Undercover Billionaire Boss: A BWWM Contemporary Romance (13 page)

She sat unmoving, her mind blank, unable to fathom what she was reading. Then she seemed to gather herself and the first emotion she felt was a great relief accompanied by the urge to cry and scream at the same time. She gave in to the tears and she covered her face with her hands.

It was over! The struggle was over.

Raina took the letter again and reread it, taking time to absorb every word.

The letter was from her insurance company. The insurance from the driver who had killed Mira and Byron had come through. They would be sending her a check for $500,000 in exchange for not bringing a lawsuit against the trucking company that had employed the driver.

Raina could not breathe at the thought of so much money. It was more money than she had thought possible. Her problems were solved.

There was so much to think about.

So many worries had disappeared in that instant. Her mind raced with the possibilities that the money opened up for her.

She would pay off her mortgage and the medical bills.

But! The best part of it all was that the worry over losing her job was gone! She let out a small shriek of joy, jumping up and crying out. “Thank you, God. Thank you!”

She thought of her long-held dream of opening up a small bed and breakfast. A mixture of anxiety and excitement tingled in her stomach. Was it something she could now do? It was risky starting a new business but it would mean so much for her.

The fear of having another boss like Roger would be gone and she could concentrate on building something that was her own. Her own business would also give her the flexibility of being there for the children. The anxiety begun to dissipate.

If only there was someone she could share this with. If only …
Christopher was there to celebrate with her,
she thought sadly. She tried to reassure herself that he would come around. It would work out.
It had too.

He had to give her a chance to explain … didn’t he?

She missed the evening cup of coffee that they shared together.

She missed feeling his body next to her, holding her so tight that sometimes she worried he might crush her with his large frame.

Oh Christopher, where are you?
Images of her and Roger in the lobby floated in her mind. For the first time since it happened, Raina saw with clarity, how Christopher could have misjudged the situation.

Her head had been angled to the side in an effort to shield her neck from Roger’s slimy hands. To someone watching however, it might have seemed like she was caught up in the throes of passion. Raina felt a stab of fear.

What if Christopher didn’t believe her? No, she wouldn’t think like that. He just had to hear her side of the story.

C
hristian poured
over the documents he had just printed.

How he had misjudged her.

He still could not believe that Raina—sweet, funny, kind, loving Raina—was the culprit.

Out of all the women who had betrayed him, this one hurt the most.

What an idiot he had been. He blamed himself most of all.

He thought of her wide brown eyes and the honesty and sincerity that shone from them. His mind and heart just could not accept that it was
Raina
stealing form the company all this time. It seemed so out of character …

But then again, trading sex to get a promotion had seemed out of character too,
he reminded himself.

In truth, he was starting to realize he didn’t know Raina McMillan at all. The thought was a knife twisting in his chest.

The emails and other invoices—all the proof that Roger had forwarded him—that had been forwarded to from her private correspondence—showed her discussing the non-existent supplies with another person whom Christian assumed was her accomplice.

The pain in his heart was unbearable. Not since the death of his parents had he felt so alone and desolate. She had drawn him in, made him love her—yes,
love
was not too strong of a word—and all that time she had been a deceitful, conniving woman, only focused on her own gain.

She had created a shell company with accompanying bank details. All the forms of incorporation were in her name. The payments from those supplier account were then diverted to her own off shore bank accounts.

Christian massaged his stiff neck. He had been going through the whole thing since he’d learned of it a few hours ago. The emails had come in just after midnight, and he’d been awake—unable to sleep, his mind filled with thoughts of Raina.

When he saw the evidence— the mounds and mounds of evidence Roger was forwarding to him, it all pointed to Raina.

Yet until he confronted her, he still held on to the belief that there was a mistake. There had to be a mistake, didn’t there? It wasn’t just foolish, sentimental thinking on his part. If Raina was stealing from the company, why then was she drowning in debt? Had that been an act too? But why lie to the lowly maintenance man about her financial troubles?

