Addicted to You

Part 9

The atmosphere in Michael's office was tense to say the least. You looked from Michael to Niall to Gerry wondering who was going to fill you in on what was going on.

It was Michael who spoke first.

 "So as you know I have decided to retire and sell Gables to Gerry."

 You nodded and looked at both Niall and Gerry again before turning back to Michael.

 "Well, as I'm sure you're aware we do an annual tax review towards the end of March inline with government guidelines. When selling a company the buyer will need to see these and may want to do an internal review of finances and staffing. And that is what Niall as Chief Operations officer and his team have been doing the last few months, first from his office at Lancaster and Green and then from here."

Oh.

What did Niall find? You thought as you turned to look at him. He didn't meet your gaze. You had no idea that he had experience with that type of thing.

 "Niall discovered some discrepancies in some accounts. Discrepancies that didn't flag up during the tax review but once delved into by him he found that company money had gone missing."

 You were shocked, your face must have said it all because Michael instantly spoke again. "We know you had nothing to do with it."

 "I would never do anything like that." You said quickly.

 "I know and we only investigated your accounts further because, well we did with everyone. No one was left off the list." 

 "Is this why you've been so stressed since you arrived here, why you've worked so late every night?" You asked Niall.

 "Yes and I'm sorry that I haven't been honest with you." He confessed.

 "That's our fault." Gerry said. "We knew what the job would entail while investigating this and we shouldn't have pushed you to get results Niall. And made you lie to Jessica."

 "Yeah I was stressed with it all, but I was determined to get to the bottom of this quickly." Niall replied. "Working with Michael these past few weeks and seeing that his trust was being abused has infuriated me."

 You sat there completely lost for words. Someone had been stealing money from right under Michael's nose and that really riled you up. He was a good man, he started this company when he was in his 20's and built it up with just Annabelle's help. A great salary, bonuses and loads of company perks, it was a great job and you'd been here 6 years with no plans to leave.

Silence filled the room as they allowed you to process it.

 "So you've been doing an internal audit of all our work?" You asked Michael.

 "Yes, and it's one of the reasons Niall has had meetings with everyone. Getting to know everyone and scoping out when and how these incidents might have happened. We think we've gained enough evidence to proceed now but something else has sprung up."

 "Have Niall and I made things complicated? Because I don't want to mess up this investigation for you."

 "No Jessica, that's not I meant. However Niall's close relationship with you has helped him highlight the other problem."

 You looked at Niall confused and he knew what Michael was going to say next was going to piss you off. 

"Which is?" You asked Michael.

"Calvin."

"What did you say?" You said turning to Niall. You couldn't believe he'd said something to Michael and Gerry.