going to implode soon.”
Houston stared at the computer screen, mind racing. To pull off something like that, the person would need to know Katie’s habits and have access to accounts. None of the other mechanics could do it.
“Wait, Katie, how many other businesses do you run?”
“I have the food truck, one restaurant, the home renovation, and two rigs for moving things.” She looked at him, a puzzled expression riding her features. She drained of color, jaw dropping, and sat down to tap furiously on the keyboard.
He didn’t watch the screen, staring at her. The long, wavy brunette hair, almost always in a jaunty ponytail, her lightly tanned skin from being outdoors often, her athletic shape because working on cars was a very physical job. He enjoyed watching her mind go in different directions at once, then coming together with an answer.
She nibbled on her bottom lip, and he suppressed a groan, the motion a reminder of the mind altering blow job. He’d never look at a Mustang again without getting a raging hard on.
He made his way to the chair, hoping that with her hidden by the monitor, he could calm the raging hormones.
No such luck.
“Houston, you don’t have to stay, you know. I can handle myself.” She continued typing furiously. If she kept hitting the keys as hard as she was, they’d need a new keyboard.
“I was thinking we could go take showers, change into something casual, and maybe have a beer. Or dinner,” he leaned to the left, giving her as sweet a smile as he could muster.
“I’ll be here for a few more hours, Houston. You can go on ,” her voice sounded absent.
He was being dismissed for the first time since he’d completed puberty. Woman flocked to him, begged him for all kinds of erotic behavior. Yet, here was Katie, acting as if nothing happened.
He stood in a swift movement, opened his mouth to say something, closed it, and stomped out of the office.
Karma really was a bitch.
Chapter Seven
Katie stared at the screen, ready to stab it with the letter opener. Every fucking business had something similar. Some small, some large, but always inventory on the automatic ordering schedule, or something easily dismissed.
Her father had been CEO of Parker Enterprises, Inc. A business her great grandfather started during the depression as an attempt to feed his large family. At the age of twenty five, she’d dismantled it, clos ed it down, because a lot of the execs were too big for their britches and demanding higher bonuses while doing nothing. She’d used the money Dad left, bought ninety-nine percent of the stock, and promptly killed it. There’d been a big bru-ha-ha over the whole thing, her name and face all over financial media for two years. Luckily, Mom left her money in a separate trust fund. She’d started her own company, K.P. Companies, LLC. She employed over one hundred people, paid high wages, made sure none of her employees ever wanted. While she could make millions, instead she loved the much smaller six figure income, and how her employee turnover rate was never above zero-point-two.
Now some fuckwit was embezzling. Not only from her, but from every person employed by her. They’d better hide, a long damned distance away. Because if she found him, or her, she had a bullet with their name on it.
Printing out several file folders worth of paper, she tapped the stack on the desk, tucked them into an accordion folder and made a call.
Finally done, she looked at the clock. Past ten o’clock. Good thing Houston didn’t wait for her, he’d have been bored out of his mind.
Grabbing the keys to her 1969 GTO Judge, she decided a drive was necessary. The night was hot and humid, meaning a drive at night, down her favorite deserted highway , was in order to calm the thoughts whiz banging through her head.
The engine roared to life, and she shuddered at the sound. She’d lost her virginity in a GTO, with the engine running. He’d hit the accelerator as