Page 52 of A Billionaire Dom

Davin

I finishedthe spreadsheet and went back to the top to review it. The accountants would get it next and make sure all my numbers were correct. Technically, I could’ve sent things straight to them since it was their department, but I preferred to have a hand in almost every project. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them, but it was important for a CFO to know about their business’s finances.

It was the reason I’d minored in accounting when I’d gotten my MBA from Columbia. I wasn’t the kind of person who left all the hard work to others and just rested on the fact that my family had built the business. I’d never give anyone a reason to doubt that I’d earned my place in this company.

Except, now, I was wondering if maybe I could back off a bit. Show the other departments that I trusted them to do their jobs and didn’t need to handle everything myself. Stop triple-checking everything and hire another realtor to handle accounts that I didn’t actually need to handle.

Maybe then I could have a life.

A knock at the door made me look up. My assistant was taking a late lunch so I’d left the door open a bit. Standing there was a man with a scar over his eye.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“I’m Royd Kichner.”

I stood up. “Come in, Mr. Kichner. I wasn’t expecting a personal visit.”

He came over to the desk, and we shook hands before I motioned for him to sit down. He did, wincing in a way that made me wonder just how tough on the joints being a PI could be.

“I did a deep dive into the background of Linsey Keller, and I thought I owed it to you to talk to you face-to-face.”

That didn’t sound good.

“All right.” I leaned back and assumed what I hoped was a casual-looking position. “Talk to me.”

“I met her.”

Okay, that wasnotwhat I’d expected to hear. I’d thought Kichner would be discreet.

Before I could comment or say a word, Royd continued, “A woman who called herself Cecile Charles showed up at my office, asking about your family. Your grandfather, actually. Of course, I told her to leave. But, when I started looking into Linsey Keller, I found a picture of her. Not a great one, but enough for me to recognize that it was the same woman I’d met.”

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. “When?”

“Wednesday afternoon.”

After she and I had met. After we’d first slept together. I told myself that was better. She hadn’t tricked me into a relationship. Maybe she just wanted to know more about me, much like I wanted to know more about her.

Then why had she been asking about Grandad?

“What, exactly, was she asking?” My voice stayed calm even as my insides knotted.

“She came in on the pretense of wanting help looking into something herself. Her questions focused on what sorts of things I’d look into, the people I’d talk to, the places I’d visit.”

That made no sense.

“As she got more specific, I suspected she wasn’t on the up and up. When I confronted her about it, she named your grandfather. Asked if I’d worked for him, for the company. What types of investigations I’d done for him.” Royd shook his head. “I told her I didn’t talk about my clients and then told her to leave.”

“What did she say to that?”

“Nothing. She left. I got the impression that she’d come more to figure me out than get actual information on your grandfather.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” I waited for Royd to give me his thoughts, but he just kept his gaze pinned somewhere over my shoulder. “She and I met last week completely by chance.”

Royd shrugged, his expression impassive. “Maybe it wasn’t chance.”

I shook my head. “No, you don’t understand. These guys were following…”

I let the rest of the sentence die as I realized it was entirely possible that she’d staged the whole thing. She could have hired the men to follow her and make it seem like she was in trouble.

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