A Calculated Seduction(6)

Or a lick.

He cursed when his cock hardened. Again. At the end of each day, he wondered how he functioned at work with all the blood drained out of his brain.

It was going to make working with her unbearable. The woman was already driving him crazy, and now that he knew what her breasts looked like, it would be hard to carry on a conversation with her without licking his lips. He knew the next time he saw her, the memory of her sweet, luscious body would be superimposed over her clothes. He was just lucky she’d been so stunned, she hadn’t noticed his dick standing at attention. If she’d taken just a peek, he would have lost control. She would’ve been flat on her back in a matter of seconds.

He opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. Deciding a nice cold shower was in order, he headed to the master bathroom. The phone rang and he changed his course to pick it up.

“MacMillan. ”

“Yeah, MacMillan, it’s Todd. Got that info you needed on the stepfamily. ”

Todd was one of the few people in his security firm who knew why Ethan was at his uncle’s company. If Miss Menendez or her accomplice knew anyone in the biz, he didn’t want it getting back to either one of them.

“What’cha got?”

“Stepmommy and stepsisters are all up to their gills in debt. Although they each get quite a large stipend each month, it doesn’t support their lifestyle.”

Some paper rustled, and he knew Todd was sitting at his desk in their Houston office, trying to find his notes. Not an easy task, given he used his desk as a filing cabinet.

“They had all that money left from Menendez?”

“Oh, no. Most of that is from her first husband, a Mr. Victor Deekes. He died of cancer about seven years before she hooked up with Menendez. According to what I found out, she allowed Menendez control over her money. He set it up as a trust for the three of them. All handled through an attorney.”

“And Dul...Miss Menendez?”

“Eleven more months and she’ll be loaded. And I mean loaded. Her father left her everything and she gets it when she turns twenty-five.”

“Strange he would hold off on the money that way. Any indication why he did it?”

“No. But the late Mr. Menendez was a self-made man. Started out with nothing and built his interests, a lot of it in real estate. And the stipulation was added to his will when Dulcy turned eighteen, apparently with her agreement. The heart embolism was, of course, a surprise. He’d just had a check up and no indication of any other heart problems. So it hadn’t been planned she’d drop out of school like that. She apparently landed on her feet.”

“Yeah. Efficient, smart.”

He tried to think about the investigation, but all he could think of was Dulcy at nineteen, innocent and alone. So very alone. He rubbed his chest and willed away the emotion. It didn’t give the woman the right to steal from his uncle. Irritation followed and he took it out on Todd.

“Why did it take you so long to find all of this out?” he demanded.

“Hey, give me a break here. I think I came up with the info pretty quick, boss. What about you? You should have been checking her out to begin with.”

He’d been checking her out. Just the wrong kind of checking out. He really hadn’t seriously thought she could be a suspect.

“Okay, is she overextended? What kind of debts does she have?”

“None. ”

“None? What do you mean none? Everyone has some debt.”

“Boss, this is one tight woman. She pays all her bills on time, carries no balances on her credit cards and has a tidy little savings.”

“Then, why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why help someone help embezzle? She has no outstanding debts, is about to inherit a load of money, why steal?”

“Maybe you’re wrong.”

“No, Uncle Bill is positive.” He thought about the phone call he overheard. “Tonight I heard her talking to someone she owes money to. Maybe someone off the record.”

“Could be. I could send out some feelers to some of my contacts in the area.” Todd was silent for a moment and Ethan knew he was mulling the idea over. “You sure this is your culprit? You know most people go off the record when they have nowhere else to turn. Usually in debt up to their eyeballs. With all of the transactions operated under different users, it’s hard to tell. Of course, she’s privy to all of that.”

“Uncle Bill said he thinks she’s helping someone. She knows a lot, but not everything. Bill’s the only one who would know that much. She needs someone who could give her information from the accounting area. She has to have someone in that division and that’s probably the person she’s helping. I’ll go through the list to try to figure out who she might be involved with.”