Page 43

Present: Nine Years After the Accident—Thirty-Three Years Old

I sneak a glance at the time on my computer.

Five o’clock p.m.

If I hurry this up, I can see the tail end of her presentation.

“Ethan. Hey, Ethan, you listening?”

I snap my attention to Liam, who is in my office with Trey to discuss the updates on the embezzlement situation.

“This is what I’ve got so far. The motherfucker hid his tracks well. Small sums less than ten thousand dollars, rotating payouts to legitimate looking vendors. If your auditors didn’t randomly sample, you would’ve never noticed it.” Liam turns his laptop around and shows us his findings.

I’ve hired him to trace the funds off the books.

I don’t want a press field day until I have the fucker behind bars.

“Shit. Over ten years, huh?” Trey murmurs, standing behind me.

“Office equipment, uniforms, housekeeping supply companies—they all look legit.”

“Whoever did this is good. They know we won’t flag these common transactions,” I muse, scrolling through the rows and rows of orderly transfers from three of our operating accounts over the years.

Liam nods. “I get you aren’t fans of your auditors, but they did a good job. The only red flag was the account numbers having consecutive sequences, like they were opened or created at the same time. Took me on a wild goose chase because the money bounced around so many times, even I got dizzy.”

“So, are we stuck?” I push the laptop back toward him.

He grins and spits out the toothpick he’s chewing on.

I sigh. If he wasn’t so good at his hacking job, I would’ve kicked him out of the room.

“Well, you’re looking at the best of the best. Nothing’s too hard for me.”

“So you got something?” Trey raps the table.

I glance at him, finding his gaze pinned on Liam, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

“I don’t blame you, you know,” I murmur.

He’s my mentor and friend.

I know how he works, how much he cares about the company.

“Bad people will do bad things. You can’t catch them all.”

Trey exhales, his fingers white-knuckled against my desk.

“It shouldn’t have happened.”

“You guys can play the pity party later.” Liam’s fingers fly over his keyboard.

“As I was saying, if you hired anyone else, the trail would’ve been dead months ago, but since you got me, I can bring the dead back to life.”

Rolling my eyes, I wait for his big reveal.

Sure enough, it comes seconds later.

“Cayman Islands. BoC Equitable Investment Fund. This is where your money went. They have twenty thousand firewalls I’m still trying to breach. Once I do, I’ll find more info.”

BoC?

Bank of Columbia? The Vaughns’ company?

Liam catches my eye and shakes his head.

There’s something else he isn’t saying right now.

Clearing my throat, I murmur, “Good job. Keep digging.”

The ping on my phone reminds me of Alexis’s presentation wrapping up in fifteen minutes.

I stand and the men follow suit.

“I’ll finish up some things in my office then.” Trey rakes his fingers through his hair, his shoulders slumped as he walks out the door.

He’s taking this situation very hard .

Liam and I stride toward the conference room where Alexis and her team are presenting the marketing budget to Maxwell and Ryland.

“What else do you know?” I keep my voice low.

“It’s strange. Most fraudulent schemes are short term, a few years max. It’s too hard to keep up the pretenses. But this is over a decade. Something doesn’t sit right with me.”

“BoC. Is that Bank of Columbia?”

Liam frowns.

“That’s how the bank labels their funds. But it wouldn’t be us. There’s no way Charles would stand for this. Something is fucking off about this whole thing. Until I find out more, the fewer people know about this, the better.”

I nod and heave out a deep breath.

Damn bastards, whoever they are.

My bad mood soon disappears, however, when I hear the familiar lilting voice of my Nova from the opened conference room door.

I smile and stroll to the back corner of the room.

“Based on our research, we believe the most cost effective use of funds will be to invest in infrastructure upgrades, rebranding The Strata to a younger, more on trend name, and establishing a membership rewards system,” Alexis’s hands fly as she speaks, her face animated while she describes the final project plan she presented last week to me.

After that picnic at Ravenswood.

Even though she has forgotten us, deep inside her mind, she still remembers her perfect picnic at the private courtyard, the one experience she was saving for when she had a full-time job.

With the person she loved.

I know I’m supposed to put the past behind me.

I’m supposed to win her over again.

But how can I forget all those beautiful memories—every kiss, every touch, every dream?

It’s a different loss I’m grappling with.

The Alexis in front of me is driven, resilient, and alluring.

The past her was whimsical, impulsive, and endearing.

I love both versions of her, but in forgetting the past, I’m doing the one thing I swore I’d never do .

Letting the old Alexis die.

My heart twists behind my rib cage.

“This membership program will foster consumer loyalty and we can funnel these customers into our higher-end hotels once they age out of the target market.”

She tucks her silky hair behind her ear, flashing the hummingbird earrings I gave her all those years ago.

My fingers snag on my cuff link.

We’re both wearing pieces of each other, only she doesn’t know.

“And that concludes our presentation. Questions?”

