Defeating the system, p.12
Defeating the System, page 12
She took a deep breath, her large bosom rising and falling, and stared up at the ceiling. Roman shook his head to stave off whatever lurid image his mind was about to project and focused on the fact that she’d been no help at all during his search. She’d meticulously gone through the first drawer, detailing aloud every single thing his brother had bought ten years ago. As much as he loved hearing her voice, it was much better when it was pleading his name in their bed than complaining about his brother’s spending habits.
‘At least I’m up to this tax year,’ he heard her mutter as she pulled out the top drawer of the next filing cabinet.
He rolled his gaze to the heavens and prayed for strength to overcome the constant bombardment of vivid daydreams his mind supplied: her bent over the large desk as he fucked her hard and fast, her straddling him as she rode him to heights he didn’t know he could reach, up against the wall near the security console, her fingers digging into him as he—
He blinked as he spied movement in said security monitors. Captain Walker stood at the doorway to the panic room, assessing the access point. His hands slid up the wooden sides of the shelving before running over the books. He peered up into a corner of the room before sweeping his gaze across the top of the ceiling high bookcase. He paused and stared directly at the camera that peered back at him. The Guard held his fingers up to his eyes before pointing them at the camera as if to say I see you.
‘The Royal Guard is here,’ Roman said without thinking. Hattie jolted in surprise, her arm flying out of the drawer she had been about to investigate and turned, peering towards where the tiny monitors sat.
Marcus continued to stare up at the camera, his dark eyes deep black in the CCTV image. Hattie sighed and grabbed the phone off the desk. Roman assumed to call the other man.
Roman heard the line ring only once before he saw Marcus whisking his own device out of his pocket and shoving it against his ear.
‘Lady Tyrrell,’ his deep, gruff voice barked so loud Roman could hear it from where he sat. He slowly stood up as Hattie rolled her eyes heavenward, dropped down onto the couch, and answered.
‘Yes, Marcus. What do you want?’
‘Well, I’d like an explanation as to how you got locked in a panic room. Oh, and can you tell me why your RPO wasn’t with you when you got fucking shot at by Gerald Tyrrell!’ He watched as Hattie pulled the phone from her ear and held away from her as Marcus’ voice rose with each word, until he was bellowing down the phone.
Without thinking, Roman was in front of her, snatching the phone from her hand.
‘Don’t you dare speak to her that way, you bastard,’ Roman spat into the device. ‘Who the hell do you think you are speaking to a Lady of the Realm the way you do? You’d do well to remember your place, Captain Walker, and call back when you can do so.’ And without a second of hesitation, he ended the call.
Hattie’s eyes widened at his action, her mouth open sightly as she gawked at him, clearly unsure what to say.
Roman didn’t even glance her way as he dropped the phone onto the couch beside her before walking away. He shouldn’t have done it. He knew she could give Marcus as good as she got and he was certain she was about to give him what for, telling him she could fend for herself, and she didn’t need him to stand up for her.
He flopped down to where he’d been nestled before and picked up a new file. He flipped it open, his eyes scanning the page, but he failed to take in any of the information as he waited for the inevitable outburst from Hattie.
But nothing came and when he peered up towards her, she was simply looking down at her feet, wiggling her toes as her fingers toyed with a loose curl. He knew from the look on her face that she was deep in thought, trying to solve some internal struggle. He took a deep breath, slowly releasing it through his nose before glancing down at the papers before him.
He should apologise to her and explain everything he could. Tell her the one thing he’d have regretted, what he’d have been terrified to not have told her if his father had killed him. He should tell her that he loved her. Wholly, with all his heart and being…
He idly turned the page of the first set of papers as his mind ran over different ways to confess his secret, imagining how she’d react—and how much his ears would bleed as she screamed blue murder at him for trying to manipulate her again.
God, he’d been an idiot. All this time, all these years—
Roman paused as his eyes caught something on the paper before him; one of the costings was incorrect. He scanned further down the page—another incorrect price.
Roman frown deepened as he turned page after page. This was the Delta hospital refurbishment, a private hospital in Guildford that had needed redeveloping from the ground floor up. It had been a huge contract… or it would have been if they’d got it. He’d submitted the paperwork in October and was advised at the beginning of February they’d been outbid. He hadn’t understood it at the time, but now, leafing through the pages, it clicked in place.
The figures had been changed. Increased by several hundred percent. Items that should have been a few bits to buy were being charged well into the slivers. He could put it down to a simple mistake, a typing error, a misread, something easily explained if it had only been one or two items here and there, but everything had been changed. Every item added to, some items where the incorrect specification and didn’t match the attached plans. It made them look like bloody amateurs!
Roman scowled harder when he saw his initials at the bottom of each sheet and when he flipped to the end of the document, his signature was scrawled across it clear as day.
But he’d never sign off such a carelessly costed bid…
He paused for a second, an uneasy feeling deep in the bottom of his stomach, before he opened the next tender in the file, another one they had lost out on. The same problems, although the inflation wasn’t as large on this one.
