Seeing the Love (9 page)

Lucas couldn’t remember the last time he was so incensed. “I’m going back to my desk, to review the audit.” He squeezed Molly’s harness, and she nudged his leg. It felt good to have someone on his side, even if it was only his dog. “Dave, walk there with me?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Someone opened the door for them to leave, and Lucas strode out, head held high. Common sense made him wait until they were a safe distance from Mark’s office, before he paused and turned to Dave, who walked beside him. They were in the middle of a sprawling open-plan office, with coworkers all around. What he needed to say, was private. “Find us a meeting room, Dave. Somewhere we can talk.”

“I’ve got an account meeting in ten minutes.”

“Better find a room quickly then.”

Dave sighed. “There’s one just up here. Ten paces forward, room’s on the right.”

The moment the door clicked shut behind them, Lucas exploded. “You fucker. You screwed up my allocations, messed up the orders I’d prepared, and then dumped the blame on me.” Molly trembled, unhappy with his anger, and he paused. He managed to moderate his tone when he continued. “I’m taking the fall for your screwups. The only reason I didn’t say anything back there was because it would sound like sour grapes. I got the very real sense they weren’t listening to me. They’ll listen to you, though.”

“What do you mean?” Dave sounded worried, as he should.

“You’re going to tell them you fucked up.”

“Oh, no. I’m not.” Dave blew out a breath. “I
can’t
. I’ll lose my job.”

“You don’t have any issues with that happening to me?”

“They can’t get rid of you, though. You’re disabled. It would cause a stink.”

Lucas’s head spun. This was the guy he’d been working with for over a year. His desk-buddy and team-mate. And it was only now he understood him. Lucas’s hands itched to grab Dave’s shirt and punch him repeatedly. “I won’t be your fall guy.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “If I have to pay for a forensic fucking analysis on the audit, I’ll prove it was you. Wouldn’t it just be easier to tell them now that you made a mistake?”

“Please, Lucas. I can’t lose my job. Cindy’s pregnant. Again. We’re already behind on the mortgage, and if we default, we’ll lose the house. You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”

“So you want me to be demoted, and say nothing? Pretend I’m incapable of doing my job?”

“I’ll owe you.”

Lucas stepped forward, closing the gap between them. Dave’s startled intake of breath confirmed how close they stood. “Go screw yourself. I’m sorry about your mortgage, but that’s not my fault. And losing Bryce isn’t either. You’re going to tell Mark the truth, if I have to drag you there myself.”

Molly nudged his leg a second before the door opened. “Am I interrupting something?” Mark’s voice was overly loud, as usual when he spoke to Lucas, but his timing was perfect.

Lucas turned to face him. “Not at all. Dave has something to tell you.”

Behind him, Dave made a strangled noise and then cleared his throat. “No, I don’t.” What the fuck? “We were just talking about handover, when Lucas moves to his new role.”

He could stay quiet no longer. “No, we weren’t. I was asking Dave to own up to his error. To tell you the truth.”

“Lucas, I’ve heard enough.” Mark’s voice was angry. “You made stock decisions without the right authority, and we can’t trust you to stay in that role. I’m sorry. Trying to persuade Dave to lie for you is not the best way forward. Perhaps you should take the rest of the day off. Go home. Calm down and think about this, and we’ll discuss it more tomorrow.”

*

Natalie gazed at the report in front of her, the figures blurring on the page when she blinked. Jeremy waited for her to speak, and she took a breath and tried to compose herself. “This says that Lucas held the Bryce orders back, while he reallocated the stock elsewhere.”

“That’s right. He really messed up.”

“Thing is, that doesn’t sound like Lucas. I know him. He’s efficient.” She had to pause and drag her emotions under control. “He kept an eye on all my accounts while I was away. I trusted him.” She corrected herself. “I still trust him.”

Jeremy’s mouth twisted. “You might not be aware, but Lucas Wade is disabled. They make allowances for him, but he’s clearly not up to such a responsible position.”

The unjust accusation stung. “The same way you make allowances for me, Jeremy?”

His eyes widened. “Not the same at all. You do a damn-good job.”

“And so does Lucas.” Her hands shook, and she placed the report on Jeremy’s desk. “Has anyone asked for his side of the story?”

“I’ve no idea, and it’s really not our concern. I just wanted to reassure you it wasn’t your fault.”

“Thank you.” She stood and smoothed her damp palms on her skirt. “I do appreciate it.”

Natalie walked back to her desk, her mind whirling. She needed to talk to Lucas.

His Messenger status showed him as offline, and her message still hadn’t been delivered. When she called his desk phone, it went straight to voicemail, and so did his cell phone. Was he in a meeting? She left messages on both phones, and then tried to think about work. Her schedule. Meetings. Client reports. Sales targets. The great gaping hole in her next bonus payment. That was going to make a dent in her bank account.

She pulled up the client profile for Bryce Electronics, and noted it’d already been updated with the details of the new Procurement Manager. Was it worth talking to him? He wasn’t taking calls, but maybe he’d see her in person.