For the short period that he had known her, she had displayed no signs of having any addictions or vices that took all her money. Then again, money was enough of a motivation on its own for some people. Could she have kept up the “poor me” facade as an act to throw people off of her embezzling?

Christian made himself a tenth cup of coffee and returned with it to the living room. His brain was exhausted and he badly wanted to lie down, but every time he closed his eyes he only saw Raina.

He tossed and turned as he imagined for the millionth time the image of Roger massaging Raina’s breasts, his hands under her skirt, and his mouth on her neck. Raina’s reaction though was what had pierced his heart.

She had seemed to love what Roger was doing to her.

Raina had
told
Roger she was willing to trade her body for a promotion.

It was too much to bear and he shoved the images to the back of his mind. He glanced at the gold clock on the wall. Six thirty in the morning. The entire night had passed and he’d not slept a wink.

She usually got to work a few minutes before eight.

He would be there to meet her.

Christian needed answers.

* * *

C
hristian sat
behind Raina’s desk and prepared himself for the inevitable confrontation. All of his feelings for her would have to be suspended.

He cleared his mind and thought back to the emails that Roger had sent him. The whole business did not make sense and it left a bitter taste in his mouth.

If Raina and his Uncle were having an affair, why didn’t Roger protect her by covering up for her?

The answer came swiftly. To cover his own ass.

His uncle was a selfish person whose only interest was himself.

Besides, he kept a string of women and Christian could not imagine him being so captivated with any woman to risk his own job by covering up for her.

It was disturbing, because all of the evidence he saw kept pointing to Raina. Christian knew himself to be a fair person and before he made the final conclusion, he needed to hear from Raina herself. She deserved that chance at least.

Yesterday, when he had caught them together right in the open lobby, Christian had reacted with rage and pain, something that he had never done before.

It was time to protect himself and get as far away from her as he could.

But last night he had missed Raina.

He missed her laugh and her playfulness and he had missed the children’s chatter—especially Jeremiah. It had felt good to be needed by a family, and to be looked up to.

Lost in his musings, Christian sat up abruptly when he heard voices in the hallway. One was clearly Raina and just hearing her voice made his knees weak. With her was Kelly. They walked past the office and he assumed that they had gone to Kelly’s office. He didn’t want to stay in her office any longer when he knew she was so close. He stood up and followed the two women. The door to Kelly’s office was slightly ajar and he paused for a moment, hearing Raina’s voice.

“
Can you imagine? Five hundred thousand dollars!
” she was saying.

His ears strained to hear the rest of the conversation.

“I’m so happy for you Raina, it’s just perfect. That’s a lot of money.” Kelly gushed.

“I know. I have to pinch myself to believe that I can now do all the things I’ve planned on doing. I don’t need this job Kelly! And I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. Don’t get me wrong, it has brought me to where I am today, and I can enjoy my new found wealth, thanks to Del Mar …”

She laughed some more, no doubt at her perfidy and deviousness.

Christian could not stand to hear any more.

He tore himself from where he stood and strode purposely out of the staff wing and into the lobby of the grand hotel. His face contorted with rage. What a fool he had been!

He felt like an old rug, stepped all over, used and then thrown out into the garbage.

This was the last time
, Christian swore to himself,
the very last time. He would never ever be taken in by another deceitful woman.

The last place he wanted to be at that moment was at the hotel. He didn’t know if he’d be able to control his rage if he came face to face with her. He didn’t want to find out what he might do.

He didn’t need to be there any longer—Roger could take care of calling the cops and handling the rest of the investigation—and if he never saw Raina again, he would be a happy man.

He walked out of Del Mar hotel and out of Raina McMillan’s life for good.

She had broken his heart, but that was forgivable.

What was not forgivable was proving to be greedy and untrustworthy.

She would pay for that, Christian swore. He had his driver take him directly to the private airport. One of his assistants would handle packing up the penthouse apartment—he couldn’t bear to go back there.