It happened again and again, one in every three or four bids changed from what he knew would have been the original figures. Roman was meticulous when it came to costs; he’d once marched down to an executive who had costed a job and tore him apart over one item being just five percent higher than Roman had set. A call down to their stocks department, another to their purchasing team, and a quick internet search had revealed there were no legitimate reason for such a rise in their usual price. The company had to be profitable, yes, but they also needed the business. They had thousands of employees and he wanted to ensure that not a single one of them was ever made redundant under his watch.
He pulled another lever-arch file forward and found the contracts for the royal hospital suites within them. While he had no idea how the hell his brother had got a copy of these, they were all perfectly costed. Out of the nine he had priced up, every one of them was exactly as he recalled.
He threw the papers down and rubbed his hands over his face as his brain tried to make sense of everything.
It was clear that someone had been changing the tenders, but how? He signed off two copies and sealed them up in separate envelopes. One went to their vault and the other was sent off directly to the clients—
Save for the royal contracts. Those he had to personally hand deliver to the Royal Administration Building in Avon. The staff there checked both sets of papers to ensure they matched, and the company’s copy was stamped with the Royal Seal before the staff put it in an official envelope and sealed it while he watched, and then handed it back to him.
He grabbed the royal tenders and once more flicked to the back pages, running his finger over the neat scrawl. He could feel the ink on it. This wasn’t a photocopy of the documents; this was the real paperwork!
Roman grabbed one of the adjusted copies and ran his finger over the ink: a photocopy. Just to make sure, he did the same to one of the non-adjusted tenders, and just like the royal hospital suites, he could feel the ink of his pen across the page.
This was the evidence that Jensen had against their father. Or at least part of it. Gerald had told him he’d been giving advice to the companies that had managed to outbid them; had he also been changing their own tenders? Somehow intercepting the paperwork before it reached the client and Seymour Medical’s vault.
Roman pinched the bridge of his nose as he thought, squeezing it tighter as he tried to think what piece of the puzzle he was missing…
Hattie had no idea what to make of Roman’s reaction to Marcus’ attitude. She’d been letting the Head of the Guard vent his annoyance at her stupidity in failing to follow protocol before giving him back as good as he’d given. Marcus knew of her temper, and she figured he had just been getting in first before she blew her lid at him. She certainly hadn’t expected Roman to explode like that.
She stared down at her toes, wiggling them over and over as she squished the pile of the rug with them. Was it another ploy by him or had he just fallen automatically into the routine of her protector that he’d employed during the last few months?
The unanswerable questions filled her head. She dropped her hand from where it played with her loose curl again and instead pushed the palms of them against her eyes to try and shut her stupid mind up. She was fed up with the war between her head and her heart, fed up with the guessing games, with never knowing the answers she so desperately needed.
She slowly pulled her hands away and peered between her fingers towards him. He already looked lost in the pile of documents again. His brow all scrunched up as he furiously flicked through the pages of a file before throwing it down and picking up another to do exactly the same.
She huffed in indignation; clearly, he’d already forgotten about her.
Her mind was cut off from whatever tirade it was about to throw at her by the ringing of her phone again. Roman’s head shot up at the sound and Hattie grabbed at the discarded phone. Thinking she’d see Marcus’ number again; she was surprised to see Victoria’s name on the screen.
‘Tori!’ she squeaked, glancing Roman’s way. He gave her a nod in acknowledgement, silently telling her that he understood she didn’t need him. She wanted to scoff at the thought. She hadn’t needed him earlier, bloody inserting himself in things that didn’t concern him.
‘Don’t call me that,’ Victoria automatically answered. ‘What on earth is going on? Marcus just called and told me you’re trapped in a panic room?’
‘That would be correct.’
‘Hattie, what the hell!’ her sister practically shouted. Hattie glanced towards Roman again who shifted in his seat. His fingers tightened on the folder he held, his knuckles whitening slightly at the effort. Did he want to get up and rip the phone from her hand again? Tell her sister not to raise her voice?
‘I came to… speak to Roman, as per our earlier discussion—’ Hattie stood up and turned away from Roman so he couldn’t see the flush that rose to her cheeks at her own words.
Her sister scoffed in her ear. ‘I’m guessing he’s with you?’
‘—and when Gerald shot at me, Roman pushed me into the room for safety.’
That’s right. He had done that, her heart reminded her. He didn’t have to do that. If he didn’t care for her at least a little, he could have thrown her at his father and made a break for it. But he hadn’t.
No, instead he’d put himself between her and Gerald—well, her and the gun. She frowned at that thought, still resisting the urge to glance back at him.
‘Gerald shot at you? What the—’
Hattie had to pull the phone away from her ear as her sister’s voice went ultrasonic. She was sure that somewhere around The Manor dogs had suddenly started barking and several windows, or at least wine glasses, had shattered.
‘Hattie? Hattie!’ Victoria’s voice called to her.
‘Are you done? Can I finally explain?’ she asked. When her sister remained silent, she began again. ‘Gerald has been up to some shady shit,’ she admitted. ‘According to Roman, he confessed to planting the bomb that killed Jensen’—her sister gasped again—‘as he mistook him for Roman. Don’t you dare tell him, but Marcus’ initial suspicions were correct; Roman had always been the target. It was Roman in danger all along.’