No
. She shrank from the idea. Even the thought of shaking hands with a new customer made her want to curl up in a ball and hide. It was summer. Everyone wore lightweight, short-sleeved tops, and showed bare skin. Everyone except her. With her sleeves and floor-sweeping skirts, she’d look like a freak. Or at the very least, a hipster. The other female account managers wore snazzy skirt suits and high heels, but they didn’t have arms and legs covered in ugly scar tissue.

Nausea churned in her belly, and she turned back to her schedule. There had to be another way to save the account, but how?

Her ringing cell phone was the perfect distraction, and she answered without checking the caller ID.

“Natalie, it’s me.” It was Lucas, his voice low and angry. “Have you heard about Bryce?”

“Yes, I was hoping you’d call back. Where are you?”

“The boss sent me home. I think he was afraid I’d hit Dave, my desk-buddy.”

Her heart leapt into her throat. “Why would you do that?”

“He set me up. Blamed me for the mistakes on the account. Have you seen the report yet?”

“Yes.” She took an unsteady breath. “Lucas, you’d have told me if you knew of any problems, wouldn’t you?”

“Jesus, Natalie. Not you as well.”

“Lucas.” She tried to interrupt, but he raised his voice and carried on.

“Blame the cripple, huh? He clearly can’t function properly. But you know what? Maybe it’s for the best. My sight will be completely gone in a couple of years. Maybe even sooner. I won’t be able to work at all then, so I may as well get used to it.”

“Lucas.”

“Save it, Natalie. I don’t know why I called you, but I’m not asking for sympathy.”

“
Stop
.” She finally broke into his angry spiel. “Stop that. Take a deep breath, and tell me from the beginning.”

“What’s the point?” Underneath the anger and the frustration, Natalie heard the fear in his voice.

She knew what that felt like. A leap of faith was needed more than ever before, and she closed her eyes for a moment, while she composed her voice. “The point is I love you. And you’re not going to push me away. We’re going to fix this, Lucas. Together.”

Natalie’s words rang in Lucas’s ears.
I love you.
Had he heard her properly? She couldn’t mean it. Could she? He felt as though someone had smacked him in the head with a mallet and knocked his brains out. He didn’t know what to say.

I love you.
It was too big and scary a statement to respond to right now. It opened too many boxes and possibilities, most of which terrified him.

Natalie was asking him something work related, but the buzzing in his head continued.

“What did you just say?” He interrupted her, and then wished he could haul the words back. He wasn’t normally so rude.

“Which part?”

Maybe it was a sympathetic kind of ‘I love you.’ The sort people wrote in get-well cards. He hoped not.  “The… first bit.”

“About being in love with you?”

“Yes.” His lungs were so tight, he squeaked the word. He gripped the cell phone and pressed it hard to his ear, hoping to catch every nuance of her beautiful voice.

Natalie sighed, and his heart sank. It was almost certainly a friendly kind of I Love You. She probably intended to bolster his confidence, nothing more.

“I know it’s too soon, and I might be leaping to conclusions and foisting myself on you, but I’m in love with you, Lucas. You don’t have to say it back. Not if you don’t mean it.”

“Say it again.” He closed his useless eyes and focused on her voice.

“I love you, Lucas Wade.
Je t’aime
.”

He let out a breath he didn’t remember holding. “You know I’m going to be completely blind soon. I might not be able to work.” He needed to remind her of all his faults. If she was going to have second thoughts, he’d rather she had them now.

Natalie chuckled softly. “I told you, I won’t let you push me away. I still love you. Now should we make some plans for how to fix this problem?”

“Yes.” In an instant, his mood lightened. He was no longer alone, and in Natalie he had a future worth fighting for. “If Dave won’t man up to his mistakes and keeps shoving the blame onto me, my hands are tied. It’s my word against his.”

“Does he know your login and password? Did he login as you, when he made the stock switches?”

“I imagine so. We cover for each other—or at least, we did.” The idea of even talking civilly to Dave now left a sour taste in his mouth. “They want to transfer me to the order processing team, Natalie. I used to be their manager.” He’d made his peace with his restricted career options, but the prospect of downgrading to an even more junior role made his gut clench. Especially when it was unnecessary.

“Well, we do work for an IT company. Somebody will be able to check which machine the reallocations were made from.”

Lucas felt like smacking himself in the face. “Of course. It never occurred to me.” He paused, his brain leaping ahead, thinking faster than he could speak. “You’re a genius, Natalie Fontaine. I know what I can do.”

He didn’t want to wait to prove his innocence. It was only after they said goodbye, that he realized he’d dodged the expected response. He hadn’t told Natalie he loved her. No matter. It was better this way. He’d clear up this ugly issue at work, and then tell her. He’d be claiming her love as a confident man, and not a powerless victim.

****

An hour later, Lucas had not only tracked down one of his previous team members in Order Processing, he also had the full record of access to the orders in question. His old team tracked the progress of every order from inception to dispatch, and with little effort, found out the computer names of everyone who’d digitally touched the order.

He had proof the stock changes were made from Dave’s PC, which meant there was no way Lucas could have done them. The question was, what should he do with it?