The sooner he left Palm Beach for New York, the better he would feel.

* * *

“
M
r. Del Mar
, your meeting with the directors is in ten minutes.”

Christian looked up wearily. “OK, thank you Valerie.”

“It’s good to have you back sir,” Valerie, his secretary of seven years, said. She shot him a welcoming glance.

“Thank you,” Christian said with what he knew was a tired smile. He barely glanced at her before looking back at the mountain of papers he had on his desk.

He hadn’t slept much since his return from Palm Beach.

He felt displaced, as though he was in the wrong apartment—the wrong
life
. His New York apartment was more personal than the one in Palm Beach, yet he felt like a stranger there. He had shed his disguise and it felt good to be Christian Del Mar again, but still something remained missing.

Raina was like a ghost, lurking in the edges of his consciousness. He knew what he had to do but the thought of prosecuting her was too much. He had delayed the inevitable because he couldn’t stand the idea of putting her in jail—even though she deserved nothing less.

Still … If she was in jail, what would happen to the children?
That
thought was weighing heavily on his conscience.

Lost in his thoughts, he heard Valerie softly shut the door. He thought of Raina in handcuffs and the children holding on to each other in terror as they watched her be dragged out of their home. He thought of the children being sent to foster homes and being split up. He thought about all of that, and he knew deep in his heart he wouldn’t do that to them.

None of it was their fault.

Fine.

She was welcome to the money, if it had meant so much to her that she would steal for it. The money would be a small price to pay to rid himself of her in his life. Perhaps the memory of her would disappear too, once he wiped that slate clean.

Christian stood up and made for the conference room, down one floor. He wasn’t looking forward to this meeting with his division directors.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Christian said, walking into the boardroom.

“Christian!” Horace said, standing up. The three other men stood up too and shook his hand vigorously, patting Christian on the back.

They made polite small talk, before getting down to the business they needed to discuss.

“I know you all want to know about Del Mar Palm Beach,” Christian begun when they had all settled down around the conference table. “Well, I did get to the bottom of the problem,” he sucked in a deep breath. “I can assure you that it now has a clean bill of health.”

The expected questions came, probing for more details. Christian circumvented the questions and gave as few details as possible without mentioning names. They appeared satisfied as they broke the meeting up thirty minutes later. He was known for his short board meetings. Christian saw no use in lingering; he preferred to get down to business and go on to other things.

The other things, for now, included wiring instructions to the Palm Beach office to let Raina go. It hurt him even as he wrote the email but he had no choice. She had gotten away easy but the images of the three children haunted him.

Each of them was special. Chantal was the most serious of the three, and Christian knew she would make a wonderful lawyer or doctor one day. Crystal would probably venture into fashion or something on the artistic side. She was creative and she loved drama. She would be the life and soul of every party. Jeremiah was a bright and well-rounded child, and he loved sports. He could be anything he chose to be. All three of them could—if they had the right support.

Christian intended to offer that support.

Raina’s betrayal had no effect on how he felt about the children. They were innocent, and had welcomed him into their hearts and home and viewed him as part of the family. After the email giving instructions to terminate Raina’s employment, Christian then wrote another to his accountant.

He wanted to set up a private, anonymous school scholarship for them.

Later in the afternoon, Valerie popped into his office with documents she needed him to sign or approve.

“I’ve sent flowers to a few people, Jane from Sales got engaged …” Valerie started going down a long list.

Christian cringed and waved away her updates, and then when he saw her crestfallen face, he felt remorseful. “Sorry Val, I’m in a terrible mood, none of which is your fault. Thank you for your thoughtfulness, I really do appreciate it.”

She perked up then and her face lit up into a smile. Happily married with four almost grown kids, Valerie was his perfect assistant. She had no interest in him and neither did he have any interest in her. Theirs was a professional relationship which sometimes veered towards friendship.

“You don’t look yourself,” Valerie commented, her tone concerned.

“I’ll be alright in a few days or so, can you bear with me till then?”