The Last Groom On Earth. Kristin James
her dislike Bryce more. The harder she tried to defeat him, the more she was separated from her family. Finally, after a year, she had given up. She admitted to herself that he had won, and she had lost. She withdrew into her own interests, spending hours curled up in her room reading science fiction and fantasy or zapping enemies with her joystick in front of the game console and TV set. When Bryce was around, she made it a point to stay out of sight. By the time she was fifteen, Bryce had graduated from college and gone to another city to work. He and her parents had always stayed in touch, but Angela had never inquired about him. She had not seen him again until today.
She groaned and buried her head in her hands, leaning her elbows against the desk. What a time for him to pop up again! It was the last straw to have to put up with him when she was already under the stress of a threatened IRS investigation—and with her latest project only half done and her deadline a few more weeks away. What made it even more awful was the fact that her parents had told Bryce about her problems, had asked him to come rushing down here and save her—indeed, she was sure that they must have begged him, in order to get him to help her.
She had enjoyed a better relationship with her parents the past few years. They hadn’t been able to argue with the obvious success of her business; all the silly impulsive things she had done, which they had moaned over, had turned out to be highly profitable in the long run. And with the miles between Raleigh and Charlotte to separate them, she and her parents had achieved a certain friendliness, almost adult to adult.
That they had turned around and spilled all her troubles to Bryce Richards was a betrayal of that newly achieved closeness. And they had asked him to come save her, too!—as if she were a baby, an incom petent. It was humiliating. Bryce was the last, the last person she wanted helping her. Not only did he probably share her parents’ assessment of her as a scatterbrained nincompoop, but she also felt sure that he thoroughly disliked her, as well. After all, she had been mean to him as only a hurt twelve-year-old can be, and she doubted whether he had forgotten. He had a memory like an elephant’s—worse, like an accountant’s.
There was a loud rap on the door, and a fraction of a second later, it opened, framing Bryce Richards in the doorway. He was frowning, his mouth tightly compressed, and his face looked carved out of stone. He was certainly no longer the gawky young man she remembered, Angela thought to herself. It was no wonder that it had taken her a few moments to recognize him. He was tall, of course, but his body was rock-solid now, and he moved with confidence and surety. She had not remembered him as being so handsome, and she wondered if it was maturity that had changed his face or if she had simply been too blinded by her dislike of him to notice the clean-cut lines of his face. His eyes had always been intense, but fifteen years ago, she had not realized how attractive their odd silvery gray color was.
“What are you doing following me?” Angela snapped, irritated at the foolish way her thoughts were wandering. Even as she said it, she realized how childishly petty she sounded. She blushed, embarrassed and even more irritated that she could so easily fall back into long-ago patterns.
“I drove all the way down here from Charlotte because Marina asked me to. I’m not going to turn around and drive back just because you’re too pigheaded-”
“Well, you could have saved yourself the trouble of the trip,” Angela retorted, “if you had bothered to call me first. I would have told you that I don’t need your help.”
His eyebrows rose in a sardonic expression of disbelief, and he moved forward into the room. He sat down in the chair in front of her desk and folded his hands, looking at her with a galling air of patience, as if she were a child or mentally defective.
“You don’t need help when the IRS has your company under investigation?”
“Mother had no right to tell you about it.”
Bryce shrugged. “She was concerned about you.”
Angela wanted to snap back that Marina was concerned because she thought that Angela couldn’t do anything, but she kept her lips shut tight against the words. Both she and Bryce might know that that was her mother’s opinion, but she wasn’t about to admit it to him.
“We’ll manage just fine without your help.”
“Wait a minute,” a voice said from the doorway.
Angela looked up to see a short, slightly balding man with a round face and a warm smile standing outside the doorway, peering in interestedly. Angela groaned inwardly.
“Who is’ this guy? What’s he talking about?” the man went on.
“Yeah.” A blond woman who had been standing just to the side of the door stuck her head inside, also. “I’m not sure we want to turn down help quite so quickly.”
Angela sighed. “Hello, Kelly. Tim. Can’t a person have a private conversation around here?”
Kelly cocked her head, looking judicious, then said, “It’s hard. Particularly when your door’s open.”
“And you started your argument downstairs in front of everyone,” Tim added.
“All right. Tim, Kelly, this is Bryce Richards. He’s a friend of my parents. Bryce, this is Timothy Allen, my partner, and Kelly Beeckman, our chief financial officer.”
Kelly grinned and amended, “Head bookkeeper, in other words.”
Tim smiled at Bryce and reached out to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you. You’ve known Angela a long time?”
“Since I was twelve,” Angela said shortly. “I was just telling Bryce that we can handle the IRS problem. We have the C.P.A. who did our taxes, and we hired a tax attorney.”
“And with their help, you’ve gone from an ordinary audit into a full-blown investigation.” Bryce pointed this out casually.
Angela shot him a fulminating glance. Tim’s round face grew worried, and Kelly began to chew at her lower lip.
“Look, Angela, if Mr. Richards thinks he can help…” Kelly began.
“My parents are interfering, that’s all.”
Tim ignored her and turned toward Bryce. “What makes Mr. and Mrs. Hewitt think you can help us?”
“Because I’m an auditor. I’ve worked for the IRS and as an auditor for the Feds. Now I have my own company in Charlotte, and our specialty is fiscal investigation.”
“Fiscal investigation?” Tim looked blank. “What’s that mean?”
“Well, basically, it’s that we find errors and fraud. We’re sort of a security company in the financial arena. We study corporate systems of accounting and set up ways to avoid theft and fraud. We find leaks and duplications of work. We outline plans to trim the fat.”
Tim’s eyes widened. “Why, that sounds like you could help us.” He turned to look inquiringly at Angela.
“We don’t need him.” Angela crossed her arms defensively. “Besides, it’ll cost a fortune, and we’re already paying for that expensive tax attorney—and the whole reason the IRS is suspicious is because they think we aren’t making enough money! How can we afford to hire him?”
“I’m not charging you.” Bryce interrupted quietly. “I’m doing this as a favor to your mother.”
“Oh.” Somehow Angela felt even more irritated by this fact. “I’m not a charity case,” she told him coldly. “If we need your services, we’ll pay for them.”
“Of course. It isn’t as if we haven’t made any money the past few years,” Tim said jovially. “We just had higher expenses the last year—more staff, more development costs, that sort of thing. But we’re still strong. We’re making good money. Angela’s just upset.”
Angela made a strangled noise in her throat, and Tim glanced over at her. “Well, it’s true, Angie. Everyone is. How could we not be with the government sniffing around like we’re some