“You’re changing the subject.”
“Hmm?”
Kaitlin gaped at her friend in astonishment. All this fighting was a ruse. “You’ve got a thing for Dylan.”
“I’ve got a thing for proving he’s a pirate,” Lindsay stated primly, sitting up straight in the driver’s seat, flipping on the windshield wipers. “It’s an intellectual exercise.”
“Intellectual, my ass.”
“It’s a matter of principle. Plus, the semester just ended, and I’m a little bored.”
Despite all the angst of the evening, Kaitlin couldn’t help but laugh. “I think it’s a matter of libido.”
“He’s incredibly annoying,” said Lindsay.
“But he is kind of cute.” Kaitlin rotated her neck, trying to relieve the stress.
“Maybe,” Lindsay allowed, braking as a bus pulled onto the street. “In a squeaky-clean-veneer, bad-boy-underneath kind of way.”
“Is that a bad kind of way?” The few times Kaitlin had met Dylan at the office, she’d mostly found him charming. He had a twinkle in his blue eyes, could make a joke of almost anything and, if it hadn’t been her briefcase in question, she might have admired his loyalty to Zach for stealing it.
Lindsay gave a self-conscious grin, rubbing her palms briskly along the curve of the steering wheel. “Fine. You caught me. I confess.”
Grinning at the irony, Kaitlin continued. “His best friend’s locked in an epic struggle with your best friend. You’ve called into question the integrity of his entire family. And you practically arrested him for stealing my briefcase. But other than that, I can see the two of you really going somewhere with this.”
Lindsay shook back her hair. “I’m only window-shopping. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a little libido mixed in with an intellectual exercise.”
Kaitlin couldn’t help laughing. It was a relief to let the anger go. “Zach groped me under the table during dinner. How’s that for libido?”
Lindsay sobered, glancing swiftly at Kaitlin before returning her attention to the road. “Seriously?”
“I guess he’s still trying to distract me.”
They pulled into a parking spot in front of Kaitlin’s apartment building, and Lindsay set the parking brake, shifting in her seat. “Tell me that’s not why you showed him the plans.”
“It wasn’t that distracting.” Well, in fact he was entirely that distracting. But the distraction was irrelevant to her decision. “I showed him the plans to shut him up.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” Mostly.
Lindsay gave a wry grin. “Poor Zach. Part of me can’t wait to see what he tries next.”
And part of Kaitlin couldn’t help hoping it involved seduction.
In his office Monday morning, Zach was forced to struggle to keep from fantasizing about Kaitlin. He was angry with her over the lavish designs, and he needed to stay that way in order to keep his priorities straight. Thinking about her smooth legs, her lithe body and those sensuous, kissable lips was only asking for trouble. Well, more trouble. More trouble than he’d ever had in his life.
“—to the tune of ten million dollars,” Esmond Carson was saying from one of the burgundy guest chairs across from Zach’s office desk.
At the mention of the number, Zach’s brain rocked back to attention. “What?” he asked bluntly.
Esmond flipped through the thick file folder on his lap. The gray-haired man was nearing sixty-five. He’d been a trusted lawyer and advisor of Zach’s grandmother Sadie for over thirty years. “Rent, food, teacher salaries, transportation. All of the costs are overstated in the financial reports. The foundation has a huge stack of bills in arrears. The bank account has maxed out its overdraft. That’s how the mess came to my attention.”
Zach couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How had things gotten so out of hand? “Who did this?”
“Near as we can tell, it was a man named Lawrence Wellington. He was the regional manager for the city. And he disappeared the day after Sadie passed away. My guess is that he knew the embezzlement would come to light as soon as you took over.”
“He stole ten million dollars?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“You’ve called the police?”
Esmond closed the file folder, his demeanor calm, expression impassive. “We could report it.”
“Damn right we’re reporting it.” Zach’s hand went to his desk phone. Someone had stolen from his grandmother. Worse, they’d stolen from his grandmother’s charitable trust. Sadie was passionate about helping inner-city kids.