The woman smiled. “That’s Riley and this is my son, Brandon.” Katherine pointed to another photo, this one of an older boy with a big grin.
“You need this job, yes?” Ashley dove into the meat of things. “And you’re nervous about telling us something. You don’t need to be. Your job is safe. We just need to know what’s going on.”
The other woman let out a deep breath and nodded slowly. “Okay, look. Mrs. Knight was in charge of the buying of supplies to get this office up and ready for the Keystone deal.”
“Amanda Knight?” Sebastian asked and Katherine nodded. “Are you saying there were problems with her job performance?” he asked, an edge in his tone. One he hadn’t meant but it was Ethan’s wife they were discussing.
Ashley put a hand on his arm and squeezed tight, telling him silently to back off.
“Let’s backtrack,” Ashley said. “You said Mrs. Knight was in charge. Go on.”
Katherine looked down at her hands. “Mrs. Knight picked the suppliers for everything we purchased. She told me who to buy from and I did it.”
“That sounds pretty standard. The project manager makes executive decisions,” Sebastian said.
Ashley elbowed him in the arm. “Did you find something wrong with the suppliers she chose?”
“Not exactly … but…”
Ashley waited, and though it took all his patience, Sebastian kept quiet, too.
“She said she had connections that would help us later. For example, if we used the vendors she chose for the company cell phones, she promised they’d make us a good deal later, when we needed laptops. Except that good deal never materialized. And the phones, they didn’t work well.” The woman didn’t meet their gaze as she gnawed on her lower lip. “But she was the boss’s wife, so when she said to buy something, I did.”
She glanced at them and handed Ashley a folder full of papers. “You can look through these,” she said.
Sebastian met Ashley’s gaze. “Thank you, Katherine. We understand. And don’t worry about anything. Okay?”
Ashley rose from her seat and Sebastian followed her lead. They walked out of the room, and he led her to the office he’d appropriated as his own for the duration of his stay and shut the door.
“Amanda,” he muttered with a shake of his head. “Katherine insinuated Ethan’s wife did something wrong.” His head swirled with the possibilities of issues they didn’t yet know about. “She had a drug problem,” he went on. “That meant she needed money, right?” He looked at Ashley, feeling tortured, mostly for Ethan.
Ashley’s expression was as pained as his own. “We don’t know anything yet,” she said in an effort to reassure him and probably herself. “She just said that Mandy was in charge, something we already knew. We’ll go through the paperwork again.” She gestured to the folder she’d put on the desk.
He nodded, agreeing. But there was more. There was the insinuation that she’d chosen the wrong suppliers for a reason. He glanced at Ashley, feeling helpless.
“Hey. We don’t know anything. There’s nothing to go back to Ethan with … yet.” She placed a comforting hand on his arm, one that felt anything but platonic considering he’d had his fingers in her pussy just last night.
He bit back a groan. He couldn’t think like that now, at work. He needed to focus on the problems at hand. “We can’t discuss anything about Mandy with Ethan. Not until we know more.”
Ashley nodded. “I agree. We’ll get it figured out.”
Sebastian’s cell phone rang from his pocket. He pulled it out, and though he didn’t recognize the number, because it had a San Francisco area code, he answered.
“Knight here.”
“Mr. Knight? This is Corinne Fields, Stephan Romano’s personal assistant. I know you’ve been trying to reach him. He’d like to extend an invitation for you to come to Sei Bellisimo, his vineyard in Napa Valley, and meet with him in person.”
He raised an eyebrow in surprise. He hadn’t realized the man was out of town.
“He’d like to send a car and you can spend the night at one of the guest cottages. He said you two have a lot to discuss.”
Knowing the man was on the eccentric side and had known both his father and grandfather, doing this on his terms was important for keeping this deal in place while they figured out the lock issues.
“I’ll be there. I have a … business associate with me,” he said, glancing at Ashley.
“No worries. We have multiple rooms in the cottage,” she assured him. “I’ll let Mr. Romano know you’ve agreed. He’d like to send a car for your trip to the valley.”
“I have a limousine on retainer for my time here,” Sebastian said.
“But Mr. Romano would much prefer to treat you to the trip.”
Understanding again it was important to agree, Sebastian said, “Thank you. We can be ready to leave in a few hours.” He gave the woman the name of the hotel from which to pick them up and disconnected the call.