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Yesterday afternoon, when he’d hidden in her bedroom waiting to interrogate her about their impending parenthood.Annndlistened to her throwing up wedding cake. “You heard that?”
“Yep.”
Awesome.
Gaze narrowing, Jane continued peering up at him. She took her time and looked her fill, took in his hard planes and sharp edges. Then she remembered something else and her frown deepened.
Eventually Rafe noticed her staring. “What?”
Jane stared a second longer, then said, “Why aren’t you hungover?”
His grin was instant. “Can’t get hungover if you haven’t had a drink.”
“But in my room, you said—”
“I lied.” When her mouth fell open, he shrugged. “I was angry at your assumption.”
“It was a fair assumption to make. You smelled like a distillery.”
He didn’t quite roll his eyes. “A friend at the firm gave me a bottle of bourbon as a going away gift. It broke in my suitcase.” He huffed out a sound that was half sigh, half laughter. “It was either show up at your place smelling like booze, or show up naked. I went with the lesser of two evils.”
“Okay,” she said slowly, remembering his behaviour as she continued giving him the side-eye and deciding he was probably telling the truth. But him being in her room at all begged a whole other question. “How did you even know I was pregnant? You weren’t at the wedding and Abby promised not to tell you.”
He raised that perfect brow again, silently questioning.
“I didn’t want you to hear it second-hand,” she said, and if the big idiot had bothered to return even one of her bloody phone calls….
The soothing circles on her back ceased as Rafe moved to sit behind her, cradled her hips between his strong thighs. He swept her hair over her shoulder and out of his way. “Ollie texted me,” he said and began massaging her shoulders and neck.
“Of course he did,” Jane sighed, then closed her eyes and leaned into his magic hands.Feels sooo good….
“Geez, you’re tense.”
Glancing over her shoulder, she said, “Yeah, well, you’d be tense too if you just lost two hundred grand to a slimy fuck-hole sonofadouchebag.”
Rafe’s hands stopped moving. “Ahhh… how much?”
“You heard me,” she grumbled, facing forwards again. “Do you know how long it took to save up that much money? Twenty-two years. And do you know how long it took that lying wankstain to empty my bank accounts? A couple of hours.” Jane groaned as Rafe resumed his massage and hit a particularly tight spot.
“You’ve reported it to the police? Spoken to the bank?”
“That’s what I was doing this morning, for all the good it’ll do me. I’m never seeing that money again.”
“What did Scott say?”
“Our friendly neighbourhood copper has a mate in Brisbane who might be able to help speed things along, but he wasn’t hopeful. Sam is gone, his side-piece and all my money with him.”
“What about the bank? Why did they let Sam move such a huge sum of money? I thought the law stated you could only move ten grand at time?”
“Unless it’s a gift, or if you’re buying a property, or if you’re paying for something overseas, or a half dozen other reasons the bank listed this morning. And the ten grand thing is more about paying taxes than limiting how much you can move.” She shook her head. “The joys of internet banking. They had all the information they needed to rob me blind and they didn’t even need my signature to do it.”
Rafe sighed and squeezed her shoulders. “Tell me you have insurance.”
“Of course I do,” Jane snapped, peeved at his lack of faith in her intelligence. “But it could be months, maybe even years before I see a payout.” Her lip curled. “If I see a payout.” She shook her head, her temper rising again, dragging her out of her melancholy. “I started working in the patisserie when I was ten years old, and even though Mum couldn’t legally pay me, my pocket money was nothing to sneeze at. And Dad being Dad, he told me to always save ten percent of everything I earned.”
“Good advice.”
She shrugged. “Me being me, I saved fifty. And I got in the habit of only spending money when I absolutely had to. I mean, there’s a reason I’m still driving the same car I bought when I was seventeen. I didn’t know what I wanted to do back then, but I knew I wanted to do something.”
