Chapter 69 I Don't Know
Noah's POV:
It doesn't matter how much I try to understand. I just can't wrap my head around why this matters so much to her. I wanted one night without all this between us, just one night where it would be just me and her. No work. No one else. No distractions.
Earlier when she refused to go out for dinner with me, I'd tried to convince her. My motivation wasn't completely selfish either. She's been putting so much energy into all of this work stuff and it has clearly taken an emotional toll on her. I'd wanted to give her just one night without all this hellish overtime.
I know she takes her job seriously but this is beyond any semblance of normal levels of workaholicism.
She's not looked up from her work once in the last thirty minutes. I know because I've been watching her. It's getting late and usually she'd be telling me round about now that she's starving and we'd be ordering in takeout. But apparently not tonight.
Her behaviour makes little sense to me. I know why I'm invested in this. I love this job. But she doesn't have the same connection to the company that I do. She doesn't feel like she owes Mrs Clancy something. It's highly strange. Then again everything about Eden is strange, from her ability to wrap the security team around her little finger, to whatever connections have managed to get her the company's accounts.
She's still not told me how she managed to get her hands on the USB drive that contained more than ten years of the company's finances and I'm beginning to think she's not going to tell me any time soon.
What is she hiding from me? There's clearly a story here, something she won't share...
Looking up, she catches my eye. She smiles automatically but it's a tired smile. She's emotionally drained and all of this is getting to her more than she'd like me to know.
"Time to stop," I say, completely disregarding the telltale signs that she's about to refuse.
"It's not..."
She's going to telling me that it's not that late and she's right. It's far earlier than we've been working most nights this week but I've had enough. Her commitment to the task at hand is laudable but also incredibly frustrating.
"I'm hungry," I tell her. If there's one thing I know about Eden Winters, it's that she's highly considerate of other people. Herself, not so much. Her own hunger wouldn't be enough to stop her working, but mine will. It might be a little bit manipulative but I pout. In what can only be described as comedic timing, my stomach rumbles.
"Fine," she says huffily, putting down her work. "What do you want to eat?"
"Pizza?" I ask, pulling out my phone. "I'll order it."
"Do you want a drink? I want a drink."
"Sure," I tell her as I order our food on an app.
Wandering into the kitchen, she calls back to me, "beer okay?"
"Yeah, great. Thanks," I reply as I tidy up after us.
When she returns to the room, handing me a bottle of beer, she shuffles on her feet slightly.
"Just spit it out, Eden," I tell her. It's obvious that there's something she wants to say.
"Do you honestly think Mrs Clancy knows about all this?"
Her question surprises me. I had been hoping that she'd ask something about me or us. Or anything other than work really.
"I don't see how she can't," I tell her seriously. "There's too much here."
"I don't understand how anyone could get away with this," Eden says, coming to sit next to me on the sofa.
Taking her hand, I consider how to respond. She's right. It doesn't make a lot of sense. If we've been able to find all this evidence of foul play then there's no way auditors haven't over the last ten years or so. Someone would have found it.
"Bribery?" she whispers, her tone disbelieving.
I don't want to but I nod my head. I don't want to believe that Mrs Clancy would do that. But there's no way you hide this much embezzlement from the tax office without some serious corruption. Someone should have been put in prison years ago.
"We need to follow the money," Eden says. "Money doesn't just disappear. It always goes somewhere. Usually into someone's bank account."
I pause, considering her words as I stroke the back of her hand with my thumb.
"A slush fund?" I whisper thoughtfully.
"The money is going into someone's pockets," she tells me. "We need to work out who."
"What if..." I'm almost scared to ask.
"What if it's Mrs Clancy?" She voices my question for me.
"Yeah," I ask, wrapping my arm around her as I lean back, resting my head on the back of her sofa and closing my eyes for a spell.
"I don't know."
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