Victoria’s long sigh of her name made Hattie wrinkle her nose.
‘Look, we’re safe in here, but we’re trapped for about two days—I guess it’s a safety feature Jensen installed,’ she added before Victoria could interrupt her again. ‘That way he couldn’t leave the room prematurely thinking whoever had sent him in here was gone when they weren’t.’
‘I suppose that makes sense—I’ll ask Cormac. He’s been looking into them after what happened at Christmas.’
‘Of course, he has,’ Hattie muttered.
‘I can hear you rolling your eyes.’ And Hattie could see her sister’s narrowed gaze.
‘Look, all you—and I’m sure you’re about to report this back to Marcus as I’m certain he called you the moment Roman told him off for shouting at me—need to know—’
‘Marcus shouted at you?’
‘—is that Roman and I are safe. We’ve got facilities, including a kitchen area and a toilet.’ She turned quickly to face Roman who immediately gave her his full attention. ‘We have food…’ There was a slight questioning lilt to her voice, and Roman immediately leaned across the kitchen floor and opened the cupboards to show rows of canned foods for them to eat. ‘More than enough to last us for the time we’re in here, so your focus needs to be on getting Gerald.’
‘Okay, Hattie.’ Her sister paused. ‘Keep the phone on but don’t be using it. And if Marcus calls, please don’t hang up on him again—I’ll speak to him about shouting at you.’
‘Whatever,’ Hattie said as she returned to the filing cabinets. She should finish them before moving on to the shelves.
‘And try not to kill Roman while you’re locked in there together…’
‘Well, cat’s out of the bag,’ Hattie said to Roman as she hung up on what she was sure was going to be a sisterly lecture. ‘I’m sure with Victoria knowing, your dad won’t get—’
‘Don’t call him that,’ Roman huffed as he buried his head back into the files and folders around him. ‘He doesn’t deserve such a title.’
Hattie’s brows rose, and she rolled her lips between her teeth as she assessed him; his shoulders were drawn up around his ears, his eyes were focused on the paper, but he was no longer turning the pages, despite Hattie knowing it took Roman hardly any time to assimilate information, and while he was hunched over, his whole body appeared tense, ready to spring up and charge away at any moment.
‘No, he doesn’t,’ she agreed before refocusing on the cabinets she’d been rifling through earlier. They might be boring tax receipts, but they’d give her an excuse to quietly sift through her many, many questions.
And some time to consider how Roman might be feeling with what had been revealed to him today.
CHAPTER TEN
Hattie gave a little frustrated grunt as she tried to pull the drawer out further, but the damn thing was stuck. She glanced over her shoulder to where Roman sat, still surrounded by a pile of lever arch files, and briefly considered asking for his help. However, the look of concentration on his face made her think again. Clearly whatever it was he was reading was far more interesting than grocery shopping receipts or an invoice for yet another Ferrari Jensen has stored away.
With a disgruntled sigh, she rattled the cabinet one more time before standing on her tiptoes to reach over the top of the drawer and into its inky dark depths, hidden away behind the receipt filled folders.
She’d have to take the lot out and—
‘What the—?’ she muttered as her hand connected with the back of the cabinet far sooner than she had expected. She tapped her knuckles against it, hearing the dull thud of thick plastic rather than the tinny ring of metal that she expected.
Huffing and puffing she pushed the plastic until the top gave way, a solid piece of black acrylic pivoting in the middle to reveal—
Hattie tried to stand en pointe, but her earlier ankle injury put stop to that the moment she attempted such a feat. Wincing and grumbling all the more as she put all her weight on her good foot and resorted to blindly feeling around the drawer. Her hand disappeared under the thick, dark plastic and she prayed no spiders or other creepy crawlies had set up home within the hidden compartment.
If there were any such creatures cowering from her intrusion, she didn’t get a chance to meet them as her fingers brushed along what felt like… books?
She narrowed her eyes as her fingers continued tracing the leather spines of what had to be at least a half dozen thin tomes. They had soft and supple bindings, more notebook-esq than the leather hardbacks on the shelves above the filing cabinets. She wiggled one of them free and triumphantly pulled it from its confines. Perhaps these would be whatever it was Gerald Tyrrell had been willing to kill his own children for.
When Hattie finally saw it, she noted that it was indeed just a small, thin, leather-bound notebook; one you could buy from most upper-end book shops that were dotted throughout the city. She recognised it as one she’d seen Jensen with quite often at university.
Settling herself back on her feet, she flipped through the pages, choosing to stop on a random one, curious as to what Jensen might have used the books for and why they were hidden as they were.
A date at the top of the page told her it was from almost a year ago. Her eyes skimmed the rest of the page before darting back to the top to take in what she was reading in earnest.
So, Lady Victoria is engaged. Finally! That means Hattie herself will now be free to marry.
Hattie’s brow furrowed in confusion at the simple entrance in what appeared to be a diary or journal of some kind. But why did Jensen care if she was able to marry or not?
