Oliver: Forbidden: Paranormal Romance Read online

  “That’s going to happen about as quickly as I turn over my savings account to you. Also, you know now that I’m his nurse, and I know his pain and his threshold better than you do. If he wants pain medications given to him, I will knock you on your ass to give them to him.” Grace had to stifle a laugh. “Also, you should know that while he’s under the care of this floor, we will bend over backwards to make sure that his health and getting himself better far outweighs whatever it is you want. He’s a child who has come back from an accident that might well have killed a lesser person. He’s a good kid. You should know that too.”

  “He’s not a good kid. I don’t want him to be either. He’s just the way I raised him to be. Someone that can make it in this world.” Sunshine looked at the other nurses there. “You try and change him, bitch, and I will have your job.”

  “You can’t even do your job of being a good mother. I doubt very much that you have the balls to even do my job for an hour. You don’t worry me.” The nurse pulled a file up from the desk. “These are the names of the places we’ve found that will take Lyle while he recuperates. You have to sign off on each of them, giving permission for us to send him there or not. There is only one that is free, as you requested us to look for.”

  “That’s where he’ll go then.” The paperwork was handed to her, and the nurse, she thought her name was Sara, told her what each of the others would cost her. “This one is completely free? You’re sure about that? I don’t want them coming to me when they find out that I have money for their hand out.”

  “No. It’s free. Everything is included, including his medications and the night nurse.” Grace wondered about that place. She only hoped it would take care of Lyle and not just do it for the drugs that would be there for him to use. “You have to read it over and sign it, Ms. Graham.”

  “I’m not going to read that whole thing. Just tell me where to sign it so that I can get out of here. This place smells terrible. You should put some scented candles around or something. It stinks here.” Sunshine signed the paperwork then dropped the pen she’d been handed on the floor. “Oops. I guess I dropped it.”

  Then in an act of meanness, she crushed the ink pen with her foot. Grace could not believe that this woman was related to her boss and that child in the other room. There had to have been a mix-up at the hospital or something when Oliver was born. That was all she could figure had happened.

  When she left, Sara turned and looked where she was standing. Smiling at her, Sara brought the paperwork to her. She asked to see Oliver.

  “He’s left, I’m afraid. Is there anything I can do for you?” Sara just handed her the paperwork. “I’ll make sure that he gets this first thing. Before I forget, Oliver ordered dinner for the staff here to be brought in. Also, for the other two shifts. It should be here around six. I hope that’s all right.”

  “Perfect. You two have been very nice to us.” She looked toward where Sunshine had been, then back at her. “I can’t believe she’d hurt her son, then try and deny him anything for the pain. If I were in there and in his shape, I’d want medication dripping into me all the time. He’s doing well with managing his pain. The paperwork there says that Oliver can keep Lyle while he’s recuperating. I had the cameras pointed at us in the event she found out and tried to say I didn’t tell her about reading it over. It was a good idea that your boss had.”

  “Oliver is a very smart businessman. It’s no wonder that he knows how to get things going in a good direction. About the medications—he told Lyle that it will do him no good to stop taking the medication so that he doesn’t get addicted to it if he’s in constant pain all the time. He explained to him keeping the pain at bay but not gone will make it easier, as well as him using less of it if he doesn’t wait too long to take it.” Sara said that was good advice. “Oliver asked me to find out if you need anything. Not just for the staff, but anything for the floor. He has noticed that you’re running short on some of your office supplies, as well as that your breakroom could use a few extras.”

  “Water would be wonderful. I know that is a lot to ask for, but we can always use bottled water. We drink it ourselves, and when there are people here visiting, we give it to them as well.” Grace made a mental note about that. “You tell Oliver that he’s a good man. And that we appreciate him helping us out.”

  “I will. Thank you for taking such good care of his nephew too.”

  When Sara left her, Grace made her way to the breakroom that they’d been using as well. It was filled twice a week, but she was sure that they could use a few more things in it.

  Grace made note that there didn’t seem to be a refrigerator in the room that would hold much. The small one they had, like the ones people used in colleges, didn’t hold all that much. She also looked around at the two little tables and one chair. Grace wondered if all the rooms the nursing staff had to use for breaks were like this one.

  “Hello, Grace.” She turned around when she saw a well dressed man standing behind her. It took her mind a minute to make out who it was. It was Jake Winslow. “I had a couple of questions for Oliver, but I’m to understand that he’s left. Perhaps you can answer them?”

  “I can try.” They headed back to the little office set up that they’d been using. “He’s gone out to make sure that two places he’s looking at are all right for a business that he’s working on. Things are so much cheaper here than they are in London, I think. Then there is all the work going—”

  “Grace. Calm down.” She had been talking fast, something that she did when she was very nervous. “Tell me what has you so worked up. Maybe I can help you with that too.”