The audience erupts into applause and a flush creeps up her neck.

Her eyes sweep around the room and I hold my breath, wondering if she’ll see me all the way in the back.

She does.

Our gazes connect and her eyes widen before her lips curve up in the same brilliant smile I remember.

The air rushes out of my lungs.

Always radiant, my beautiful Nova.

Happily, she gathers her things and beelines toward us.

Something has shifted between us since our picnic.

She let me hold her in the courtyard—a real embrace.

Not one fueled by passion in a dark club, but one filled with emotion.

It was the first time in almost a decade that she held me back.

And now, she’s no longer guarded the way she usually is around me.

“How was it, guys?” Her scent of lavender reaches my nose and I inhale.

Liam reaches for her hair.

“Looking good, Fire—”

“Don’t you dare, Liam. Don’t you mess up my hairdo.” She bats his arm away, her lips twitching.

“I like the idea of the membership program,” Maxwell murmurs, walking up to us.

“The rebranding I’ll need more info on. Put some time on my calendar for next week.” His Majesty, as we call him, saunters off.

“That’s a compliment from Maxwell.”

Suddenly, Alexis freezes, and Liam’s brow flies up .

I frown and look down, finding her hand in mine.

It feels as natural as breathing.

Shit.

Quickly letting go, I flex my fingers, still feeling the tingles from that brief touch.

“Good job, Alexis,” I rasp.

The flush on her face deepens.

“Is there something I should know about?” Liam narrows his eyes.

“W-What? I did a good job. Scared I’ll no longer be the black sheep of the family, Liam?” She bites her lip and heat flows straight to my groin.

Liam huffs. “Please. You were never the black sheep. I was.”

I shake my head, needing to stop the bickering before they brawl in front of me.

“What are you guys doing after work?”

“I’m meeting a contact after this.” Liam checks his watch.

“Shit. I’m late. Got to go. You going to the Christmas Ball in a few weeks?”

“Of course. It’s the first time we’re hosting it outside of The Orchid.” The Christmas Ball at The Orchid is considered the event of the year—who’s who in the old money or powerful circles mingle under the guise of celebrating the holidays.

But it’s really where a lot of deals and secret handshakes happen.

This year, to mix things up, according to Jack Szeto, our Entertainment Director, instead of hosting it in the ballroom, the event will happen on a luxury cruise.

“Well, I’ll see you there then.” He bolts out the door, leaving Alexis and me behind as the rest of the conference room empties.

Alexis shifts on her feet, her bottom lip once again under attack by her teeth.

Chuckling, I gently tug it loose and her breath hitches.

“What has your lip done to you? You’re going to chew it off.”

Her face turns impossibly red.

“You can’t help it, huh?”

“What?”

“Taking care of people.”

I smirk.

“Only certain people. ”

She ducks her head and kicks the ground.

Her phone buzzes and she quickly swipes it open, her eyes widening in obvious excitement, but seconds later, her shoulders slump.

She looks disappointed.

“Everything okay?”

“Huh?” She glances up, then clears her throat.

“Oh. I thought it was an email from a…friend. But I think I was overthinking it.”

A friend.

She meant Polaris. Guilt punches me at the obvious sadness in her eyes.

I haven’t responded to her last email.

I don’t know how to without revealing my identity.

How will she react when she finds out she’s been pouring her heart out, revealing secrets I’m sure she hasn’t told her closest friends, to me?

Someone she was wary of until recently?

What will she do when she finds out the person I talk about in my emails is her?

She eyes the door. “Um. I have to go. I need to head off to practice.”

“Practice?”

She grimaces.

“Swimming. It’s all in my head, honestly. I swim just fine in the kiddie pool. My instructor says my strokes are solid, and my form is great. But the moment I step into the big pool, I freeze. I think it has something to do with what happened to me.”

My chest tightens, thinking about that horrid night.

She doesn’t remember the details, but it must’ve been traumatizing, submerged in the dark waters, unable to escape, knowing she was going to die.

All because you didn’t teach her how to swim, Ethan.

Guilt seizes me, a vice around my neck.

“I’ll teach you,” I blurt out.

Her mouth drops open.

“What?”

“Let me go with you. I’ve been swimming all my life. Let me teach you.”

Ten years too late, but please let me teach you how to swim now, Nova .

“B-But, it’s Tuesday. Don’t you need to eat dinner? It’s past five. And you don’t swim in the afternoons unless it’s Wednesday.”

A small thrill sweeps through me.

She remembers my routine.

“Screw it. Swimming is a lifesaving skill. You want to learn. I’m good at it. Let me teach you.” Desperation grips me.

I seize her hand, and those sky-blue eyes flicker—first to our hands, then to my face, then back again.

“Okay.” She breathes out.

“I might disappoint you, but…okay.”

You’ll never disappoint me, Nova.

I’ll teach you how to swim if it’s the last thing I do.