Your Love Ch. 05

Ben sighed before pulling himself off of his couch, grabbing his keys, and walking out the door.

True to his word, the doorbell rang exactly 10 minutes later. Catherine stood to answer it while Stephen sat on the couch rustling through bank papers hoping to find some more evidence.

Catherine returned to the living room with the same worried face she'd worn since Ben's name had been brought up and Ben followed behind her clearly sensing trouble.

"Hey man." Stephen spoke up first.

"Hey." Ben replied timorously.

Catherine remained quiet.

"What's this about?" Ben asked, getting straight to the point.

Stephen took a breath before speaking.

"Ben, what do you know about BC Supplies?"

Both Stephen and Catherine watched Ben's face for a look of surprise or guilt, something that would have said, "I've been caught".

There was nothing.

Ben put a thoughtful look on his face before replying, "I don't know, sounds like one of your supply companies. Why?"

Catherine looked hopeful when she looked at Stephen but Stephen remained on guard.

"It's not a supply, in fact its not a company I knew I did business with until very recently."

Ben still looked confused.

"Ok, then who are they?"

"Basin and Co." Catherine said finally speaking up.

Ben looked at Catherine, "Your Dad's company? Ok will someone explain to this?"

Catherine looked at Stephen with a smug look, clearly asking "satisfied?".

Stephen actually did believe him, Ben had never been a good liar and it would have been written all over his face had he done it.

"BC Supplies, or Basin and Company, has been taking donations of $100,000 a month for the past three years."

"What?", now Ben looked really perplexed, "We don't donate money."

"Exactly."

"I don't understand." But he was beginning to, he never did like Baker.

"Baker set up a monthly draft into his company from mine. He's gotten $3.6 million."

"Jesus!" Ben looked over at Catherine who was looking quite tired of the details and wanted to get to punishment.

Catherine interrupted Stephen, "He couldn't have gotten it by himself Ben, that's why we asked you. He had to have help from someone with access to the account information."

Ben finally understood, he was the accountant, he would have thought the same thing.

The room grew quiet while Ben thought for a moment.

"Have you tried Deacon?"

"Deacon?" Stephen said incredulously. "How would Deacon have access to that?"

Ben laughed at Stephen's naïve trusting nature.

"Dude, Deacon sits in on every financial meeting and when you and I need to exchange paperwork, who do you thing actually does the exchanging? You trust him so much; you didn't even consider the information you were giving him access to."

Shit. Stephen thought. He knew Ben was right.

Deacon had always been a dutiful assistant. Always on time, always professional, and always ready to please. He'd been with Stephen for 5 years now, he thought of him as a friend. Hell he was going to invite him to the wedding!

"They're probably splitting the money." Catherine said, interrupting his thoughts.

"Don't say anything just yet." Ben said suddenly.

"What?" Catherine interjected. "We know now! We can have them arrested!"

"No we can't," Stephen spoke with frustration, "At this point its just speculation, we don't have any actual proof that Deacon was involved. We'd need correspondence, proof that they were talking."

Catherine gave a frustrated sigh before stomping to kitchen.

Ben and Stephen looked at each other.

"Are we good?" Ben asked.

Stephen smiled.

"Yeah we're good, sorry about all of this. I just had to cover all the bases."

"No I get that; I was the obvious person. But I meant about Catherine, are we good?"

Stephen thought for a moment, making nervous.

"You mean are we good that you fell in love with your best friend's fiancé behind his back?"

Stephen face went stone cold. Where the hell did Catherine get "he's ok with it" from?

Ben looked at Stephen, pleading with him.

Stephen couldn't hold it much longer, he burst out laughing.

"Dude, I don't care. We were in engaged but we were never in love. If you want her, go crazy."

Ben let out a huge exhale of relief that he'd leave Stephen's apartment with his jaw intact.

"Thanks, I guess." Ben replied, clearly annoyed with his joke. Ben had been losing sleep over this.

Catherine came back from the kitchen with two beers and a glass of wine for herself.

"Ok boys," She stated matter-of-factly, "We need a plan."