  “I’m not sure. Sunshine, a terrible name for a person like her, just left. She hurt Lyle, the nurse told me, and wanted to deny him pain medications.” He asked her how she’d done it. “I’m not sure. I just overheard the nurse telling Sunshine that he could have the pain medications whenever he wanted them. I didn’t think to ask. Also, I talked to Oliver about my part in him getting hurt. He knew already.”

  When she started to cry, it was just too much—he held her. These men, all of them, were the nicest people she’d been around. They’d been by several times in the last few days to watch Lyle so that she could go home and get cleaned up. A couple of them had even taken her out to dinner so that she didn’t have to eat brought in food all the time.

  When she apologized for crying all over him, Jake told her that he was there for her. Nodding, she did feel better and started again on what she’d been doing. He sat in one of the chairs that Oliver had brought in and acted like he was there for a long stay. She particularly liked Jake and Forrest out of all of the others. They were calmer and calming to be around.

  “The houses here are much better priced. Younger, too, than anything that Oliver had been looking at. London is a lovely place to live, but I think I like the States so much better.” She looked at him when he agreed. “My family isn’t safe from his family. I thought I had it covered, but I realized that people who want something, people like the Moodys and the Grahams, will go to great lengths to make sure you realize that they’re going to hurt you no matter what.”

  “Yes, that’s about right. In my experience, they usually get caught in the end, but they hurt so many in the process. What were you doing in the break room just a moment ago?” She told him what Oliver had asked her to do. “So you think they need something bigger in the way of a fridge too? I can see that. And thinking of the other stations was nice of you. You figure out what they need per area, and we’ll go in with Oliver to make it happen. We donate a great deal to the hospital, and this will be something that just the nurses can enjoy.”

  “I don’t know if Oliver will think it’s a good idea yet.” Jake told her that he would agree with her. “They said that they needed water. I don’t know why, but I think they don’t mean a twenty-four pack. What do you think it would cost to bring in truckloads of wat
er?”

  “Good question. I’ll find out. That is a brilliant idea. Keeping them hydrated all the time will keep them healthy too. That much water wouldn’t be stored in the rooms, but I’m betting that we can find a place to store it so that they can get it when they need it.” Embarrassed to be praised so highly, she turned her back to him. “Something else you might want to add to your list you’re making is snacks. When we were in here a few weeks ago when one of our clients was hurt, they only had graham crackers. I think having a bowl of fruit delivered daily might be just the ticket. You know, apples and oranges and the like.”

  She added things to her list as they talked. Twice she asked him if he wanted her to call Oliver, but he told her he was just enjoying talking to her. Jake was a wonderful person. She was glad that he was nice enough just to hang out with her for a time. Someone else to talk to made her life less boring right now.

  Chapter 2

  Honey hated to take time out of her day to go and do things that she thought of as boring. Most everything she did that didn’t involve spending money or looking for ways to spend money was boring to her. Smiling at that thought, Honey wondered what the hell was taking the banker so long to get to her. Knowing that she had enough money in this bank to buy it, he should have an office just for her. Standing up when her name was called, she entered the little office ready to do battle.

  “Before you speak, I want you to meet these two men, Brindle Carson, and Jason Muse. They’re from the office of the attorney that was in charge of your late husband’s estate. They’re here at my request.” She nodded at the men, but for the most part, ignored them. Again she opened her mouth to blast the bank manager, William Toast, for her cards still not working. “Again, before you talk about what you want, I have here the paperwork that you signed just after the reading of the will. It was to let you know, as per your request, that there would be no more investing of the type your late husband had.”

  “Mother fuck, you talk a lot. Are you finished?” He nodded and smiled at her. Then he told her that the entire conversation was being recorded, as he did all the meetings that he had with clients. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you record. I want you to tell me why my cards are no longer working. I’m not just talking about the ones to this bank—which I might be moving to another one soon, because I’m sure that whatever the issue is, it’s all your fault—but even my cards to specialty stores aren’t working anymore. If you did that, I’m going to own your ass as soon as this meeting is over. My daughter’s aren’t working either.”

  “You received the letter that came to you via registered mail, did you not?” Honey told him that she’d had to sign for it, so yes, she got it. “Did you, by any chance, read it over? There was a great deal of information in that letter that would have cleared things up for you, and you wouldn’t have had to come all the way here. Your daughter received hers as well. However, I cannot discuss her account with you. That is private between herself and this banking institution.”

  “Whatever. But I want to know when you’re going to make it so that I can use my cards. I can’t even get any money out of that fucking machine out front to cover things. You took your fucking time when you had to do an audit, and now, because of some screw up on your end, nothing of mine or my daughter’s is working. I want it fixed. Right now.” She handed him the cards that had been denied. Even the one that had been cut up in front of her friends at the club she and Sunshine went to. Mr. Toast didn’t even move to take them from her. “Well? What are you sitting on your fat ass for? I said now.”

