I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found(12)

"What's wrong?" I repeated. He looked so distant that I almost thought he hadn't heard me again, but he finally looked up at me, almost as if he were startled to see me there.

"I don't…I don't know, exactly," he said, walking slowly back over to the bed and sitting down heavily. "That was my broker. He was trying to execute some late-night trades that I'd asked him to take care of, and he discovered that my accounts had been frozen."

I frowned. "Why?"

"Apparently, there was some…concern." He cleared his throat. "A judge issued a freeze order due to what appeared to be insider trading. The thing is, I didn't…I never…" He took a deep breath. "It's all a mistake. It has to be. I never acted on any inside information. I know better."

"Sure," I said, numbly. I vaguely understood the concept from the news, but I never thought I'd be in the middle of an insider trading scandal. "But I mean…why would they think you did?"

"I don't know," he said. "That's just the thing. I have no idea what information they acted on, because they didn't tell me. They didn't warn me, they just froze everything and planned to tell me about it later, I suppose. My broker only found out because he called in a few favors with some people he knows in the justice system. Apparently, I've been the talk of the town." He stopped and let out a little bewildered laugh. "They've been monitoring my activity for some time. Which isn't unusual, but what I don't understand is what they saw that triggered them to do something so drastic. It has to be a mistake. I'm sure it'll all be cleared up in the morning, but…"

"But?" I prodded. I had no idea what else to say.

"I don't know," he said. "God. I'm going to go make some coffee. Maybe that's a bad idea. Is it too early for a brandy? Too late? Christ, Maddy, what am I going to do?"

"I don't know," I said, honestly. "But I'm sure it'll be fine. Right? It has to be fine. If you didn't do anything wrong…"

"I didn't," he said, forcefully, standing up again and pacing around the room.

"I know you didn't." I raised my hands in a supplicating gesture. Truth was, I didn't have the first clue if he was lying to me or not. Of course he'd say he was innocent. Even to me. He wouldn't be stupid enough to admit it to anyone if he'd done something like that. This was, after all, a man capable of committing marriage fraud.

I took in a deep breath. I knew that he occasionally invested in the companies of people he knew, which had always seemed like an odd move to me - I didn't think I'd be able to resist the temptation to act on insider information if I were in his shoes, and I told him so. Apparently, he felt differently about it. And he also apparently knew he was being watched, or suspected it, so why would he do something so stupid?

Okay, hello, marriage fraud.

But that was different. With online stock trading, there was a virtual paper trail three miles long. If he did indeed do something questionable, he'd have a hell of a time ever proving his innocence.

He wouldn't be that stupid. Would he?

Marriage.

Fraud.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. Daniel seemed to have gone back to barely being aware that I was alive, and I really wanted nothing more than to take a long walk outside in the cool night air until my head felt clearer, but that was really a terrible idea, even in this part of the city. The only other option was to start quizzing him about the what the hell exactly was happening, and he'd already made it quite clear that he had no idea, so that wasn't going to be very productive.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to me.

"Were the investment accounts the only thing they froze?"

He stared me, dully.

"What do you mean?" he said, at last, slowly.

"I mean, do you think there's a chance they froze any of your other assets? You should probably find out."

He blinked, pulling his phone out of his pocket. I saw him tap the screen a few times, then throw it on the bed and exclaim "f*cking shit!"

I picked up the phone and looked at it. He was on the purchase page of his own app store.

We're sorry, but there seems to be a problem with your payment method. Would you like to enter another card?

The expression on his face was positively wild. "Why the f*ck would they do this? What am I supposed to do now?" he shouted, at no one.

I could think of several reasons why they might want to freeze all of his assets, actually - even if he wasn't considered a flight risk, if he was engaging in insider trading, any judge might reasonably assume that some of the tainted funds existed in one of his non-investment accounts too. It made sense - but he almost certainly didn't want to hear that right now.

I wanted to pinch myself and wake up from this perfectly ordinary nightmare, but I knew without trying that it wasn't going to happen. Unfortunately, this made entirely too much sense to be imaginary.

"Do you have some cash somewhere?" I asked, in a small voice. "I mean…you know, in case they can't unfreeze everything right away."

He blinked again, slowly. "Yes," he said. "There's some in the safe. But not enough to live on for very long. And the company…we’ll have to suspend operations, we can’t even make payroll."