Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(56)
Julian pressed his lips together. “Are you sure?”
Natalie showed him the evidence, neatly compiled. “I’ve found your investment portfolio from Ellis and it clearly reveals that you’ve been receiving quarterly dividend checks for the last year. Because of the size of your investment they’re all roughly as large as this one: about sixty-five thousand dollars. But there’s no sign of the others. That’s about $200,000 missing. I can’t find where that money been deposited…or if it has been at all. There’s no record.”
Julian stiffened. “What else?”
Natalie took a breath. “In order to get quarterly dividend checks that large you’d have to have a lot of money invested. A lot.”
“How much?”
“$2.2 million.”
He said nothing, but stood ram-rod straight, his arms crossed over his chest.
Natalie cleared her throat. “Your net worth, near as I can tell, is uh… close to thirty million. To have that much tied up in one company is…well, it’s pretty huge. Even if you wanted to sell the stock, you’d get a huge payout, but also an immediate tax liability. The bigger concern, of course, is the missing money.”
Julian uncrossed his arms; a thought occurred to him that blunted the sharp expression on his face. “Hold on. Maybe there’s some expense that I’m not aware of. Something he’s using that money to pay off.”
“I’ve looked.” She indicated the computer screen and a small filing cabinet next to the desk. “All of your expenses are accounted for. And even if it’s something I’ve missed, where are the invoices?”
“That’s easy enough to remedy. I’ll just ask David.”
“Ask me what?”
Natalie jumped out of the chair, her heart clanging madly.
David stood in the doorway, his arms laden with his briefcase and a small sack of groceries from a convenience store. His hair stood on end even more than usual and his eyes were wide as they went between Natalie and Julian.
“What are you doing in here?” he demanded after his venomous gaze landed on Natalie. “What are you…? This is my office. My workspace…” He dumped his belongings on the coffee table; Natalie heard a clank of glass-on-glass from something in his bag striking the table. He whirled on Julian. “What is going on here?”
“David, I wanted Natalie to look at some of my accounts,” he said. “I found some discrepancies and I thought I’d ask her about them, given that she’s an accountant. Or will be soon. That’s all.”
“Why didn’t you just ask me? I could have told you! I could have explained everything!”
“Then why don’t you?” Natalie said, surprised at her own boldness. David appeared as though his head would explode. It was almost comical, if it hadn’t been so frightening.
Julian’s voice was tight. “Natalie, will you wait in the living room while I speak privately with David?”
“Of course.” She swept past David without a word. The office door closed behind her and she breathed a sigh of relief. Natalie had the heart for honest confrontation but not the stomach. Julian would handle it—hopefully by firing David—and that would be the end of it. The end of him in their lives for good.
#
David watched the smug little bitch walk out the door, twitching her ass in her tight skirt, mocking him. She thought she was so smart. She thought she could get rid of him that easily. His lip curled in disgust.
Julian was staring at him with those astonishing blue eyes. But now they were like chips of ice instead of the sparkling sapphires David loved so much. He shivered under that penetrating stare.
“The dividend money goes to expenses,” he told him, echoing Julian’s words he’d been eavesdropping on moments before the outrage had been too much and he’d been forced to speak. “It goes to all those charity donations you insist I make for you. Since they’re not an official expense, I didn’t want to take them from your regular account. Much easier to just use the dividend money, which isn’t like regular earnings. It’s like a bonus. I thought it was pretty clever actually, but I guess not.”
“I thought you told me Ellis didn’t pay dividends.”
David’s mind raced. “No, it’s Tesla Motors that doesn’t pay dividends. Remember? You wanted me to invest in them because you liked their business philosophy? And I kind of tried to talk out you out it because I want to make sure your money is working its hardest for you. Remember?”
David could see Julian’s memory going back more than a year. It was all true, what he’d said about Tesla, and David watched with relief as that truth worked to cover the lie about EllisIntel.
“Okay,” Julian said. “But if the dividend money is going to charity, which ones? Where’s the documentation?”
David blinked. “Anonymous,” he said, a split second before his hesitation would have cost him everything. “You want to keep your donations anonymous so it’s not like I can write a check from an account with your name on it. I pull out cash and put it right in the hands of the charity directly. They give me the donation statements for your tax deductions and that’s it. I’ve got those around here somewhere. Or maybe at my office at home...”
Julian rubbed his chin, a good sign. He may be some sort of genius in the literary world, but the man had no head for numbers and he trusted David. He wouldn’t delve deep enough to parse that David’s rationale was utter bullshit, but Natalie would. Damn her.