at one.”

Julius stood and moved to the visitor chairs in front of my desk.

“Want me to come with you?”

I considered his offer for a second, then nodded.

“Yes, I think I do. If we’re trying to ferret out whoever is trying to frame me, maybe the board needs to know an independent consultant is looking into the company’s finances.”

“It’s a good strategy.”

“I agree. Call your cousin and have him look into the board members too. See if any transactions from the shell corporations have hit their accounts.”

Julius beamed at me.

“Way ahead of you. I sent him the board list while you were on the phone.”

“Good.” I picked up the phone again, this time dialing the maintenance department.

Julius raised an eyebrow as someone picked up on the other end.

“Good morning. This is Ethan Lin. I need to have my office moved up to the CEO’s office, please.”

Julius’s smile got even wider as he realized what I was doing.

By the time the one o’clock meeting rolled around, I was comfortably resettled in the CEO’s office.

It still smelled vaguely of my sister, her soft perfume embedded in the fibers of the rug and her style obvious in the furnishings that had been selected for the space.

It was bittersweet being surrounded by things that reminded me of her, but today I was drawing strength from them instead of grieving her loss.

Having Julius in my life gave me the space I needed to breathe on my own.

The twins had taken to Athina instantly, and she was doing amazing things with them.

Yesterday, she had been coloring with them at the kitchen table, and she’d told them her parents had died too.

The twins had both opened up to her, telling her about Tessa and their dad, Owen.

There had been tears, but the twins seemed somehow more settled after getting to talk about their mom and dad, and I made a mental note to make sure I called the therapist their case worker had given me.

I’d caught Athina talking to Ben about his university’s art therapy program later that night, and I hoped she decided to explore that option because I had a feeling she would be amazing as an art therapist.

As I walked into the conference room to face the board, Julius at my side, I channeled my sister’s strength, holding my head up high as I took my seat at the middle of the table.

“John, if you wouldn’t mind moving down a seat.” John Dawson, an eagle shifter and another longtime member of the board, looked shocked, but he stood, hastily picking up his briefcase and moving to the seat next to him.

I gestured at the vacated chair, and Julius gracefully folded himself into it, completely unflinching in the face of the obvious scrutiny from the rest of the people in the room.

“Carl, since you were the one who called this meeting, I’ll let you speak first.” I acknowledged the older owl shifter, seated across from me.

He sputtered, looking from me to Julius and back.

“Not until you tell us who this is.” He flung a wrinkled hand at Julius, his owlish eyes blinking fast behind his unfashionable round glasses.

“All in good time. For now, I believe you had concerns that couldn’t wait until our next regularly scheduled meeting.”

Several people shifted uncomfortably in their chairs, and I saw the corner of Julius’s mouth tip up in a smirk.

He saw it too. Whatever this meeting had originally been about, the core had been an attempt to intimidate me.

Carl was quickly finding out that today would not be the day I yielded to their pressure.

“Well, I… that is to say, we”—Carl looked around the table, seeking out an ally—“are concerned about the company’s finances. You’ve not yet furnished earnings reports that indicate an upward trend.”

“Considering this quarter’s data is not yet available, I don’t see how this concern is any different from those you voiced at our last session.”

Carl sputtered again, and I held up a hand.

“But since you’ve brought up our finances, as I suspected you might, now seems like as good a time as any to introduce my associate. This is Julius Hunter. He is an independent auditor whom I have hired to look into the discrepancies I have discovered within our accounts.”

Several shocked gasps echoed around the room.

“Without board approval?” Elaine Lowden, a longtime friend of my father’s, looked affronted.

“In this particular case, yes. The discrepancies I discovered point to possible misallocation of funds, and as I’m not sure how far spread the issue is, the board was not privy to the need for an internal audit, but rest assured, my father is aware of the issue, and I have his full support to take whatever action needs to be taken to eradicate the issue.”

Several faces around the table lost a shade of color, and I felt Julius shift beside me, obviously noticing the same.

“This is outrageous.” Carl got to his feet and slammed his hands down on the table.