Stephen walked into his office the following morning with a fake smile plastered on his face.

"Good morning Stephen!" Declan exclaimed beaming over his desk.

"Morning to you too Declan," Stephen wanted to bash his head in but maintained composure, "Do me a favor Declan?"

"Sure, what do you need."

"I have a new design software that everyone will have to download on their computers, but I'm going to put it on your company laptop first."

"Ok sounds good." Declan replied without a hint of nervousness.

"Great, place it on my desk for me, I'm gonna get some coffee."

"Yes, sir!"

With that Stephen walked off to the kitchen.

When he walked into his office Declan's MacBook was sitting on his desk.

He walked around to sit and saw there was a sticky note on the screen.

Password: dh_luvs_jb_4ever11

Stephen almost groaned out loud.

He knew his assistant was gay and that never bothered him, he just didn't need to witness his teenager-like love for whoever the hell "jb" was.

Stephen typed in the password which worked without issue. He hit the google chrome icon and was happy to see he didn't bother signing out of his email.

Scrolling through emails he wasn't finding anything.

Were we wrong?

Stephen dragged the mouse to the search bar and typed "BC Supplies".

Over 1,000 emails popped up.

Little asshole.

He clicked on the first one that showed.

"Baker Basin,

Did you get the last deposit? I didn't receive your confirmation and I wanted to make sure everything was good on your end.

Let me know,

Declan Harvey"

Well there it is.

Plain as day.

There was only one thing that bothered him.

While the sender was clearly Declan and the email was sent to Baker, there was another email address in the cc area.

Who was j.billards?

So there was a third.

J. Billards?

JB!

Whoever the guy was, he was clearly Declan's boyfriend.

He had initially planned on calling the authorities and firing Declan on the spot but he wanted to know everything himself before bringing it all out in the open.

Stephen pulled out his cell and called Ben.

"Hello?"

"Ben, we got him!"

"Yes, so Declan and Baker are working together! That's a little bit crazy."

"It's not just the two of them though, I think Declan's boyfriend is in on it too."

"Jesus! Alright I'll call Catherine and let her know."

Stephen hung up his phone and returned to the computer screen.

He hooked up Declan's laptop to his printer and proceeded to print out any emails he thought would help.

While reading over the pages Stephen's phone rang.

He looked down and smiled. There would never be a time he saw he name and wouldn't smile.

He hit answer.

"Hey beautiful."

"How's your day?"

"Going quite well actually."

"Getting your problem fixed."

"Oh yes, very much so. I think I almost have enough to take to the authorities."

"That's great to hear. We should have dinner tonight. I kind of have something to celebrate too."

"Oh yea, what's that?"

"I'm officially a free woman."

Stephen beamed.

"You did it? How'd it go?"

"Honestly I was surprised. I knew he wouldn't be happy Stephen, but he was beyond furious. Like throwing things furious."

"Are you ok? He didn't hit you or anything did he?" He'd be a sorry man if he laid a finger on Christina.

"No, no I grabbed Mingo and my bags. We are in my car right now. Not quite sure where we are headed."

"Well why don't you come by the office and pick up my key, you can go to my place."

"Umm," Christina wasn't sure that was the best idea, "Isn't Catherine there."

"I'll call her and give her a heads up, it'll be fine. Her new boyfriend is coming by tonight we can have an incredibly awkward dinner, just the 4 of us."

Stephen laughed at his dumb joke.

"Right, so your ex fiancé, your ex fiancé's new boyfriend who's also you best friend, and your new..."

Stephen waited to hear what she called herself. He knew they were waiting, but he really wanted to hear the word girlfriend.

"Well whatever I am, having dinner together. Sounds incredibly complicated."

He was disappointed at her word choice but kind of happy she knew she was something special to him.

"Yes, it does but it will be fine. If anything it's a chance for us to make it less complicated."

"I guess, tell me the address and I'll be on my way."

Stephen rattled off the info before hanging up.

He'd hope tonight would be a turning point for them. Then maybe they wouldn't have to wait so long to be together.