His Glorified Maid

Twenty-Five

Michaela returned to her room early and started going through Paul's finances as a way of distracting herself. She had found a few anomalies already and she had her suspicions about what that meant.

Dan had come back to the room late. He'd wrapped his arms around her in a hug and tried to convince her to go to bed. She'd promised she would, but time slipped away. When she looked at the time again it was 3 am. With bleary eyes, she crawled into bed, convinced she was not going to be able to sleep. And for the first time, it wasn't because of Carlos. Paul was in trouble. His profits were being siphoned out and she suspected Simone.

Michaela had managed to connect a single bank account to numerous charges. Individually the amounts were low, but the number of them had increased exponentially over the last six months. Simone managed the accounts so if she wasn't the culprit then she was incompetent as the theft wasn't particularly clever or sophisticated. How could she tell Paul without risking her reconnection with him? She didn't want to accuse Simone and look like a jealous, spiteful ex.

She needed to talk to someone and secure a second opinion before she raised her suspicions with Paul. Lawrence could look at her findings and compare them with the raw data.

She had a momentary thought that she might be giving a competitor too much information, but their clientele was completely different, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Roused by the morning shuffle of Dan and figuring she wasn't going to get any restful sleep, after such a difficult night, she got up with him. He explained to her that she would be taking Tyler out on the kayaks later that morning and had downtime in the afternoon. She figured he built that into her day because he knew she hadn't slept last night.

She didn't see Carlos before she went out and she was grateful for that. Jenny and Lawrence went out with her and Tyler. While Jenny and Tyler jumped out of the double kayaks to swim, she took a moment to talk to Lawrence about Paul's finances.

He pointed out that this was really in Carlos' wheelhouse, but she had baulked at the idea. She didn't want to bring up Paul, or the fact she was doing him a favour. She didn't want that truth to influence his feelings towards her in any way. She also figured Paul might feel easier with Lawrence looking over his books and it was that comment that had him reluctantly agreeing.

With that sorted, she gave into the rise and fall of the lulling swell and let the tension drain away. The conditions were perfect for Tyler, and she experienced the moment with the newness that had his eyes lighting up.

After they had returned to the yacht, Tyler stood with his arms raised for her to pick him up. He settled his head against her chest, nestled under her neck. He was going to miss out on lunch, but she could see he was too tired. She looked to Jenny for guidance, who led her back to his room.

After settling Tyler, she almost skipped to her room to get the USB for Lawrence. It wasn't until she handed it over that she thought about how unreasonable her request was. He was supposed to be on holiday with his family and she was asking him to do her a favour that detracted from that.

She went to apologise to him, but he shrugged as if it really wasn't a big deal. "Can you come in for a couple of minutes," he asked.

"Oh shoot, I was supposed to speak with you last night," she said as she followed him into his room. After her run-in with Carlos, it had completely slipped her mind. He must have read the apology on her face.

"Don't worry, it slipped my mind too," he offered. "I wanted to talk to you about Sonja."

She suspected as much. "Carter told me he raised a complaint."