“The purpose of this board is to prevent you from acting unilaterally, Ethan.”

“Yes, that is true, but my responsibility is to my company, and I am taking the appropriate steps to ensure its continued success.”

Carl started to speak again, but I silenced him with a look.

“As such, effective immediately, any and all financial approvals and decisions will be coming directly through me. No department will be able to sign off on spending or asset transfers without my express approval until Mr. Hunter’s audit is complete. I will be sending out a memo regarding this change in procedure immediately following this meeting.” Rebecca, acting as my executive assistant, was seated farther down the table to my right, taking notes on her laptop, and I turned my attention to her.

“Rebecca, please see that the memo I sent you earlier is sent out company-wide when we adjourn here.”

She nodded.

“Absolutely, Mr. Lin.”

I returned my attention to Carl.

“Now, was there anything else you wished to address?”

His face turned a dangerous shade of red, but he shook his head.

I glanced around the rest of the table to find a mixed bag of expressions.

Some people looked pissed, some a little confused by what had just happened, and some, including Elaine and John looked proud, like they’d been waiting for me to step up and were happy to see me asserting myself.

Their approval bolstered my spirit even more.

As did the reassuring squeeze Julius gave my thigh under the table.

“Does anyone else have anything they wish to address while we’re all gathered?”

No one spoke, and several people shook their heads.

“Very well, then this meeting is adjourned, and I trust we won’t need to reconvene until our next regularly scheduled meeting.”

One by one, the board members left, Carl the first to storm out the door, until Julius and I were the only ones left in the room.

Julius stood, glanced toward the door that had just swung closed behind Rebecca, and pulled me up into his arms. “Fuck, that was hot.”

“What?”

“Watching you take control of the room like that. Jesus, Ethan.” He grabbed my wrist and brought my hand to the front of his pants where his dick was more than half-hard behind his zipper.

“I had no clue I had a competency kink until now.”

He captured my answering smile in a searing kiss that set my blood on fire as he backed me up against the conference table.

I let myself get swept up in the kiss until a phone ringing outside the room reminded me where we were.

I looked up at Julius, taking in his blown pupils and the slight flush of arousal on his cheeks, and whispered, “There’s a lock on my office door.”

Taking that as the invitation it was, Julius hauled me out of the room and down the short hall to my newly reclaimed office, shutting the door and locking it behind him.

In seconds, he had my suit jacket stripped off, my pants shoved down around my thighs, and my chest pressed to the surface of my desk.

His strong hands spread my cheeks, and I whimpered as his tongue stroked over my hole.

Julius fucked into me with his tongue and his fingers until my knees were shaking, my cock was leaking, and my desk was sticky with precum.

“No lube.” Julius panted the words against my ear as his hand circled my cock and his dick slid between my thighs.

“So this will have to do.”

He rutted against me, working my shaft in time with his thrusts, and I felt the first splash of his release against my balls as my cock jerked in his hand, covering it with cum.

Julius brought his cum-covered hand to my mouth, and I happily licked it clean, then he spun me in his arms and kissed me deeply, sucking the taste of my release from my tongue until my cock was hard and I was ready to go again.

Instead of giving me what I wanted, he stepped away, ducking into the en suite bathroom and returning with a warm, wet paper towel he used to clean me up before tucking my still-hard cock away and putting my suit to rights.

When my jacket was back in place and the used paper towel had been discarded, he kissed the now-healed cut on my temple, looked into my eyes, and knocked the breath from my lungs with four little words.

“I love you, Ethan.” It took me a moment to remember how to speak, and Julius misinterpreted my silence.

“You don’t have to say it back. I just needed you to know.”

I grabbed the front of his dress shirt and hauled him closer to me.

“Shut up, Jules.” I took his mouth in a hot, hard kiss filled with every ounce of my love for him.

And when I finally let him go, I said the words I’d already conveyed with my lips.

“I love you too.”

He pulled me into a hug, and I realized the office no longer smelled like Tessa.

It smelled like me and Julius.

It smelled like home.