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He pulled the door closed behind him and then started down the passageway. He’d noticed how the light in her eyes had dimmed. No matter what she said, he’d hurt her. And that was the last thing he’d meant to do.
DAY FOURTEEN
Naples, Italy
“MAYBE WE’RE GOING about this the wrong way,” Roberto said.
Stasia leaned back in her chair and stretched her sore muscles. Leaning over a laptop for hours made for aches and pains. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, we’re going about this with a micro view. Perhaps we should pull back and go about it with a macro view.”
“But we already went over the balance sheet. It tied in to the supplemental files.” She wasn’t getting his meaning, but she did agree that what they were doing now wasn’t working.
It didn’t help that she was distracted by their earlier conversation. His words had been like nails driven into her heart. But she had no one to blame but herself. She knew from the start that this relationship was temporary.
“I don’t know.” Roberto’s voice drew her attention. “Maybe we have to do spot checks on the expenses because if there’s going to be something unscrupulous, it’s going to be with the outgoing funds. Let’s hope we get lucky.”
“Spot checks? You mean like pick a random number—”
“Or entry. And track it back to its origin.”
She could feel his rising desperation. The cruise was over in less than two days and he so desperately wanted to have the answers for his grandfather. And she wanted to help him find those answers. But was this really the right way to go about it?
His fingers were already moving over the keyboard when she said, “Isn’t this like throwing a dart at a board and just hoping it hits the bull’s-eye?”
Roberto paused and glanced up at her. “If this business were smaller. If the numbers didn’t run in the hundreds of millions, then yes, I would agree with you, but we just don’t have time to do a full-fledged audit. My grandfather wants answers now.”
“And you want to show him that you’re the man to give him those answers.”
His gaze met hers, but he didn’t say the obvious.
After a few minutes, he said, “Okay. I’ve just printed off a couple of pages of entries. Pick a few numbers on each sheet and trace them back to their invoices.”
“Invoices? We don’t have that sort of detail.”
“No. But I have the password and access to the company’s servers. We’ll be able to pull everything, as the system is automated and all the invoices are stored digitally.”
And so they set to work. Time passed quickly with few results because it was a big task. They started with a vendor and then tracked the payments back through the system.
The first number was tracked back to a legitimate invoice.
The second tracked back accordingly.
The third and the fourth did, as well.
Stasia was beginning to think this was a fruitless mission. And the hour was getting late. Dinner had been a number of hours ago and she was starting to get tired as well as hungry.
As though he sensed her restlessness, Roberto glanced up from his laptop. “You should call it a night.”
The idea was so tempting. This was the last place she wanted to find herself. Being so close to Roberto and yet so far apart was excruciating. But she’d told him that she would help him find answers and she wasn’t going back on her word.
Her gaze met his. “What about you? Do you want to get some sleep and tackle it again tomorrow?”
He shook his head. “I want to get through a few more numbers.”
She restrained a sigh. “That’s what I was thinking too.”
He arched a disbelieving brow. “Are you sure? I’d totally understand if you want to go.”
She shook her head. “But can we call for food? I’m starved.”
He smiled. “I like the way you think.”
They continued to work, verifying number after number. Then something didn’t quite add up. Stasia had an expenditure on the reports that tied to an invoice. When she took it a step further, she could not locate a company that went by the name on the invoice.
Knock. Knock.
Stasia was so confused. She refused to give up until she resolved this mysterious company. Because there was a lot of money charged off to it over the years for construction materials.
