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Landry shot me a look. “Well, you’re not one of the youngest billionaires ever for no reason.”
I threw her a wink because the woman had no idea how tenacious I really could be.
Chapter 7
Landry~
Iwas going to get fired. I could see the writing on the wall, plain as day. When Rowena had called me to check on me, she’d said that she’d done another reading to see if she could get a better handle on the ‘shadow’ that she’d seen Sunday night. However, since I couldn’t be there, she could only get a sense of something, and now she was thinking that it was a foreshadowing of something to come.
So, yeah, I was probably getting fired.
However, watching Rush Crawford set dinner on the conference table between us, getting fired might not be all that bad. I knew for a fact that Purdie and Thaddeus would take me in if I got kicked out on the street. If nothing else, my homelessness would bless them with free childcare, and what kind of parents didn’t want that luxury in their lives? Same could be said for Rowena and Mark. They could finally go somewhere for vacation while I took care of all their fur babies.
No doubt about it, Rush Crawford was a sexy sonofabitch, and something told me that he might be worth getting fired for. I bet he was a beast in bed, and I could feel myself getting warm from just thinking about it. I also wasn’t stupid enough not to notice what he was doing. The man was interested in me, and he wasn’t being subtle about it in the least. I wasn’t sure if this was how he normally operated, but I doubted it. There was no way that this man had to work this hard for a woman’s attention.
When Rush had offered to buy everyone dinner, Chinese had won out, and everything looked like it was right out of a movie scene. We had Chinese take-out cartons on the table between us, audit paperwork and boxes everywhere.
After serving me, then himself-yeah, I noticed-Rush said, “Okay, hit me with it.”
Because my work ethic was entirely too good for the likes of Bryant Stanton, I asked, “Shouldn’t we wait for Bryant to come back? I mean, I know that it’s past closing and all, but heismy boss.”
“He’s in a late meeting with Preston,” he informed me evenly.
“How convenient,” I deadpanned.
“Oh, is it?” he asked, a smirk playing on those sexy lips of his.
I snatched a carton of pork and fried rice, then opted for a fork over the chopsticks because I wasn’t graceful enough to use chopsticks. Plus, after waking up in the conference room this morning, I didn’t need to make an even bigger fool of myself today. I tried to limit the humiliation to once a day.
After taking a very unladylike bite, I said, “Okay, before I tell you anything, I want you to keep in mind that I don’t know what, if anything, the others have found. While it’s not against policy for us to talk about what we find during the course of an audit, it’s only been day two, and…” I scowled, trying to find a way to explain. “The financial picture doesn’t really begin to form until we’re almost done, if that makes sense.” Rush nodded simply, and I could admit it felt nice to be able to think of him as Rush and not Mr. Crawford. “Anyways, if Bryant was here, we’d probably compare preliminary findings as the others are probably doing, but we still make sure to deal in facts only.”
“Okay,” Rush replied after taking a bite of whatever carton he had grabbed a hold of. “So, what did you find? Or…what is striking you as odd at this point in the audit?”
“So, usually, when I do an audit, I do my best to compare apples to apples,” I said, hoping that I was explaining this like a normal person and not an auditing geek. “Meaning, since you wanted the past five years, I separate those five years by years, then quarters, then months. I will compare all the January earnings to each other, then February, then so forth. After that, I’ll compare the company’s fiscal quarters in the same manner.”
“Since we’re dealing with hotels, it stands to reason that the summer months will garner more revenue than the winter months, so you’re comparing and measuring how everything fluctuates,” he surmised.
I nodded. “With the exception of a huge spike in inflation or something like that, Grandland’s summer months should be their most profitable ones, their winter months not so much. However, there should still be some consistency that matches those obvious predictions. Also, like most businesses that depend on the weather conditions and summer breaks, you should pad your pockets during the busy months to get you buy the leaner ones.”
“Obviously,” he agreed. “So, what did you find, Landry?”
“Again, it’s only day two of the audit, and with Bryant pulling that stunt last night, I’ve only managed to compare a few-”
“What did you find, Landry?” he asked again, cutting me off, those green eyes of his serious.
“So far, none of the corporate expenditures have fluctuated,” I told him. “Even during this past year, they’ve been spending money on expensive travel and perks like there wasn’t an issue with profits.” I leaned back in my chair. “If they are struggling financially, you’d never know it by the way they’ve been continuing to charge on their business accounts.”
Rush scowled a bit. “They haven’t cut back on anything?”
I shook my head. “Not that I can see on my end, but like I said, it is only day two. Plus, they might have cut back in the other departments to supplement their corporate expenses.”
“Usually, when a company starts losing money, it’s corporate expenses that are the first to go,” he said, and after doing this for so many years, I couldn’t agree more. “Most companies start to prioritize travel and things like that.”
“Again, it’s super early in the audit, but it looks like Davis Courtney might have been in denial about the state of his company until it was too late,” I told him regretfully.
“Well, I’d rather he be stupid than a thief,” Rush huffed. “However, I can’t have a stupid person in charge of anything that has to do with my company.”
I nodded. “If you plan on keeping him employed, don’t give the man any power, that’s for sure.”
