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“Like you wanted me to stay,” I tossed back.
“What are all those accounts?”
I cut my eyes toward the door. “Keep your voice down.”
“Easton, you are the most straight-laced person I know. At least I thought you were. Why did you take the money? Why did you implode the company? If you wanted to walk, you could’ve just left.” She gripped the chair arms like she was holding herself back from strangling me.
“Define ‘a bunch’ because I only have a few,” I said.
“Seventy-seven.”
“What? That’s impossible.”
She pulled a folder from her bag and shoved it at me. Some of the account numbers I immediately recognized, but most of them, I’d never seen. I counted even though I knew Mulaney was telling the truth.
Seventy-seven.
“I figured it was intentional,” she said. “It’s your baseball number.”
“You remember that?”
She lifted a shoulder and lowered it. “Baseball was my third love.”
“Third?”
“Oil. Horses. Baseball.”
I scrubbed my hand across my forehead. “I set up seven of them. The rest, I have no idea.”
“But if you didn’t set them up, how are they there? Did you think I had the same amount?”
“I don’t know how or why we can both see evidence of multiple offshore accounts we know nothing about.”
She thought on that for a moment, then shifted. “Why seven?”
“Just a number.” It was so much more than that, but I couldn’t give her anything else. Mulaney had taken and taken. It wouldn’t be long until there was nothing left of me.
A humph noise escaped her. She didn’t believe me, but it didn’t matter. “What do you have to hide?”
“Nothing. I’m surprised you haven’t set any up yourself. It’s a piece to a money management strategy. They aren’t illegal.” I closed my laptop and rubbed my temples.
She batted my hands out of the way and took over. I closed my eyes as she massaged the tension away.
“You thought your father and I masterminded this.”
“He thinks I had something to do with it. Told me if I needed money, I could’ve just asked.” I sniffed. “What the hell would I need one billion dollars for?”
“Side project,” she suggested, pressing her fingertips deeper into my skull.
“That would be a heck of a side project.”
She dropped her hands, and I leaned forward.
“Don’t stop.”
“What have I ever done to make you think I’d steal from the company? You sure didn’t seem to have any problem believing that.” Fragile was never a word I’d used to describe Mulaney, yet the more time we spent together, the more I discovered she wasn’t an indestructible force. She was hurt I’d ever entertained the idea she’d steal. She was hurt I wanted her eggs. She was hurt I’d left her here the other night even though she was the one who had run.
“We’ve always been good at solving problems,” I said, opening my eyes.
