Close To Her Asian Billionaire

“It was Rick’s idea!” Joanie’s response came out in a rush. “He just made me go along with it. I swear!”

“Rick?” Jason had been silent until then, sitting on the nearest armchair. Now he was sitting forward, staring at Joanie. “Rick Stevens?”

“He’s my boyfriend.”

Carla glanced at Jason, who looked stumped.

“He’s also the one who paid for all of this, I take it?” Carla indicated the condo and Joanie’s designer velour suit. “I thought everything looked beyond your means with your previous salary.”

“He looks after me.” Joanie sat up straight and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “But he was the one who was laundering money and hiding it in the company. We just put everything in Jason’s name and pretended it was him. Rick handled the books and finances for the company; it wasn’t hard to hide it.” She glanced over at Jason, who was staring at her. “Then when Jason got arrested Rick would transfer all the money between us and completely take over the company. We’d have more money than we could hope for. Jesse Taga promised us that.”

“So you made a deal with the devil.” Amy said slowly.

It sounded like it. Carla watched as Joanie’s frightened exterior slipped away and was replaced with a cold, hard demeanor that hardened her features. This was the true Joanie Oldham coming out now.

“What’s wrong with wanting more money?” She demanded haughtily. “Rick loved money. He showered me with it. But he wasn’t about to let his old friend find out.” She fixed a glare on Jason, who was looking stumped at the revelation. “You were getting too close to the truth by asking questions about the figures and Rick was getting nervous. He told me to hire Carla since she was one of the best to finding all the dirt.” She swung her nasty scowl back around to Carla. “It was working perfectly until you started falling for him.”

Carla felt her face going red. What a way to tell someone you loved them – through someone else when you weren’t ready. She diverted attention by plowing on.

“You made yourself suspicious when you kept going after Jason and Stevens and getting yourself into trouble.” She shot back. “Any sensible person would stay at home and let me get on with it. You seemed determined to make it worse for yourself.”

Joanie snorted.

“You don’t get it, do you? I got paid virtually nothing. My salary was sh*t. Sh*t!” She shouted at Jason. “Rick had the money. He had the looks. I wrapped him around my little finger. If you hadn’t gotten distracted by Wonderboy then we would’ve had millions to ourselves.”

“Not anymore.” Luke pushed away from the wall and pulled out his handcuffs. “You’re going to be separated from that money for a very long time.”

Joanie didn’t say anything as she was brought to her feet and Luke put the cuffs on her with her arms behind her back. She smirked at Carla.

“Rick will get me out.” She said smugly. “He’ll keep me out of trouble.”

Carla felt heat against her back as she stood and she knew that Jason was there.

“Considering he’ll be trying to save his own skin,” he said sharply, “I don’t think he’s going to worry too much about you, Joanie.”

Joanie’s smirk snapped off, her eyes icy cold. They watched as Luke hauled her away and out the house. Carla knew it wouldn’t be long before he called in reinforcements to search the house. She was tired and in pain; she just wanted to go home.

Amy touched her arm.

“Go home, Carla.” She said softly. “You need the rest. Luke can interview you at a later date.”

Carla nodded. She hadn’t felt this relieved in a long time to be told to go home.

*****

Jason insisted on driving back and Carla readily agreed. She wasn’t in a fit state to drive. Now she had dealt with Joanie, the adrenaline was wearing off and she was feeling woozy. Maybe she should get her head checked out at the ER. But she didn’t want to leave Jason until they had cleared the air.

Jason was silent as they drove back. Carla let him have his space until they pulled into Carla’s parking lot. Jason parked the car in her usual spot and turned the engine off. Then he sat back staring straight out the windshield. Carla sat up and touched his arm.

“Jason? You okay?”

“Yeah.” Jason sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “I just can’t believe Rick would do something like this. We built our publishing company together. He was so driven.” He gulped. “I had no idea he felt like this.”

Carla could understand where he was coming from. The two of them had been friends for years, trusted each other with everything. And now one had turned on the other because greed was bigger than their friendship.

“Sometimes those we keep the nearest to us are the ones we don’t truly know.” She said quietly. She took his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Jason turned his hand over and encased her hand in his. He shifted in his seat as he turned to look at her. “I’m sorry I treated you the way I did.”

“How did you treat me?”

“Badly.” Jason closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them he looked pained. “I don’t do that to women. I should’ve treated you better.”

Carla smiled and squeezed his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not.”

And she wasn’t. She really was falling hard if she wasn’t worrying about the way he claimed he had treated her.

Jason stared at her.

“How can you be so forgiving?” He asked. “I’m confused.”

“I don’t know. I’m not normally.”

“Then why with me?”

Carla looked down at their joined hands, admiring his bronzed skin against her dark brown one. She brought his hand up to her mouth and kissed his knuckles one by one.

“Probably because I’m glad my hunch was right.” She said. “That you were innocent.”

“You believed me all along?”

Carla smiled. “I did.”