  “You’re broke, Ms. Moody. Not only that but as of three days ago, your account is overdrawn by eighteen thousand dollars. Had we not cut off the cards, I’m sure it would have been a great deal more.” She asked him what he was talking about. “You’ve taken out more money than you had in the accounts.”

  “I fucking know what overdrawn means. What I want to know is, how did you come up with the fact that you think I’m broke? My husband left me with millions of dollars. Millions and millions of dollars that would keep me in money until I was dead. I cannot be broke. He’s only been gone for what? I think five years? That’s not possible.” He told her that he’d been gone for ten and that it was her fault she was broke, not his. “I’m sorry. What did you just say to me? How the fuck is this my fault? You’re the one holding my money. I want it put back into my accounts right now. Plus, you have to double that because of the humiliation you’ve caused me by cutting me off.”

  “Ms. Moody, I can answer why there isn’t any way that we can be responsible for your loss of funds.” She turned to the two men, having no idea who was who and asked the one who’d spoken what the banker had done to her accounts. “Exactly what you told him to do. You didn’t want investments, you told him. That’s the paperwork there which states you declined that to be taken care of. Nothing was being put in your account to balance out the money that you took out. So while you were spending money willy nilly, there wasn’t anything going in to replace it. Mr. Moody had a great many investments that would funnel money into his accounts so that he wasn’t to be overdrawn. When you took that option away, all you were doing was draining the accounts with nothing going back in to balance it out.”

  “It’s not possible that it would go down that quickly.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his briefcase and handed it to her. “What is this? And why should I care that you’ve given it to me?” She noticed a couple of places that she liked to shop, but the amounts she was supposed to have spent there seemed entirely too much. Even to her.

  “That is your spending for the previous month. As you can see, your balance at the beginning of the month is a nice number. Not nearly as much as it could have been with the investments that could have been yours. But as you can see, by the end of the month—actually, only fourteen days into the month—the money was gone, and you started to have a negative balance. That is why your cards were cut off. Without you having an income, we’d just be paying for you to have a good time.” The man pulled out his calculator and punched on it for a minute. “It looks like you’ve managed to spend three times as much as your balance even before the end of the month, Ms. Moody. That is the reason you have so many fines and fees, and the reason that your card was stopped. You have nothing in there to cover what you already owe the bank, much less the bills that haven’t arrived here at the bank as yet.”

  She handed the paper back to him. “So? I have no idea what this has to do with my account. You should be glad that I even have an account at this bank for the way that you’re treating me.” Honey looked at Toast. “If there isn’t enough money it in, then take it from my son’s account. He should be taking care of his mother, anyway. And I’d like for you to let me sign one of those papers that will have you investing again. I don’t want this shit to happen again. Not that it’s my fault—it solely lays in your court—but I don’t like being embarrassed when there isn’t any money in my account because of you. You should have been putting money in there all the time instead of letting me run low.”

  “You’ve not run low, Ms. Moody. You’re broke. You have nothing. No money. No investments. No credit cards. Nothing.” Toast stood up and came around to the side of the desk she was on and leaned against it. “You’re not stupid, Ms. Moody. You have to understand that if you keep taking something out of one place and not replacing it, eventually it’s going to run out. You must understand what we’re telling you. You have nothing at all. As for you signing the papers about investing now? Well, it’s much too late for that. You don’t have the funds to invest with. There is nothing.”

  “What are you going to do about it then?” She waited on him to come up with an answer. She couldn’t be broke. Honey loved having money. “You can just take out enough from my son’s account, as I told you to do, to cover whatever you’ve allowed me to overdraw. I know you’re not supposed to do that, but you’re going to make an exception for me.”
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  “I can’t do that either. Your son has his own account, and I will not draw from it without his permission.” She said that she was giving him permission. “It doesn’t work that way. His account is off limits to you. Even if it wasn’t, I’d not be taking money from him.”

  “I’m his mother. I have full rights to take whatever I want from his accounts. You do this, or so help me, I’ll sue you.” Toast said nothing. “What are you fucking doing now? I said to fix this with Oliver’s money.”

  “That’s not possible.” He picked up another sheet of paper. “I would like to discuss with you the back taxes on your home. You’ve not paid them since your husband passed away. You’re in arrears of over forty thousand dollars with penalties.”

  “What do you mean, pay the taxes? I own that house free and clear. He left it to me.” Toast handed her the paperwork that he’d picked up. Honey wadded it up and tossed it back at him. “I don’t want to see any more paperwork. I want to know what you’re going to do about this shit. I don’t know if you understand this or not, but I’m a very wealthy woman, and you’re not treating me nicely.”

  “You’re not wealthy at all, Ms. Moody. As I have pointed out to you several times, you have nothing. So if you cannot pay your back taxes on your home right now, today, then I’m going to be forced to foreclose on it.” She asked him how he could do that. “Easily. If you can’t pay, then I’ll take your home, sell it to someone that can pay the taxes, and you’ll be homeless.”