It was tempting to walk right back into Mark’s office and throw the report at him. Dave would lose his job over this, for sure. His wife had a baby on the way. Much as Lucas wanted to hurt Dave every bit as much as he’d been savaged earlier, it wasn’t Cindy’s fault. Lucas had met her, and she’d been lovely.

He deliberated a little more, and then set off back to the office.

Dave sounded distinctly alarmed when Lucas arrived at his desk and suggested they talk.

“Thing is, Dave, I’ve got proof you changed the orders. I’m giving you one last chance to clear this up, otherwise I take it straight to Mark and HR, and anyone else who needs to know.” Lucas paused and listened to the other man’s rapid breathing. “Well?”

“Will they fire me?” His voice was faint.

Lucas shrugged. “I’ve no idea. But isn’t it better to be honest? If you tell them the truth, that you were scared of losing Masons, you might be able to salvage a decent reference. Maybe.”

“Fuck.” Dave shoved his chair back. “You’re not calling my bluff, are you?”

“Nope. I can e-mail it to you.”

“No need.
Fuck
.”

“So”—Lucas crossed his arms, and tried to keep the satisfaction from his face—“I think it’s time we had a talk with Mark.”

*

It was amazing how confident Natalie could sound on the phone, yet how much she quaked if she had to meet someone in person. At least since the accident. Prior to that, she’d been fine. The aloof shell she’d developed as a child stayed in place as she became an adult, but she’d been able to put aside her nerves.

If only she could do the same today.

She
had
, already. She’d told Lucas she loved him, even if he hadn’t replied in kind. His silence on that subject gnawed at her, but maybe she’d leapt in too early. She knew, could tell from every tender gesture, that he loved her too, even if he couldn’t say the words.

It had been an hour since she spoke to Lucas, and now she put her own rescue plan into action. Before she could talk herself out of it, she climbed into her car, drove out of the city centre, and headed for the Highbrook Business Park on the edge of the suburbs. To the Bryce Electronics head office.

Natalie gazed up at the glass-faced building and took a deep breath. It didn’t do much to quash the nausea, or slow the pulse hammering in her veins. Her heart was racing every bit as much as if she’d just run here from the office, halfway across the city.

Her palms were damp, and perspiration gathered on her forehead, made worse by the midday sunshine beating down on her. She felt exposed. Like a bug trying to cross the kitchen floor before it was trodden on.

“I can do this,” she whispered to herself. “In half an hour, this gut-wrenching interview will be over. I can fall apart then.”

Lucas thought she was brave. For him, she would be.

Under the pretence of straightening her long skirt, Natalie wiped her palms dry, and then set off at a smart pace across the car park to the reception. A pretty young blonde girl greeted her, her smile wide and friendly.

“I was hoping to see Chris Fitz, please. I don’t have an appointment, but I was passing and thought I’d drop by.” Natalie was careful how she phrased it, trying to make it seem casual, as though she already knew him.

She’d seen his picture, a thirty-something thin-faced man with a long nose and a receding hairline. He looked stern, as if he never smiled. She would need every ounce of charm she’d ever possessed.

The blonde glanced at her computer screen. “He might be free now. Who shall I say is here to see him?”

Natalie forced a smile. “It’s Natalie.”

The blonde nodded, tapped a message on her keyboard, and then smiled back at Natalie. “He’ll be five minutes, if you don’t mind waiting?”

“No problem.” To hide her nerves, she turned and went to look at the artwork adorning the lobby space.

The reception for Bryce looked more like an upmarket hotel than a cutting-edge electronics company. One painting caught her eye. The work similar in style to her father’s, the artist had captured a view of Paris by night. It was a good representation, but she’d seen better. Engrossed in the details of the brushwork, she failed to notice the man stepping to her side, until he spoke.

“You must be Natalie? I’m Chris Fitz.”

“Oh.” She lifted a hand to her mouth. “Yes, I am.” Caught by surprise as she was, her wits deserted her.

He nodded to the painting. “What do you think of it?”

Should she be honest? It was art. Everyone had different opinions. “I think he captures the architecture well enough, but the lighting could be better. The artist has focused too much on the intricacy of the reflections in the windows, and that makes them look artificial. Don’t you think?”

His eyes widened, and Natalie saw a hint of a smile. “Yes, exactly. That’s what’s wrong with it. I’ve been puzzling over that since I first saw it.”

Talking about art was safe ground for her and helped her put off the moment when she had to talk business. “Have you seen the Paris Reflected series by Claude Fontaine? He chose a single street and painted it at different times of the year and in different weather, and showed how the reflections changed according to the different light.”

“Yes, I have. They’re among my favorite paintings.” Chris Fitz smiled fully and extended a hand. “How may I help you, Natalie…?”

She took his hand and gave a firm, polite squeeze. “Natalie Fontaine.” His eyebrows shot up, and she managed a smile. “Claude was my father. I’m biased about his work, and it’s lovely to meet someone who also enjoys it.”

“Your name sounds familiar.” He held onto her hand. “Have we met?”